Everything Right With ‘Live, Laugh, Love’

Kim Kardashian, for instance, hired minimalist designer Axel Vervoordt to design her home. The key characteristics of his design were neutrals, simplicity and consistency. It’s a kind of consistency that even extends to her kids’ playroom, which had many confused as to why she’d want her children growing up believing they’re surviving in a bleak and colourless Dune-esque dystopia. Perhaps many celebrities prefer neutrality because it’s so easy to avoid criticisms of taste if your taste is really nothing at all. Kitsch is a pushback against this crisis of identity. The home is a place of nostalgia and warmth, something designers often forget. Kitsch is open-minded, it doesn’t want to be taken seriously. It’s a shame that the Kardashian kids will grow up to associate their childhood bedroom with the inside of a milk carton instead of dream catchers, glow in the dark stickers, and Cath Kidston pillows.

Those clinical homes of the sanitised stark white variety seem to be an unfortunate side effect of the corporate world. There’s a growing detachment between identity and the home,which comes from an increasingly capitalistic culture. As Kim K said, defending her milk carton of a home, consistent minimalism is needed to contrast with the ‘chaos’ of the working world. The stress of work can deter us from doing too much with our homes, but this detachment erases what is important about where we live. Hustle culture has clearly eroded our desire for leisure time, and a little silliness in the form of some kitsch ornaments might be all we need to remind us.

The tides are turning against this mindset. Thrifting is on the rise, with more people expressing themselves through second hand items. We’re giving homes to our parents and grandparents old vintage pieces, repurposing miscellaneous items to build up a new kind of interior style and embracing the ironic and antithetical. ‘Live love laugh’ might be the slogan of a generation of middle class mums lacking in self awareness, but even that is on its way to becoming a kitsch decor classic. There have been many interior design micro trends that have proven to be a sustainability nightmare, especially considering how domestic items are meant to be even more long lasting than clothes. There’s a big dilemma when it comes to self expression within the home, but eclectic and individualistic styles like cluttercore and maximalism have centred kitsch as a way to recycle lost and forgotten home pieces. On TikTok people are sharing the weird and wonderful decor pieces they’ve found in flea markets and charity shops. There have been auctions for ‘vintage’ Ikea and a rising interest in Cath Kidston classics, and artists like Naomi Anderson-Subryan and homeware designers like Helle Mardahl Studio have taken on elements of kitsch. Once mass produced and unspectacular home items are being released back into the wild to find a new life.

With custom carpets being made of anything from Pokemon to playing cards, and bizarre little novelty lamps finding their way out of the depths of vintage stores, there are more ways than ever to incorporate kitsch into the home. In the same way that cyclical trends are repurposed to create new styles in fashion, we should be finding more ways to express ourselves in our own spaces by embracing all that is kitsch. Fun is back in fashion.

FASHION FORWARD’S UTOPIA

Written by Hannah Kent

Edited by Evie Baldwin

Collage by Evie Baldwin