Michelle Ogundehin

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    “True trends always answer a need”

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    As TikTok and other platforms become increasingly flooded with home-styling ideas, Michelle Ogundehin shares advice on how to navigate changing trends in the era of ubiquitous social media.

    Newspaper journalists are often keen for a quote on “the latest trends”. What do I think of polka dots? What about red paint: hot right now, non? It depends. Or recently, what could I say about the TikTok trend “bookshelf wealth”? Hmmm, interesting.
    Obviously, just because images of a lot of spotty things have been cobbled together by someone on Instagram, or an influencer declares in breathless tones that poppy has surpassed magnolia in the paint stakes, does not make it universally true. But this is not to flagellate the notion of “trends” per se – the stylistic movements that visualise our cultural climate can be genuinely intriguing.
    Here-today-over-tomorrow fads can be noxious
    True trends always answer a need. Emerging from an alchemy of desire, available resources, and cultural resonance, they have the power to make visible unspoken truths. However, the here-today-over-tomorrow fads can be noxious. The thing is, true trends don’t occur in a vacuum; you can always trace their roots. In short, no roots = no relevance = fad. And I’ll come back to the bookshelves.

    Alternatively, it’s called marketing. Because someone, somewhere will make money from you feeling compelled to throw out your perfectly good cushion, frock, phone, or sofa to replace it with a newer, more “on-trend”, faster, smaller, prettier, or any other adjective you care to insert here, model.
    Social media platform-time is bought to advance the cause and propel the message. Whether it has staying power though, is entirely another matter. This is where the aforementioned relevance and roots come in.

    Eight interiors celebrating the curated clutter of “bookshelf wealth”

    Arguably there are moments when it seems as if one creative camp has agreed on a singular approach. The spring special April issues of the fashion magazines collectively trill that “it’s all about pastels!” But is it? Or did the picture desks just pull together all the sugary-coloured images from across the collections of 20 different designers and call it a moment?
    After all, it’s habitual for colours to lighten in the spring and darken as we approach winter. More of note would be if everyone went grey for April. But that probably wouldn’t make for an uplifting (ie sales-savvy) coverline.
    It’s the same in interiors. When I was editor-in-chief of ELLE Decoration, occasionally I’d receive a letter from a disgruntled reader bemoaning the season’s hot new look. Why had it changed from last month’s look, which they loved?
    As consumers and designers, we must self-interrogate
    My reply was always the same: my job is to show you what’s out there, your job is to decide what you like, and then stick to it. Or change if you want to. But the key is that it’s your choice. What I always wanted to add was: and don’t devolve the responsibility for your taste!
    It’s also true that there used to be a bit of a journalistic mantra that went along the lines of: one’s an oddity, two’s a coincidence, but three’s a trend! So, if three of a similar thing plopped into the inbox, then it was worth looking into.
    However, the follow-up question is always: why? Why is this happening? Is there anything behind it? Just because something is new doesn’t make it news. And, crucially, is it adding anything to the cultural conversation?

    “We must abandon the ordered, rational, learned good taste and comfort we’ve become used to”

    I think this latter point is ever more relevant today. It can no longer be justified to create for the sake of it (that is arguably the purpose of art). Instead, as consumers and designers, we must self-interrogate.
    Has this product genuinely improved the models that precede it by using less resources, demanding less energy, eradicating plastic, and thus being less likely to end up as waste? If not, then why make it?
    That aside, sometimes a “trend” reflects more of a mood than a whole “moment”. Take the unexpected red “trend”. We could post-rationalise this as being rooted simply in a feeling of dark times drawing us to colour. It makes us happier.
    Engaging your own inner critic becomes ever more vital
    On the other hand, red is a deeply emotive hue, one of the most visible of the spectrum, thus a colour that intrinsically demands our attention. This is why it’s used for both stop and sale signs. We’re literally hardwired to see it. So, is this a verifiable trend, or merely the power of colour theory? Maybe it doesn’t matter?
    However, when considering social-media trends, we generally only see more of what we think we already like. This is fine when we’re talking pops of colour, a lot less so regarding deep fakes deliberately designed to thwart opinions.
    Bottom line, engaging your own inner critic becomes ever more vital. The platforms will always deliver a constant stream of fodder, but to paraphrase the inimitable Coco Chanel: content is what’s out there – but it’s up to you to choose what to believe.

