How to find the balance between good taste and staged perfection
In a world of curated interiors, let's not forget to keep some authenticity
“It looks like a showroom!” said a friend at my flat-warming party. It wasn’t meant to be mean-spirited but it hurt nonetheless. My heart sank as I realised that there was some truth in the statement. The sofa still smelled new, tables were carefully laid out with magazines and incense, and the bookshelves were stacked with design titles (a perk of editing The Monocle Minute on Design’s ‘In the Picture’ segment below). I had unintentionally created a showroom.
For weeks afterwards, I mussed up the coffee table every time I stepped foot in my living room, making a point to crack open unread books to pore over some pages. I was determined to accelerate the process of breaking in my new space, airing out any whiff of inauthenticity. Eventually, a respectable amount of clutter began to build up and I was comforted by these signs of life (though my better, neater other half might not have felt the same way).
It’s funny how design can, at times, feel more like a performance than something to be enjoyed. And pinpointing exactly where the former begins and the latter ends is admittedly an esoteric pursuit. A recent rewatch of French filmmaker Jacques Tati’s 1958 comedy, Mon Oncle, laid this dichotomy bare. The uncle in question, Monsieur Hulot, represents the average Frenchman struggling to make sense of the consumerist culture and modernist architectural boom that swept France after the Second World War. His growing obsolescence is conveyed through the old-town apartment that he lives in and the rickety bike that he rides.
Meanwhile, his sister, Madame Arpel, eagerly embraces this wave of technology. She lives in a new suburb, in a sleek, white house with a state-of-the-art kitchen in which she proudly stages demonstrations for her fellow housewives. One can only assume that Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand featured on the set-design team’s mood board. A recurring gimmick in the film is a fish-shaped fountain that she switches on to impress only the worthiest of guests (pictured, above). It’s through her possessions that Madame Arpel finds a sense of security and status.
In truth, I quite like the ultra-modern house and the flashy pieces that furnish it. But Tati skilfully and rightly pokes fun at an attitude to design that’s more about performance than enjoyment or personal taste. After all, who wants to live in a showroom?
