Introduction
Few styles conjure an era as vividly as Art Deco. Say the words and the mind fills with cocktail cabinets, sunburst mirrors, chrome and lacquer, and the glittering crown of the Chrysler Building rising over Manhattan. Art deco interior design was the look of optimism between the wars, a celebration of speed, luxury and the machine age that swept from Paris to New York, Mumbai to Miami in less than a decade. A century after its debut, it remains one of the most requested looks in interiors, and one of the most misunderstood.
In this essay we will trace the movement from its origins in pre-war France through its global golden age, meet the designers who defined it, and then turn practical: how to bring genuine Art Deco character into a modern home without tipping into pastiche. As with our exploration of the Bauhaus revolution, understanding the ideas behind the style is the surest route to using it well.
The Origins of Art Deco Interior Design
The name comes from a single event: the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris in 1925. The exhibition gathered pavilions from more than twenty nations and drew an estimated sixteen million visitors, all keen to see what modern decorative art could be. The style on show had been brewing since before the First World War, in the workshops of French cabinetmakers and the salons of couturiers, but the 1925 exposition gave it a stage, and eventually a name. The term “Art Deco” itself was only popularised decades later, in the 1960s, when historians such as Bevis Hillier began to study the period seriously.
What visitors saw in Paris was a deliberate break with the whiplash curves of Art Nouveau. In its place came geometry: stepped forms, chevrons, zigzags and stylised sunbursts. Yet this was not the austere functionalism being developed at the same moment in Germany. Art Deco was unashamedly luxurious. Exotic veneers, sharkskin, ivory, mother of pearl and gilt bronze were the materials of choice, worked with a level of craftsmanship inherited directly from the great French ébénistes of the eighteenth century.
The influences feeding the style were remarkably eclectic. The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922 set off a craze for Egyptian motifs. Cubism lent its fractured geometry, the Ballets Russes its saturated colour, and archaeological finds from Mesoamerica supplied the stepped ziggurat profile that would later define New York’s skyline. Art Deco absorbed them all and smoothed them into something glamorous, legible and instantly modern.
Masters of the Style
Every movement has its defining figures, and Art Deco’s first generation worked in Paris. Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann was the most celebrated of them all. His furniture, in macassar ebony and amboyna burl inlaid with ivory, was breathtakingly expensive even in its own day, and his Hôtel du Collectionneur pavilion was the sensation of the 1925 exposition. Jean Dunand mastered lacquer, Edgar Brandt wrought iron, and René Lalique glass, contributing everything from perfume bottles to the illuminated glass fountains of the exposition itself.
Eileen Gray, the Irish designer working in Paris, deserves particular mention. Her lacquered screens and Bibendum chair bridged Deco luxury and modernist rigour, and her reputation has deservedly soared in recent decades. In 2009 her Dragons armchair sold at auction for over 21 million euros, at the time a record for twentieth century decorative art.
Across the Atlantic, the style found its architectural voice. William Van Alen’s Chrysler Building, completed in 1930, gave Art Deco its most famous silhouette, with its sunburst crown of stainless steel arches. The Empire State Building followed in 1931, and Radio City Music Hall, with interiors by Donald Deskey, showed how completely the style could shape an interior world, from carpets and murals to cigarette urns. Ocean liners such as the Normandie, launched in 1932, became floating showcases of the style, and cinema carried it to every high street in the world.
Art Deco and the Bauhaus: Two Visions of Modern
It is worth pausing on a comparison we often draw on this site. Art Deco and the Bauhaus were exact contemporaries, and both claimed to represent the modern age, yet they answered the question of what modernity should look like in opposite ways. The Bauhaus pursued rational, affordable design for mass production, stripping away ornament in favour of pure function. Art Deco embraced the machine aesthetic but kept the ornament, the luxury and the theatre. One was a philosophy; the other was a mood.