    Explore all 17 Tokyo Toilet projects featured in Wim Wenders’ film Perfect Days

    Now back to those bookshelves. The images themselves are irrelevant. If someone was to go out and buy books by the metre to “get the look” then they’ve missed the point entirely; let’s not reduce the notion of home to a mere backdrop – it should be your personalised space from which to thrive.
    Thus, to me, “bookshelf wealth” is the visual expression of the authenticity that we’re currently craving in a world that appears to have gone right royally tits up. Homes with shelves bursting with well-read tomes, curiosities and the talismans of life, however quirky, are an antidote to the virtual.
    It dwells firmly in the tactile and tangible world of the analogue as so beautifully depicted recently in Wim Wenders’ latest film, Perfect Days, wherein the main protagonist lives contentedly in his chosen world of flip phones, cassette tapes and simple routine.
    Stop the press! A trend that reflects the rejection of the maelstrom of modern life
    It’s about honouring yourself, your journey, your interests, and proudly displaying it all. It stands on the shoulders of the movements we’ve seen already towards fermenting, knitting, and baking sourdough. It’s about truth-telling and slowing-down; renovating not relocating; ditching the work/spend cycle and stepping off the consumer conveyor belt.
    It’s not so much a look as a potent signifier of a shifting of priorities. It’s back-to-basics and living on a human-needs-first scale, as an antidote to the prevalent norm of life being voraciously consumed at technological pace to maximise productivity for someone else.
    Stop the press! A trend that reflects the rejection of the maelstrom of modern life, indicating long-term thinking and emotional evolution to be the way forward. That may not make for a super snappy soundbite, but it certainly bodes better for our future than crimson walls, or polka dots.
    Michelle Ogundehin is a thought leader on interiors, trends, style and wellbeing. Originally trained as an architect and the former editor-in-chief of ELLE Decoration UK, she is the head judge on the BBC’s Interior Design Masters, and the author of Happy Inside: How to Harness the Power of Home for Health and Happiness, a guide to living well. She is also a regular contributor to publications including Vogue Living, FT How to Spend It magazine and Dezeen.
    The photo, showing House M by Studio Vaaro, is by Scott Norsworthy.
    Dezeen In DepthIf you enjoy reading Dezeen’s interviews, opinions and features, subscribe to Dezeen In Depth. Sent on the last Friday of each month, this newsletter provides a single place to read about the design and architecture stories behind the headlines.

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      “We must abandon the ordered, rational, learned good taste and comfort we’ve become used to”

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      Interior design must begin facing up to uncomfortable truths about our planet and health in 2024, Michelle Ogundehin writes in her annual trends report.

      This must be the year of truth. It’s no time to be distracted by talk of trends, new or latest looks. The tactic of holding facts at arm’s length has only enabled denial, obfuscation, and fakery, as well as cauterising our moral obligation to change. Mark Twain aptly summarises our current malaise with the pithy: “What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know, it’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”
      Thankfully, the zeitgeist is shifting. We see it in current TV programming, ever a prescient reflection of public mood. Consider Channel 4’s punchy The Great Climate Fight, which volubly charges the British government with incompetence, to ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office, dramatising the scandalous lies behind a huge miscarriage of justice.
      It’s no time to be distracted by talk of trends, new or latest looks
      The desire for unvarnished veracity is there in Netflix’s new tranche of documentaries. Think Robbie Williams: Behind the Scenes and its Jeffrey Epstein exposé. Even Disney’s Wagatha Christie vehicle was about truth-telling.

