With all of the interior design styles competing for airtime these days — Cottagecore, Japandi — it can be difficult to know where you land on the spectrum. Add in regional sub-styles like coastal or safari, and it can be downright perplexing to make sense of it all. While you can always cue up an interior design style quiz to pinpoint your personal style, we find that pigeonholing yourself as “Scandinavian Modernist” or “Grandmillennial Maximalist” a tad stifling.
What that in mind, we set out to create four all-encompassing interior design styles that can function as springboards for virtually every interior design style out there. Our four finalists? The Neo-Trad, the Eclectic Hedonist, the Rustic Purveyor, and the Modern Connoisseur. Each style takes into account contemporary trends, (i.e. you won’t find straight-up “traditionalism” on this list), making it easy to locate one that aligns with contemporary design offerings. Ready to find out where you land on the spectrum?
The Neo-Trad
If brown furniture makes you weak in the knees and you strive to approach interiors like Grace Kelly approached wardrobe, chances you’re a Neo-Trad. Best known for taking a nouveau approach to Old World sophistication, Neo-Trads aim to create eminently elegant rooms that don’t waver in the face of trends. Designers like Alessandra Branca and Celerie Kemble are bellwethers of the movement, having perfected the art of teeing up formal rooms that also feel fabulously au courant. Some go-to tricks you’re likely to employ if you’re a Neo-Trad? Pairing formal furniture with sisal rugs. Upholstering traditional chairs in flamboyant fabrics. Worth noting: Neo-Trads don’t revel in outright anachronism. Instead, they prefer integrating neoteric finds that make sense in the context of a traditional narrative.
You Know You’re a Neo-Trad If:
French Louis style is one of your love languages. You’re on a first-name basis with many of Schumacher’s and Scalamandre’s perennial fabrics. Despite your traditional inclinations, you have no apprehension about springing for a lacquer finish from time to time.
Motto:
Put a tassel on it (or three).
In Your Toolkit:
Pleated lampshades. Gourd lamps. Ginger jars. Tufted roll-arm sofas. Klismos chairs. Sisal rugs. Faux bamboo — including brass and lacquered. Tortoiseshell.
Offshoot Design Styles:
European Traditional, Chinoiserie, Palm Beach Regency, Hollywood Regency, Grandmillennial Maximalism
The Eclectic Hedonist
Boho chic has received no shortage of attention in the past few decades. So much so, that it would be tempting to deem it one of our four foundational styles. However, boho chic belies a more basic principle: eclecticism. Rather than mixing eras like the Neo-Trad, the Eclectic Hedonist deftly ping-pongs between global styles, and to some extent, eras. To tie them together, the Eclectic Hedonist uses unabashed color (this is certainly one of the more colorful interior design styles out there) and a surplus of tactility. (Chances are, if you’re an Eclectic Hedonist, you’ve never met a Beni Ourain rug you didn’t like.) You also tap into a reserve of transitional furniture —think floor-skimming sofas or block-like coffee tables — pieces that can speak fluently to several global narratives at once. Essentially, a globe trotter who possesses unrivaled pacifying powers, the Eclectic Hedonist is a style rebel who doesn’t take design too seriously.
You Know You’re an Eclectic Hedonist If:
You’ve spent serious time trying to deconstruct what makes a Kelly Wearstler interior work. You have fifty-plus Turkish rugs stockpiled in your Chairish favorites right now.
Motto:
Rule-abiding designers rarely make history.
In Your Toolkit:
Fuzzy Moroccan rugs. Sheepskin flokatis. Dorothy Thorpe spiral candle holders. Rattan chairs. Lucite Tables. Ming-style coffee tables. Brass ram head coffee tables. 1970s sofas. Ikat. Japanese screens.
Offshoot Design Styles:
Boho Chic, Hollywood Regency, Victorian, Art Nouveau
The Rustic Purveyor
Where the Neo-Trad adores the flush finish that a bright, white piping can offer, and the Eclectic Hedonist has a penchant for taking things in a slightly glam direction, the Rustic Purveyor prefers a little come-undoneness. Practitioners celebrate rooms that exude comfort, in which nothing is too precious. Tumbled and stonewashed are their hot button words, and as a result, their interiors are brimming with patina. To put the spotlight primarily on the distressed finishes they favor, Rustic Purveyors tend to be partial to simple silhouettes. On their hit list? Oversized roll-arm sofas (hold the tufts), trestle tables, and simple stools. Among the many stylistic tributaries, you’ll see Rustic Purveyors dispersing down? Farmhouse style, Industrial, and Shabby Chic.
You Know You’re a Rustic Purveyor If:
“Going grandma” is a compliment in your book. You love a pattern that doesn’t demand to be studied. No matter where you book a trip it quickly evolves into a hunt to suss out off-the-beaten-path antique stores.
Motto:
Do you have anything with a bit more patina?
In Your Toolkit:
Wicker. Terracotta. Majolica. Sisal. Iron. Tables and chairs with cabriole legs. Chairs and beds with spindles. Rag rugs. Plein air paintings.
Offshoot Design Styles:
Industrial, Cottagecore, Farmhouse, French Country, Shabby Chic, Nautical, Folk art, Mediterranean, Monterey, Southwestern, Lodge
The Modern Connoisseur
While the other styles on this list skew primarily traditional, the modern connoisseur is as vanguard as they come. Consistently on the hunt for good bones that can hold their own, the Modern Connoisseur strives to create rooms that herald harmony and balance. Right angles are their comfort zone — hence the reason you’ll see them often courting modern interior design styles like Bauhaus and Danish Modernism — but more often than not, they refused to be boxed in by this. Amid more geometric pieces in a Modern Connoisseur interior, you’ll often see a sculptural chair or sofa swanning. While it’s not that Modern Connoisseurs shun decorative details, they’re editors, and they’re guided by a quality-over-quantity mantra. If they are liable to integrate accessories, they’re likely to be books, art, or sculpture. A penchant toward minimalism makes Modern Connoisseurism a befitting interior design style for small houses.
You Know You’re a Modern Connoisseur If:
Your fantasy design wishlist has more foundational favorites on it than anything else. Your color compass consists of three hues: yellow, red, and blue
Motto:
If you Knoll, you Knoll…
In Your Toolkit:
Anything Le Corbusier. Barcelona chairs. Florence Knoll tables. The entire catalog of Eames chairs. Pedestal tables. Chrome, iron, concrete. Abstract art. Glass globe pendant lighting. Passels of design books.
Offshoot design styles:
Bauhaus, Machinist Art Deco, Mid-Century Modernism, Danish Modernism, Scandinavian, Japandi, Memphis, Postmodern, Brutalism, Memphis
Lead design by Meredith Ellis Design / Photo by Ryann Ford
