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Freshen up your space with the clean elegance of a modern style interior.
What Is the Modern Style?
While ‘modern style’ can encompass a variety of looks and layouts, at its core, a modern style home is about what it is not; lacking intricate designs, elegant accessories and lavish finishes, modern style strips away clutter and frills to bring out clean efficiency, comfortable textures and soft neutrals.
A Neutral Color Palette
As a whole, modern style encompasses clarity and functionality, and this is reflected in its color scheme. Light neutrals and minimal tones on sleek designs give a fresh, clean ambiance, and provide an easy way to add a hint of color while keeping a clutter-free aesthetic.
Modern Style: Form Follows Function
Because a no-frills, bare bones aesthetic encourages simplicity – clean lines, neutral colors and minimal textures – form often follows function in modern style.
During the 20th century, spurred on especially by the Great Depression, many interiors were stripped down to the essentials out of necessity; lavish designs and exquisite décor became uneconomical and irrelevant, while uncomplicated trimmings, exposed brick and unrefined materials were embraced.
Today, modern style has come to be synonymous with practicality over flair, inspired by the austere charm prevalent in 1900s households, and widely celebrated – and carefully recreated – by designers worldwide.
A Little Industrial, a Little Mid-Century
Another way to look at modern style is as a cross between mid-century modern and industrial chic. While industrial chic stems from characteristics of the industrial revolution and mid-century modern is a testament (of sorts) to the 1950s aesthetic, modern style recalls the early 1900s – falling almost exactly in between.
Taking cues from the woods, metals and other unrefined textures of the industrial style and the subdued colors and clean lines of mid-century modern, modern style balances cold efficiency and comfortable elegance.
A Quick Note on Modern Style vs. Contemporary Style
Although they are often (mistakenly) used interchangeably, there is a distinct difference between modern style and contemporary style. Modern style refers to a specific time period in the early 20th century, and contemporary style encompasses the ‘now.’ While modern style is represented by a set of style standards (minimalistic décor and a neutral palette) – and while modern style can be contemporary if modern is currently popular – contemporary style is whatever happens to be trending, and thus can change definition with the passage of time.