      It reflects the shattering of any persistent facade that everything’s just fine. In the face of extreme weather patterns – from tornados in Manchester in the north of England to record-breaking monsoons in Pakistan – and the escalating rates of chronic disease, anxiety, depression, loneliness epidemics, and other mental-health disorders seen worldwide, surely, finally, our eyes are opening?
      In case not, here are a couple of truths that we may need to be reminded of.

      Maximalism to make way for “quiet refinement” in 2024 say interior designers

      One: the perpetual quest for economic growth is unsustainable on a finite planet, yet it prevails because we’ve been hoodwinked into believing that better always means newer, faster, or more. We are entreated to consume for the good of the economy – the work-to-spend cycle. The implication being that if we don’t, we’re responsible for mass unemployment and the failure of honest businesses.
      Ergo, consumer-driven economies are routinely prioritised over basic citizen welfare, and material goods have become proxies for our dreams and aspirations, even our expressions of love.
      Two: the environments in which we live are increasingly toxic – physically, socially, and mentally. Yet we’re reneging on personal responsibility for our wellbeing with the misguided assumption that big industry would never create products dangerous to human health, and that our healthcare providers are there to patch us up if they do. We need to focus on causes and prevention instead of lucrative (but futile) searches for cures for diseases like cancer.
      It wasn’t so long ago that the desire to exercise, seek wellbeing, or be social were reasons to leave the home
      What’s tricky is that potential solutions to the above don’t wash well with legislators or many politicians because they appear slow, unduly restrictive, difficult, or inconvenient. Immediate results (i.e. within a single term of office) are seldom forthcoming, thus a stance of head-in-the-sand, or a default to fast fixes, becomes entrenched as the go-to action.
      And yet, research suggests that we, the people, feel differently. According to the 10th annual Life at Home report produced this year by IKEA (one of the world’s largest home surveys, encompassing the views of 37,428 people aged 18-plus across 38 countries), searches for “slow living” have doubled since 2015.
      So where does this leave us?
      We’re being pushed and pulled in many contradictory directions. It wasn’t so long ago that the desire to exercise, seek wellbeing, or be social were reasons to leave the home. Now these activities all happen within the same four walls.

      “Peach is the right colour, but for all the wrong reasons”

      This creates many tensions. Should our domestic caves be linked to the world via the latest high-tech gizmos, or be our deliberate respite from the techno-frazzle? How do we square a wish for personal privacy with the sensation of living in more open spaces? Can we work from home without feeling like we live at work?
      It was no surprise to me that Squishmallows were the hit toy of 2023. These soft, malleable cute-character cushions are acutely comforting to hold. Even the revered investor Warren Buffet now has the company in his portfolio. They are a potent symbol of a need.
      In response, the popular press touts voluminous La-Z-Boy-style recliners as the next big thing, but is an inducement to lounge ever further into denial really what’s called for?
      Our ability to thrive must become the guiding principle for all design
      Humans are the ultimate adaptors, but we require stimulus to learn and grow, if not an element of discomfort. While your genes may load the gun, your environment pulls the trigger. Currently, for many, that’s somewhere hyperconnected yet also physically disconnected, temperature-controlled and sedentary.
      Align this with the current cult of convenience – that which enhances personal comfort or advantage over everything else, and therein lies the downward spiral.
      We must abandon the ordered, rational, learned good taste and comfort that we’ve become used to in favour of something more instinctive and rugged. Less a singular design aesthetic than a profoundly sensory desire to touch, smell and feel intensely. It is the personal over the predictable. The umami in the dish. The idea that owes its genus to a singular moment of unique creative vision, or innovation.