By the mid 1930s the two currents were already blending. The later, streamlined phase of Art Deco, sometimes called Streamline Moderne, dropped the exotic veneers for chrome, bakelite and smooth curves inspired by aerodynamics. It was Deco democratised, applied to radios, toasters, diners and cinema facades. When we admire a curved 1930s cocktail cabinet or a banded chrome wall light, we are seeing the point where Parisian glamour met industrial production.
A Style That Circled the Globe
Part of what makes Art Deco so rewarding to study is its extraordinary geographical spread. No previous decorative style had travelled so far so fast. In Britain, the style arrived a little diluted and all the more charming for it. The great Odeon cinemas of the 1930s, the Hoover Building on London’s Western Avenue, completed in 1933, and the seafront lidos of the same decade gave ordinary Britons a taste of streamlined glamour. Even the humble suburban semi acquired its sunburst gate, its curved bay and its stained glass rising sun over the front door.
Further afield, Mumbai built one of the largest concentrations of Art Deco architecture in the world along Marine Drive and around the Oval Maidan, a district recognised by UNESCO in 2018. Shanghai’s Bund and its grand hotels embraced the style through the 1930s. And in New Zealand, the town of Napier, flattened by an earthquake in 1931, rebuilt itself almost entirely in Art Deco within two years, becoming a living museum of the movement. The lesson for interior designers is encouraging: this was never a style that belonged to one climate or culture. It adapts.
Decline, Survival and Revival
The Second World War ended the party. Austerity had no place for sharkskin and silver leaf, and the post-war decades belonged to a softer, more organic modernism, the story we told in our piece on the revival of mid-century modern. For twenty years Art Deco was dismissed as kitsch, and countless interiors were ripped out.
Rehabilitation began in the late 1960s, helped by pioneering exhibitions and by preservation campaigns such as the fight to save Miami Beach’s pastel Deco hotels, which led to the creation of the Miami Beach Architectural District in 1979. Today institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London hold superb Deco collections, and the style’s stock has never been higher. Its geometry suits contemporary tastes, its glamour photographs beautifully, and its best pieces are genuine investments.
How to Get the Art Deco Look Today
Now to the practical question. Successful art deco interior design in a modern home is a matter of selection rather than accumulation. The original interiors were complete works of art, designed down to the ashtrays; recreating one wholesale in a suburban semi rarely flatters either the house or the style. The better approach is to understand the ingredients and deploy a few of them with conviction.
Start with the Geometry
Pattern is the fastest route into the style. Look for fan and sunburst motifs, chevrons, stepped forms and stylised florals. A single papered wall in a bold Deco print, a geometric tiled splashback, or a fan-patterned rug will anchor a room instantly. Keep surrounding surfaces calm so the pattern reads as intentional rather than busy.
Choose a Deco Palette
Two palettes are authentic to the period. The first is rich and clubby: deep greens, burgundy, navy and black, warmed with gold and brass. The second is the softer Streamline palette of cream, eau de nil, blush pink and pale grey, familiar from 1930s cinemas and lidos. Either works today. The common thread is contrast: pale walls with dark furniture, or dark walls with gleaming metal and mirror.
Invest in Materials That Gleam
Art Deco is a style of surfaces. Lacquer, polished walnut and burr veneers, marble, brass, chrome and above all mirror. A large round or fan-shaped mirror over a fireplace is practically a signature move. Velvet upholstery in jewel tones supplies the necessary softness against all that shine. You need not fill the room; one high-gloss sideboard against a matt painted wall does more than a houseful of reproduction pieces.
