Let’s Talk About Taste and Style
In the worlds of fashion and interior design, a few individuals wield great power. We look to them to find out what’s considered correct, attractive, and stylish. These tastemakers are lauded for their supposed innate understanding of what is good, what works, what matters aesthetically. Followers look to them for ideas or approval regarding taste and style. We may adopt influencers’ opinions, and adjust our ideas of what is tasteful interior design based on what these design celebrities recommend.
Following trends and feeling in step with those we admire can feel safe and easy. But we may dampen our own creativity, spark, and individuality if we hew too closely to others’ guidelines.
How to Choose from So Many Styles & Options?
The range of what’s considered tasteful (or at least acceptable) nowadays is much broader than it used to be. It’s no longer predicated on what the wealthiest aristocrats are using to decorate their homes, as it was in centuries past. Designers and retailers offer so many more options in an array of styles at many price points. Mixing and matching styles in homes decor is now expected, and the old rules about taste and style are now just suggestions.
One way to get started when decorating your home is to look at a variety of design styles and see which ones you find most appealing. Check out the What’s Your Style? page and visit the pages that look most intriguing. Choose two or three styles that feel most like you, and note what common elements they share. Is it the color palette? The shapes of furnishings? The feeling of formality or informality? What about the finishes? Are they rough-hewn, highly finished, industrial? What materials grab you?
Now look around your home and note the things that you love the most, and the things you use most often. Are they similar to the style(s) that appeal to you? If so, great, you have a consistent style, and you can expand on what you’re already doing. If not, you might want to think about how you could incorporate some of your favorite style elements.
Why Are Neutrals Having a Heyday?
The internet gives us access to many design options and opportunities from around the world. And yet, people still tend toward caution and avoid making their homes look too bold or different. Interior design stores and websites overwhelmingly feature rooms and furnishings in shades of cream, beige, and grey. In a world full of options and possibilities, why is neutral decor everywhere you look?
Practical reasons for restraint
Most people want to be thought of as tasteful and mainstream, and they tend toward restraint in home decor. They may want to branch out, but feel stymied. Sometimes, they’re limited by practical reasons, such as time or budget constraints. Other times, they fear embarrassing themselves by standing out too much.
They may question their taste, and decide to trust in the tried and true, even if it doesn’t always set their hearts aflame. They avoid tastelessness, but might also avoid showing personality or liveliness.
Sometimes sticking with less adventurous decor seems unavoidable. Perhaps you rent and your lease says you can’t paint. You may be stuck with the white, beige, or grey walls your landlord chose. Or maybe you own a home that you know you’ll sell one day. You worry that future owners won’t want to see anything that isn’t generic. So maybe you don’t choose the colors that you like. You live with a home that’s a bit of a blank slate, something tasteful if impersonal—even though you secretly long for something brighter, bolder, or just different.
Reasons to love neutrals
If a neutral palette and minimal decoration or detail is most pleasing to your eye, you’re in luck—beautifully subtle decor is especially in vogue right now. Those with neutral taste and style can find attractive decor at all price points.
Of course, you may choose neutrals because you really enjoy them. Some people create neutral rooms that are relaxing and easy on the eye. They prefer the subtle variations provided by textures, wood grains, or stone over seeing pattern, metallic shimmer, or saturated color. Such rooms inspire a Zen-like calm. Other neutral rooms (like the one above) are anything but relaxing. Their bold geometry and contrasting black, white, wood, or grey surfaces can make a strong statement without needing color or pattern to stand out.
The downside of neutrals
Some people choose to live with all-neutral decor because they figure it’s easier to maintain. But is it really? Pale, natural upholstery, paint, and carpeting show wear and stains more quickly than dark colors or prints do. When a room is nearly monochromatic and has little detail, any smudge, scratch, or dust bunny is more noticeable. Adding contrasting textures to a neutral room helps to distract from imperfections, it’s true. But highlighting areas by using color or pattern creates pleasing focal points for the eye to land on. These add interest to and personalize a room, and draw attention away from flaws.
Getting Around Limitations
If you choose to be cautious about your design choices, that’s both understandable and practical. It makes especially good sense when you’re staging a house for sale. But going with prevailing design winds is also the safe and popular choice. It takes a bit of effort to keep it from becoming dull.
Happily, there are ways to bring more personality and joy to a room that don’t involve great expense, lots of time, or permanent changes. You might want to try something out of the ordinary. Whether you want change in small doses or in a big juicy dollop, this site can help you find a variety of ways to let your own taste shine through.
What Is Taste, Anyway?
“Taste” can mean aesthetic sophistication—an abstract understanding of what elevates one design above others. But it can also refer to one’s individual sense of taste and style.
In decades past, a style was either in or out, and a few style arbiters made the rules that others followed—anyone who went too far afield of the current standards risked being seen as outré. Before the 21st century, it was common for style gurus to consider certain elements of design to be evidence of an innately superior sensibility. This delicacy of understanding was often described as showing “class” and “good breeding”—not-so-subtle digs at anyone who wasn’t born white and wealthy. Certain styles were associated with cultural superiority and importance. This helps explain why certain 18th and 19th century French furniture shapes have never gone out of style.