      Dezeen readers name Casa Tres Árboles best home interior of 2023

      We must aim for a societal stability that does not rely on the continuous fetishisation of “novelty” to drive ever-increasing consumption if economic activity is to have a hope of remaining within ecological scale. Our ability to thrive must become the guiding principle for all design, if not perceptions of success.
      Most importantly, we can no longer be afraid to speak or hear these truths, starting at home – the environment over which we have the most agency.
      Here, then, are some final “home” truths that bear repeating.
      Most homes are more polluted on the inside than a busy street corner outside due to the build-up of invisible toxins therein, yet we spend 90 per cent of our time indoors. Some examples: gas hobs leak benzene, a known carcinogen, even when they’re off – this has been linked to one in eight cases of childhood asthma.
      We have been living in a time of fantastical storytelling
      Microplastics have been found in the placentas of unborn babies. Chemicals in everyday personal care products can cause chronic hormonal disruption that leads to breast cancer. Chemical flame retardants legally mandated for use on your upholstery increase smoke toxicity more than they reduce fire growth.
      And Wi-Fi may not be as benign as you think. The World Health Organisation, in association with the International Agency on Cancer, formally classified electromagnetic field radiation (as emitted by Wi-Fi connected devices) as a Class 2B human carcinogen (potentially harmful to health) over a decade ago.
      In summary, we have been living in a time of fantastical storytelling, fictions of delusional positivity that obscure the truth. Plato considered that truth is a correspondence between belief and reality. Time to wake up then if we are to stand a chance of survival, as our current reality almost beggars belief.
      Michelle Ogundehin is a thought leader on interiors, trends, style and wellbeing. Originally trained as an architect and the former editor-in-chief of ELLE Decoration UK, she is the head judge on the BBC’s Interior Design Masters, and the author of Happy Inside: How to Harness the Power of Home for Health and Happiness, a guide to living well. She is also a regular contributor to publications including Vogue Living, FT How to Spend It magazine and Dezeen.
      The photo, of a Kyiv apartment designed by Olga Fradina, is by Yevhenii Avramenko.
      Dezeen In DepthIf you enjoy reading Dezeen’s interviews, opinions and features, subscribe to Dezeen In Depth. Sent on the last Friday of each month, this newsletter provides a single place to read about the design and architecture stories behind the headlines.

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      “The irresistible draw of Bridgerton reflects our need for a new aesthetic”

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      Netflix TV show Bridgerton’s interiors will lead to a return of the exuberant Regency style to distract us from our troubled times, says Michelle Ogundehin.

      The second series of Bridgerton, which streams tomorrow, will prompt a major new look for interiors. As I wrote in my trends report for 2022: “This sentimental recolouring of history will prompt a Regency revival as we freshly appreciate the uplifting potential of architectural adornment, both inside and out”.
      This statement was about a lot more than the show being a Netflix winner — apparently, 82 million households watched season one in the first 28 days after launch in December 2020.
      This was a historical moment that shares more than a hint of an echo with today
      Bridgerton is indeed escapist, diverse and sexy, just what was needed in the thick of Christmas lockdowns. However, it’s the resonance of the 19th-century British Regency setting that makes it so influential from a style and cultural point of view. This was a historical moment that shares more than a hint of an echo with today.

      And yet, the Regency was but a brief snapshot in time. When the sitting English monarch, King George III, was deemed unfit to rule his eldest son stepped in as proxy from 1811-1820. He was named the Prince Regent, hence the period moniker The Regency. In theory, he deputised as king until his father passed, at which point he himself was crowned King George IV, ruling for the next ten years. He died in 1830.
      In reality, he had little interest in the responsibilities of governance or the previously admired piety of his father. Instead, he used his new-found influence to indulge his love of architecture to fashion. Such extravagance didn’t come cheap though.
      He incurred a huge amount of debt and was bailed out repeatedly by the taxpayer via Parliament. It was a significant pivot point in English cultural history.

