The Return of Embellishment

Over the past few years, independent furniture designers have gravitated toward metal. It’s a bit of an about-face in the midst of an era dominated by light woods and textured ceramics. The precision-forged material is not only affordable but also forgiving, a straightforward way to create clean forms. Aesthetically, it’s more malleable than one might think; it can read as austere and streamlined in a minimalist collection, but it also has the potential to look baroque and extravagant. At this year’s New York offshoot event of Collectible, the Brussels design fair, it leaned more toward the latter with metal enlisted in a return to ornamentation.

It’s all part of a renewed interest in Art Deco, a more stylized version of high modernism when it first emerged a century ago. No longer allergic to the decorative, interior designers are increasingly turning to moody, saturated color palettes, geometric patterns, and flourishes of detail that include pictorial and even allegorical representation. Those exhibiting at Collectible are responding in kind by layering their otherwise pared-back designs with sculptural finials and inlaid marquetry, floral and historic references and figurative motifs. These embellishments balance out the severity of monolithic forms with human-scale accents that serve as a reminder of touch and gesture. Looking to the past is comforting, but it’s also a chance for designers to experiment within the constraints of what’s familiar.

One of the strongest examples of this new trend is French designer Llewellyn Chupin’s Ritual of Adornment collection, which offered a strong contrast between the blocky furniture silhouettes and the delicate ornamentation festooning them. The chair, lamp, and bench — produced in sheets of hand-patinated aluminum — are laden with jewel-like flourishes, like the natural pearl earrings dangling off an otherwise angular chair. The free-standing screen, incorporating three perforated aluminum panels, is perhaps the most lavishly decorated with a silk drape billowing out of its lower half and held in place by knobs and carefully tied ribbons. On the bench, a platinum-plated chain is stitched into a groove that meets its exact dimensions and then hangs off the ends of the seat — a goth necklace softening the appearance of the thick slab of aluminum it’s embedded in. The design feels both contemporary and old-world, like something one might find in a well-worn, industrial loft.

Until now, few designers have thought of making the tablecloth a structural component of their dining table. Then there’s New York–based Italian architect Francesco Rosati’s “Idea for a Table,” presented by itinerant gallery Playinghouse. Fused within two circular panes of glass, an aluminum sheet is made delicate with cut-out floral motifs in the center, while plates and cutlery cut out of the sheet are layered on top of the glass, fitting perfectly over their own outlines. The whole composition is held in place by industrial metal clamps and perforated profile legs, a stark contrast to the more delicate cut pieces.

“’Bells and whistles’ refers to nonessential features, visual or functional, that are an enhancement to an object,” says New York–based Greek designer Kiki Goti. Her collection of the same name, exhibited by Mexico City gallery TORO Manifesto, consists of an armchair, sconce, table lamp, coffee table, and credenza crafted using walnut and lacquered wood along with a surprising flourish: fluted cast-aluminum forms that make up the hardware and legs.

For the designer, the metal adornments are the central feature of the collection. “They also reference the ancient tradition of bell-making, where skilled artisans would pour molten metal into molds to create resonant, enduring shapes,” Goti said. In this case, the ornamental elements are vital: They hold up the various furnishings and allow them to function.

Mexico City–based designer María Laura Camejo’s latest Inventario collection — presented at Collectible by New York curatorial studio Concordia — resurfaces memories that she’s carried from her childhood in Venezuela. The rocking chair and room divider are reimagined forms of domestic objects Camejo had in her childhood home. She embellished hers with distilled interpretations of the decorative motifs she saw in those childhood pieces, which make the aluminum look like lace. Layered with Tzalam (also known as Caribbean walnut) and aluminum, the Baúl trunk features an abstracted floral pattern anchored by a grid that cuts away in sections to reveal what’s inside.

French designer Lucas Cambier’s Garriga Chair looks cold and blocky at first but reveals a softer side on closer inspection. The design was presented as part of Collectible’s Folly-themed section, curated by Architectural Digest editor Hannah Martin, which showed works by a dozen contemporary designers with fantastical and expressive elements in their work.

The chair, constructed of brushed and waxed aluminum, has eight low-relief inserts in oak and terra-cotta embedded into the extruded pieces that make up the seat. These embellishments were carved or molded to reflect artisanal motifs once popular in the south of France, with imagery like olive branches, lavender flowers, grapes, and cicadas. For Cambier, who often leans minimalist in his geometric furniture compositions, the reliefs represent a new, more nostalgic direction.

Presented as part of curator duo Natalie Kovacs and Ashlee Harrison’s Alchemists showcase at Collectible, Grace Horan’s Spiral Neo Wave standing lamp juxtaposes age-old stained-glass craft with contemporary image culture. With a classical pointed-dome shade and a rectangular stand, the light is adorned in leaded-glass panels printed with inkjet images held in place with hand-soldered metal frames. Riffing on a Tiffany lamp, photos of natural spiral formations replace the traditional planes of monochromatic color normally found in these vintage designs.

The artist’s process “merges fabrication and improvisation, treating images as tactile material,” said Harrison. Here, the star of the show is ornamentation — far more bountiful than in the other examples — but it’s still anchored in a recognizable and functional form.

Embellishments are cropping up not just in contemporary furnishings but in ephemeral accessories. Take Red Hook, Brooklyn–based Georgian design store JAMIERI’s Beeswax Candles, developed in-house. Anchored by Studio Gypsandconcrete and IDAAF Architects constructivist candleholder designs, the tapered wax flambeaus twist and turn with plantlike reliefs winding up to the top. The contrast with the angular cuts and geometric formation of the aluminum-and-burnt-wood holders is striking: a great demonstration of how ornamentation can complement minimalist design.

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