Hunt the Right Furniture
Original 1920s and 1930s furniture is more attainable than many people assume. British firms such as Epstein and Hille produced fine cloud-shaped suites and walnut dining sets that surface regularly at auction, often for less than new high street furniture of far poorer quality. Look for these characteristic forms:
- Cocktail cabinets with fitted, mirrored interiors
- Club chairs and cloud-back sofas with generous curves
- Console tables and sideboards in figured walnut or maple
- Circular or U-based coffee tables with glass or lacquered tops
- Dressing tables with round mirrors and stepped drawers
Light Like a Picture Palace
Lighting may be the single most transformative element. The period gave us the shell-shaped wall uplighter, the stepped glass pendant, the chrome and opaline globe and the figurine lamp. Modern reproductions are plentiful, but originals, rewired by a qualified electrician, carry a quality of glass and casting that is hard to fake. Aim for layered, warm light from several sources rather than a single bright ceiling fitting, which flattens every surface the style depends on.
Finish with Restraint
Accessorise with a few strong pieces: a pair of bookends, a geometric clock, a decanter set, framed travel posters from the great age of the ocean liner. Then stop. The glamour of Deco lies in polish and confidence, not clutter. If every surface sparkles, none does.
Room by Room Suggestions
In the living room, build around one statement: a mirrored fireplace wall, a cloud sofa, or a dramatic rug. In the dining room, a walnut table with U-shaped supports and a low-hung glass pendant creates instant period atmosphere. Bathrooms take to the style wonderfully; black and white chequered floors, pedestal basins, chrome fittings and a fan-shaped mirror recall the great hotel bathrooms of the 1930s. In bedrooms, a padded velvet headboard with a stepped outline and a pair of mirrored bedside cabinets deliver the look softly.
Kitchens are the hardest room, since fitted kitchens barely existed in the period. Rather than forcing it, borrow the palette and details: brass hardware, a chequerboard floor, fluted glass in cabinet doors and globe pendants over the island.
Do not neglect the hallway, which the 1930s treated as a room in its own right. A geometric encaustic or terrazzo-effect floor, a half-moon console beneath a fan mirror and a single strong pendant light announce the style the moment the front door opens, and the space is small enough to make bold choices affordable.
Buying Original Pieces Wisely
A few words of guidance for anyone tempted to start collecting. Condition matters enormously with Deco furniture because so much of its appeal lies in the surface. Veneers lift, lacquer crazes and chrome pits, and professional restoration of these finishes is skilled, worthwhile work but not cheap. Examine pieces in raking light, check that doors and drawers run true, and be wary of suites that have been stripped and heavily re-polished, which can flatten the figure of the walnut that made them special in the first place.
Provenance helps value but should not rule your choices. A stamped Ruhlmann or a documented Epstein suite commands a premium, yet plenty of unattributed British and French workshop furniture from the 1930s offers ninety per cent of the beauty for a tenth of the price. Auction houses outside London are consistently the best hunting ground, followed by specialist dealers and, for the patient, general house clearance sales. Buy the best single example you can afford rather than three compromises; Deco rooms are built on quality, not quantity.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Three errors account for most disappointing Deco schemes. The first is theming: filling a room with mass-produced “Great Gatsby” accessories until it resembles a party shop. The second is ignoring the architecture; Deco detailing sits oddly against rustic beams or cottage proportions, where a lighter touch, perhaps just colour and lighting, works better. The third is confusing Deco with Hollywood Regency glitz. The originals balanced their shine with dark wood, matt plaster and strong geometry. Keep that tension and the room will feel grown up rather than gaudy.
Conclusion
Art Deco was the last great total style, a movement that dressed everything from skyscrapers to powder compacts in the same confident geometry. It emerged from a very particular moment, when the world wanted luxury and modernity in the same breath, yet its ingredients translate remarkably well to contemporary homes. Learn the history, respect the balance of gleam and restraint, and art deco interior design will reward you with rooms that feel both glamorous and genuinely timeless.
Over to you!
Have you spotted surviving Deco details in your own town, a cinema facade, a lido, a chrome handrail? We would love to hear about them. Share your finds and your own Deco touches in the comments below, and if this piece has whetted your appetite, our essays on the Bauhaus and mid-century modern will show you where the story of twentieth century design went next.