      “Any period of sobriety is generally followed by heady abandonment”

      The Prince Regent, who spoke four languages, propelled extraordinary advances in the arts, design, music and sciences. New decorative styles burst forth inspired by everywhere from Egypt to India.
      The steam-powered printing press was invented. He commissioned the exotically ornate Brighton Pavilion as his personal pleasure palace replete with hand-painted Chinese wallpapers and domed cupolas. He remodelled Buckingham Palace, initiated Regent’s Park as well as the National Portrait Gallery and hosted many a lavish party.
      Romans de clef penned anonymously by aristocrats of the day captured the fervour (and provided much entertainment for the lower classes). For the upper echelons, life was fun, fashionable and frivolous. The antithesis of what had come before.
      And this is the mood that Bridgerton, based on the books of the contemporary American romance novelist Julia Quinn, perfectly captures.
      Ornamentation for the sake of it is everything
      Thus, in this glossy televisual romp, as in the Regent’s time, we witness the pursuit of pure escapism via a highly stratified social scene where only the aristocracy enjoys the newly unleashed decadence. The upper-class ladies of “the Ton” attend balls and take tea, while the men debate the mores of the day safely ensconced in their gentlemen’s clubs, whiskey in hand.
      Layers of pastel-coloured, heavily embellished silken clothing (for men as well as women) are mirrored in rooms adorned from floor to ceiling in delicately hand-painted idyllic verdant scenes, or exotic portrayals of the Orient – the imagined perfection of both near and afar.
      Ornamentation for the sake of it is everything. Fragrant wisteria drips across perfectly symmetrical facades. Trims and tassels finish drapes and upholstery. Extravagant gilt frames surround flattering portraits while elegantly patterned dinnerware and fluted coloured-glass goblets adorn tables laden with food.
      It’s ridiculously pretty, a word that’s not often used in design circles.
      When the world is in extreme turmoil, creativity flowers
      As such, the haute styles of the day epitomise an abject denial of the wider reality. For the backdrop to this flagrant profligacy was great political and economic upheaval following the American and French Revolutions. Not least the ongoing Napoleonic Wars with their legions of conscripted commoner troops battling to prevent France’s invasion of lands from Europe to Russia. Closer to home, poverty was also rife.
      And yet it’s a truism that when the world is in extreme turmoil, creativity flowers. Those possessed of an artistic temperament, such as the Prince Regent, rail against the zeitgeist and drive it somewhere new. This is what happened n the Regency, and it’s ­the period I believe we’re entering now. Thus, the irresistible draw of Bridgerton reflects our need for a new aesthetic.
      But, we see it blossoming already in the pattern and colour-infused parades of zingy flamboyance on the Spring Summer fashion catwalks (hot pink and vivid green seemingly the strongest hues after beige was hailed the “in” shade for 2020). It’s in the return of feathers, frills and flounces on frocks, even shoes, which translates to the home as richly adorned and embellished fabrics for upholstery and accessories

      “Grey alone would be too depressing for 2021’s colour of the year”

      Large scale murals as wall coverings have been bubbling up for a while as homeowners tried to replicate green spaces within urban environments, but now they’ve hit the mainstream. And the look of hand-painted Chinoiserie gets a high-street outlet as British interiors brand Harlequin debuts a very timely first wallpaper and fabric collection from the British artist Diane Hill.
      Traditional techniques like marquetry for furniture are seeing a resurgence too, following the growing trend for parquet floors. The ceramic mosaic tile market is predicted to rise by 8.3 per cent and DIY panelling as a means to add intrigue to walls is clocking 100,000 searches a month on Google.
      The birth of a Neo Regency is simply a reaction to life being so relentlessly draining for such a long time
      Tablescaping, the art of laying a decadent table, which came from tastemakers looking for ever more inventive ways to express themselves within the confines of their homes, is now a widely understood concept. Accordingly, sales of table linens and placemats are soaring, while vintage crocks inspire nostalgia and granny’s “best sets” are brought out for everyday usage.
      As I wrote in my trends report, denial begets indulgence. Like the Roaring 20s after the horror of world war one.
      On a wider scale, the birth of a Neo Regency is simply a reaction to life being so relentlessly draining for such a long time, the everyday battered first by hidden foes and now more painfully visible ones. Such a move, with its inherent decadence and delicacy, is a rebellion. A lurch from lockdown to levity, come what may. A forceful jettisoning of gloom and doom.
      Except this time around, it’s not about ignoring tragedies happening “elsewhere” than fervently wishing to celebrate small moments of joy and unexpected luxury in any way we can, wherever we can. To decorate our nests is a primal instinct. It’s how we mark our territory, signalling that we have a personalised place of retreat to return to. It’s why losing your home, or homeland, is so incredibly traumatic.
      The Neo Regency then is less a single prescribed look, or colour, than a dive into the “extra”. Or to put it another way, the previously deemed unnecessary.
      Essentially, it’s do pretty, as you damn well please. No justification required
      It’s outfitting a luxe laundry room or papering the kitchen ceiling in something fabulous, maybe respraying the units lemon yellow and painting the downstairs loo turquoise. According to Pinterest, searches for Rage Rooms have increased by 150 per cent, while on the other end of the emotional scale, home massage room searches have increased by 190 per cent.
      Architecturally we’ll see a corresponding embrace of ornamentation. A revival of pergolas, porticos and decorative brickwork alongside the classical tropes seen on original Regency buildings in Britain’s heritage cities like Bath and Brighton.
      Essentially, it’s do pretty, as you damn well please. No justification required. But without pastiche. This is Neo Regency, not faux Regency.
      Michelle Ogundehin is a thought-leader on interiors, trends, style and wellbeing. Originally trained as an architect and the former editor-in-chief of ELLE Decoration UK, she is the head judge on the BBC’s Interior Design Masters, and the author of Happy Inside: How to Harness the Power of Home for Health and Happiness, a guide to living well. She is also a regular contributor to many prestigious publications worldwide including Vogue Living, FT How to Spend It magazine and Dezeen.
      The photography is courtesy of Netflix.

