If there is one theme that will come to define early 21st-century interiors it’s nostalgia. Modernism, minimalism, maximalism – all these 20th-century “isms” have shaped the way we do up our homes in recent decades. Now, says Vicky Wetherill, a vintage dealer who likes to anticipate trends, it is time to embrace postmodernism: the experimental, exuberant design movement which had its heyday in the 1980s.
Wetherill’s own home in Hastings, East Sussex, where she lives with her husband and business partner, Jason Skriniar, pays homage to that era. Oversized furniture and objects, and woodwork picked out in a confection of ice-cream pastels and lacquered surfaces invoke the spirit of the age, without feeling retro. “It was a period of optimistic hedonism that produced some fantastic, playful pieces,” says Wetherill, whose clients include Chanel and Paloma Faith. “Postmodernism changed the boundaries of what was acceptable – but not in a vulgar way.”
