The rise in popularity of Oriental furniture

During a meeting with a magazine journalist the other day, I was asked which style out of our six collections was my favourite? No one had ever asked me this before (and it’s actually a very good question), but I must admit it didn’t take me long to respond!

I should have said that I like all our products equally (which is half-true!) but anyone who knows me or has been to my house, knows that I have a soft (or strong) spot for Oriental decor – so as you can imagine my answer was Memoirs of a Geisha (closely followed by Arabian Nights though…).

For those who are new to Coco Målé, our Memoirs of a Geisha range features a great selection of Oriental furniture, including Oriental cabinets, trunks, dining room tables, beds and more, as well as Oriental decorative items such as Oriental lamps, silk table runners, Shoji screens and chinese tea sets. Check out the whole collection here.

Anyway, I digress… Asian décor is not only loved by myself it seems, but is extremely popular across the whole of the West these days; in fact, so much so that the whole of Hall 1 at the Maison & Objet exhibition in Paris (more about the exhibition to come in a separate post) had more oriental furniture and decorative items than anything else this year!

Oriental trunks, chests and jewellery boxes@ Maison & Objet

Chinese tea set display @ Maison & Objet

I guess it’s partly because Oriental design brings an exotic, authentic touch?

But the rise in its popularity must also be due to the fact that both Oriental furniture and accessories have been contemporised/ westernised and scaled down from a few year’s ago. Without losing their uniqueness and antique, rustic look, Oriental furniture has become less ornate and much more sophisticated and elegant, blending perfectly into today’s lifestyle, whilst home accessories now have just small touches of Oriental influence, for example just a bit of symbolism or dragon designs here and there, instead of being covered in them from top to bottom.

Old versus modern style Oriental Chinese trunks: Hanoi trunks £175

Old versus modern style Oriental cupboards: Hanoi large cupboard £720

Old versus modern style Oriental table runners: Bamboo floral silk tablerunner £46