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      “The uncomfortable truth is that 2020 might just have been exactly what we needed”

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      After a turbulent 2020, this year designers should be braver and bolder, says Michelle Ogundehin in her interior design anti-trends report for 2021.I concluded my 2020 Interiors Report with the words, “I still believe that we can be as brilliantly inventive as we have previously been so terribly destructive. However, 2020 is our make-or-break year to prove it.”
      Six months later I wrote about the potential impact of the coronavirus on our homes. In summary, your environment is as fundamental to your health and well-being as nutrition and exercise.

      However, Covid is not the only issue impacting society. The pandemic simply crunched years of behavioural change into months. Resistance wears away when something becomes a necessity. And while some of the responses to global lockdowns gave us a glimpse of potential solutions, other factors are having an equally noxious affect on the way we live.
      As Christopher Ryan says in his book, Civilised to Death: The Price of Progress, “the zoo we’ve designed for ourselves is a poor reflection of the world in which our species evolved, and is thus a profoundly unhealthy, unhappy place for too many of the human animals it contains.”

      This report then is less about trends, than exposed truths

      Certainly, if we peel back the cladding on much of the residential housing built over the last few decades, it reveals a horrifying disrespect for the humane as the dignity of the occupants is routinely sacrificed at the altar of profit – tiny windows, minimal footprints, cramped rooms, no easy access to outside space, and not least, cheap and dangerous building materials.
      It’s a symptom of where we find ourselves, but also a contributor to the cause as it affects our primal need for a safe place to call home. This report then is less about trends, than exposed truths.
      After all, even before Covid, normal wasn’t working. To quote the American socio-biologist Edward O Wilson, “The real problem of humanity is the following: we have palaeolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and godlike technology.” Or as Sophocles would have it, “nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse”.

      Sexy eco, monochrome and plus-size furniture: interior design trends for 2020

      In other words, the flip side of the incredible technology we have at our fingertips is that it’s simultaneously being used as a tool to erode the very fabric of society – community, connection, reality and considered thought (which I explain as the desire to check sources and decide for ourselves before accepting opinion as fact). Plus, apps to run our baths, ever faster broadband, the ability to manipulate genes, Klarna, deep fakes and cheap flights to far-flung lands? Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.