Nowadays, designs still go in and out of fashion, but there’s more room for people to embrace personal taste. More styles are considered valid and tasteful today than ever before. And with so much emphasis on neutral decor, there’s a wealth of textural, tasteful decor at all price and quality levels. Even minimalist rooms can show individuality, personality, and fun.
Do You Like a Little, or a Lot?
In the 19th century in Europe and the U.S., the wealthiest, most influential home owners decorated with lavish ornamentation. Decoration filled every surface until there were no unembellished spaces left. The high Victorian horror vacui (fear of empty spaces) led many homeowners to incorporate many competing design elements in any single space. To look at images of 19th century rooms today can make a person dizzy with aesthetic overload. When tasteful elegance expands into lavishness and excess, what was once considered good taste can descend into what people living in less florid times may view as tastelessness, no matter how much expertise and expense went into it.
Today, some of the most expensive and carefully crafted home design elements are spare, exacting, and precisely balanced. It’s true that not every billionaire follows a minimalist aesthetic. However, the “less is more” ideal of allowing rare and expensive materials to shine without applied ornament is now widely considered evidence of taste. What some consider cold and austere is to others focused and serene. But minimalism needn’t be chilly. The Japandi trend shows how calm, minimal spaces can also be inviting and cozy. It just takes thought and care.
Maximalism Can Be Divine
Deliberately out-of-the-ordinary or over-the-top taste can be great fun. Rebelliousness can be the sign of an original mind!
A departure from traditional style needn’t be tasteless. Look at the amazing and original home that designer Mandy Cheng designed for Daveed Diggs and Emmy Raver-Lampman. Mixing bold patterns or materials, elevating unusual textures and materials, or celebrating a favored culture brings life to a space.
Interior designer Justina Blakeney, who designs luxe high-end furnishings as well as the affordable Jungalow line for Target, offers an inspiring array of deliciously bold colors, patterns, and glossy splendor in the spaces she creates.
If It Brings You Joy, Revel in It
Taste is, after all, simply a matter of opinion. It changes over time and among different populations. It’s not set in stone, and there’s no law against breaking so-called rules of taste and style. Even the biggest names in style sometimes go overboard, just because they can. And that can be wonderful.
Embrace your innate style
If you feel shy about your sense of style and doubt your taste level, you might want to learn more about how to take what you love and focus or elevate it using accepted interior design standards. Whether your style instincts are strong or still uncertain, you have innate likes and dislikes. You probably gravitate toward some things and avoid others. Look around this website to help focus your style. You can learn ways to make your home feel more beautiful, livable, and inviting based on your own individual preferences.
You call the shots
But remember, you’re the boss. If received wisdom on design matters feels unwise to you, skip it. Style and taste are so personal. What the pros think doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work for you.
Taste-Makers & Style Influencers
A bit of boldness
Some have the gift of envisioning new ways to put elements together. Artists and designers with this original flair help expand our ideas of what’s possible or desirable. They make us reimagine things we used to dismiss. Even if we don’t emulate their aesthetics, we can appreciate the freshness of their vision.
With time and exposure, we may find our tastes changing. Colors, patterns, or combinations of elements that we once found bland or outlandish start to pique our interest. A touch of what we once found tasteless may bring a bit of energy to a space. Objects that delight us can inspire a whole room. Something we used to find too simple or uninteresting now brings nuance.
Don’t be afraid to be open to changes in your likes and dislikes. Altering your opinions over time can be a sign of growth. A bit of novelty keeps your environment fresh and fun. At Home with Style has lots of examples of quirky, fresh, or stunningly original design elements that can bring a bit of humor, drama, or zest to your home.
Modern farmhouse & other contemporary styles
Some of us find change distracting or disruptive. Traditional interiors that limit styles, patterns, and palettes to neutral colors and homey materials are comforting for people who like consistency. Designers specializing in these styles offer classic taste and avoid elements that are too unusual.
Some popular designers like Joanna Gaines tend to follow a more casual but still neutral and uncontroversial approach. She often uses worn wood or metal finishes such as you might find in shabby chic or coastal cottage homes, but a slight industrial edge keeps them from being too sweet. Nate Berkus focuses on neutrals and emphasizes texture to keep his interiors feeling accessible, gender neutral, crisp, and classic. Taking inspiration from designers who take the tasteful middle path can make us feel comfortable and at ease. They create attractive, reliably tasteful interiors. Their designs are less likely to inspire gasps of delight, but they’re also unlikely to look dated too soon.
A classic, established style is great if you want to create a home environment that’s not visually distracting and won’t need much updating for years to come. If that’s your goal, we have tips for classically tasteful interior design to help you achieve timeless, comfortable interiors. C’mon in and take a look around.
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“View of Oyster Bay” (stained glass window) by Louis Comfort Tiffany, 1908, Metropolitan Museum of Art via Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