      Blurring the boundaries between home and work is not without repercussion

      It had already been estimated that by 2020, 50 per cent of the UK workforce would be working from home. Campaigning for the flexibility it offered had previously been vociferous, especially for women.
      Besides, employees were at breaking point. The toxic culture of presenteeism resulted in 44 per cent of all UK work-related absences being due to stress and anxiety. In short, work as we knew it was already broken. It was just the bosses who feared staff would be less productive if given more freedom. The opposite has been proven to be true. 
      Nevertheless, blurring the boundaries between home and work is not without repercussion. Alongside the impossibility of overlaying parenting with employment in the same space and hours, even without children in tow, the ability to WFH assumes you have adequate room, equipment and support. And if you injure yourself on-the-job at home, are you insured?
      We would also do well to remember the salutary tale of “Bob”, the US software developer who in 2013 outsourced his job to a Chinese consulting firm for a fifth of his salary. His work didn’t suffer.
      In fact, he was regularly marked out as being one of the company’s top-performing programmers. Until he was rumbled. But here’s the thing, if WFH makes it easy for you to outsource your job without being detected, it also makes it easy for your boss to outsource you. If you can do your job anywhere, can anyone do your job?
      For these reasons alone, the demise of the office is over-stated. Besides, according to an Arup survey published in The Sunday Times, for every 100 office workers, four jobs are sustained in the food/drink sector; six in hospitality and seven in retail. But, if businesses are smart, offices will be smaller and used as three-day week hub points for shared learning, innovation and collaboration. People are innately social animals. We need to come together to get things done. This will engender improved productivity and creativity with a happier workforce.

      Fear is not a trustworthy motivator for long-term survival

      And yet, living with uncertainty can be a great spur to innovation and discovery. Regardless, in so many aspects of life we have become more fearful. We begin to believe that it’s OK to attempt to live forever, plan an exodus to Mars, medicate our way out of aging, or see the world as something to be perpetually controlled and conquered. This is not progress, it’s to rail against the natural order of life. Fear is not a trustworthy motivator for long-term survival.
      For example, a vaccine is a reprieve from fear, but a vaccine is not a cure. It’s a shield. Like a mask. Or hand-sanitising. Absolutely required to protect the most vulnerable, but mass inoculation does little to address the cause.
      And when another pandemic occurs, our response cannot be a repeat performance of the ‘muzzle-up-and-shut-down’ while waiting to be saved, as already witnessed. The collateral damage of disrupted lives, broken livelihoods and the inevitable mental health fall-out are too severe. There has to be another way.

      “In the future home, form will follow infection”

      We could start by taking some personal responsibility. As Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet put it, “Our liberties depend on our wellbeing”. And yet, “we create the risks that threaten us… Our space for manoeuvre is narrowing. Pandemics are the new normal. We had better understand that. And get used to it.”
      Thankfully, we already have inside us one of the most potent infection-fighting bits of kit imaginable, our immune systems. We need to bolster these. However contemporary life for many does precisely the opposite. We will spend on average 90 per cent of our time indoors and by 2050 the UN had predicted that 68 per cent of the world population would be living in profoundly urban environments.

      UK government schemes like Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s eat-out-to-help-out initiative imply that it’s our moral and civic duty to support the economy. But is it?

      Previously eradicated diseases like rickets and gout are returning to developed nations, alongside childhood myopia and obesity, all attributable to increasingly screen-based, sedentary lifestyles with a profound lack of outside time. As a result, instead of getting stronger as a species, we appear to be getting weaker. This is a pathology of society, not just our bodies.
      As the Journal of Affective Disorders stated in 2012 (from Christopher Ryan’s Civilised to Death): “The economic and marketing forces of modern society have engineered an environment… that maximise[s] consumption at the long-term cost of well-being.
      In effect, humans have dragged a body with a long hominid history into an overfed, malnourished, sedentary, sunlight-deficient, sleep-deprived, competitive, inequitable and socially-isolating environment with dire consequences.”
      Surely then the vital question must be: if city centres were previously considered the engines of the economy, but urban hubs don’t work for us and we need more room for homeworking as well as outside space, what must change – us, or the way we view “the economy”?
      UK government schemes like Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s eat-out-to-help-out initiative imply that it’s our moral and civic duty to support the economy. But is it? If a recession is on the horizon, shouldn’t I be saving or downsizing? But if I don’t spend, do I in effect prompt the downturn? Catch 22.
      And what of that other political punchbag, education. “The Future of Jobs Report” prepared by the World Economic Forum in 2016 stated that 65 per ceny of the children entering primary school then would end up in jobs that don’t currently exist. Despite this, existing measurements of learning — annual exams, one-size-fits-all curriculae – do little to assess and develop character traits like curiosity, resilience and independence of thought. Essential for our children both today and if they are to be employable in the future.

      Everything that we believed comprised ‘civilised society’ has been shown to be more fragile than we thought

      So where do we go from here? We’ve shattered the economy and ideas of sovereignty. Contemporary society has repeatedly been shown to be fractured along racial, faith and class lines. Most political systems have always been broken (in my opinion, governments are but a country’s HR department: there for the business, never the people). National security was no match for an invisible foe. And healthcare can only ever be based on assumed knowledge. 
      Basically, everything that we believed comprised ‘civilised society’ has been shown to be more fragile than we thought. It presents a dilemma. It seems we need to go back in order to go forwards, but nostalgia is a mistake, and the future is unknown.
      Our global interconnectedness appears to be both our passage to, yet also from, destruction. The return of the analogue is manna for our sanity but automation and robotization are essential for convenience. We cannot deny the might of the ‘attention economy’ — I am still ‘seen’ even in lockdown; therefore, I exist — but it urgently needs to be recalibrated.

      “Grey alone would be too depressing for 2021’s colour of the year”

      Writing as an optimistic realist, I maintain that the power to proactively prompt big change for our best interests has never been so vested with the Everyman. And in that lies our opportunity.
      My hope is that over the next few years such conscious consumerism will drive market value rather than the customary manufacturer-prompted lure of the new. Because, while we will almost certainly keep spending, swiping, click and collecting, what I see changing is the awareness that every time we do so, we advocate for the provider to stay in business.
      We can individually vote with our wallets for greener energy suppliers and sustainable manufacturers, boycott apps that unnecessarily distract or hook users, or globally demonstrate for cleaner air and ethical governance. Anything rejected by such a collective mainstream will be undermined. In this way even the most established edifices become vulnerable unless they move with the times. 

      Discomfort begets the new comfort. This is the year for the interiors equivalent of speaking your own truth

      The uncomfortable truth is that 2020 might just have been exactly what we needed. A year so damned unsettling that a majority finally woke up and saw that we must understand, even if not accept, polarising points of view. That real evolution is all about balance: new and old; real and virtual; left and right; East and West. Combative duelling is rarely the path to sensible compromise. 
      And regarding Interior trends for 2021? Discomfort begets the new comfort. This is the year for the interiors equivalent of speaking your own truth. To be braver, bolder and create your own interiors narrative.
      To understand that the best homes are about the feeling they give you not the stuff they contain, the “right” colours or “hot” looks. A tidy home doesn’t necessarily make a happy home. And being surrounded by memories is not the same as living in the past — our roots keep us anchored in the present. 
      Quite simply, we are all products of our environment. If we intentionally create more supportive spaces in which to live, i.e. spaces which reflect our authentic likes and lives rather than anything dictated externally, we will be more able to weather the myriad messy curveballs of life itself. This alone is the true purpose of home. And the impact of fully recognising this could be game-changing, if not potentially life-saving. 
      Michelle Ogundehin is the author of Happy Inside: How to Harness the Power of Home for Health and Happiness and the head judge on TV series Interior Design Masters.Main image is of the Dezeen Awards-shortlisted Writer’s Studio by Eric J Smith.
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      “Let's talk about diversity”

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      We need to provoke discussion, not anger, when it comes to talking about diversity, says Michelle Ogundehin, who shares her personal experiences with racism, views on positive discrimination and ways in which individuals can make a difference. So, let’s talk about diversity in design. I am a woman of mixed-heritage (my father was black Nigerian, my […] More