Throwback to Retro Decor

Through the years, trends have come and gone like cars in the night, but it’s the memorable ones that always seem to resurface after a while. Now that the new year is upon us, one particular home style is already beginning to resurface – 1950’s retro décor. With the sleek curving silhouettes of futuristic pieces to the bold pops of colour dotted through the home, interior styling took a huge twist during this legendary era, so we’ve written this handy blog to help you achieve the perfect retro interior.

The Perfect Retro Kitchen

The quintessential 1950’s kitchen was often a whimsical and vibrant room with colourful expressions creating a uniform pattern throughout the room. Whether you prefer a bright pop of red was your choice of colour, or perhaps a perfect blend of a gorgeous pastel yellow with a soft blue, one aspect to make or break your kitchen is lighting.

Our Steel Diner Easyfit Shade in Ochre is the perfect fitting for bringing the retro style to your kitchen, with a softly curving design and pastel pop of yellow brightening up your space with a warm tone. The easy to fit mechanics allow this statement shade to be easily fitted to your existing light fittings for a quick, effortless update to your room, while the simplicity and size brings the ideal opportunity of pairing with another for a multi-light design.

Organic 50's Style

Despite the recent style revival, 2021 is a very different time to the 50’s. People are more environmentally conscious than ever before, so why not bring the organic retro décor to your home? For a cosier look on a cold winter night or a brighter look amidst the hot sun of a summer morning, natural materials are great for putting your own modern spin on things.

Perhaps our Bamboo Dome Easyfit Shade in Minty Blue is exactly what you’re looking for – a classical retro look made from bamboo wood and finished in a pastel blue tone for a cosy vibe.

Layering your living room lighting

As the main social hub of the home, your living room is arguably the most important room in need of a warm, inviting vibe, and this retro style provides just that. The 50’s was an era filled with post-war joy. The values of family life and togetherness had never been so strong, so naturally activities such as soirees, dinner parties and general family gatherings became a natural occurrence. As such, building the perfect interior for a lively environment was absolutely essential.

By layering your lighting, you create a dynamic atmosphere and a tiered design that captures the dynamic nature of the retro style beautifully. Enhancing the space, using a few lighting pieces in every room can help to create a chilled ambience and leaves you with a gorgeous room that reflects your personal styling choices.

Our Tristan Tripod Floor Lamp is the perfect addition for layering your retro lighting, with a beautiful brass finish giving off a truly vintage look with a glamorous Hollywood edge. A tripod floor lamp is ideal for incorporating practical lighting into your room as it projects a soft light ideal for performing smaller tasks such as reading, while the white shade diffuses the light to create a softer environment allowing the whole family to wind down and relax after a long day. This accent lighting addition also enhances the whole room due to its modern edge – keeping your interiors current and trendy.

For an even more emphasised lighting display, why not pair the Tristan Floor Lamp with our Velvet Table Lamp in Navy and Brass. This gorgeous combo allows you to incorporate a cohesive look to your interiors as the warm brass tones create a gentle atmosphere while the deep navy shade brings a signature pop of colour. Wonderful on your side tables, this gorgeous table lamp provides your room with a warm ambience – ideal for bringing a mood lighting touch to your spaces as you cosy up on the sofa.

Bringing a Vintage Warmth to your Bedroom

The bedroom is our personal sanctuary - allowing us to escape the outside world and enter a calm and comforting environment. A peaceful atmosphere, the soft materials, the personalised décor – your bedroom has everything you need to wind down and enter your happy place after a long day and lighting is an integral part of this. A practical task light, a soothing mood light and a statement ceiling fitting are all features you can incorporate into your rooms but it’s how you use them that really impacts the surroundings.

The beautiful Burlap Easyfit Shade features a Neutral and Ivory finish ideal for bringing a quaint, 50’s touch to your bedroom. With a simplistic cylindrical shade, this vintage piece diffuses the light within and projects a warm, cosy glow throughout the room – ideal for accentuating the soothing tones of the room.

Neutral tones and minimal shapes are perfect when evoking a retro bedroom aesthetic as they don’t distract from the colourful and abstract styling in the room. With natural materials, your interior has a much softer, muted look compared to a metallic alternative, giving the room a far more subdued energy.

Paired with our lovely Beatrice Table Lamp, your bedroom would be well on its way to achieving the retro look. With a soft, brown shade and a smaller gold base, this beautiful tabletop lamp makes the ideal bedside table light – with a diffuser shade emitting a softer illumination while the gold base shimmers in the warm light from above.

Together, these more natural additions accentuate the surrounding room, bringing earthy tones to accompany the wooden finishes and a warm glow to enhance the pops of reds and yellows featured throughout.

Decor Tips and Tricks

While lighting helps to give your rooms a distinct, stylish look, there are many additional tips and tricks to creating the perfect vintage retro look.

Bring some artwork into your décor to mix and match the patterns and styles. We recommend some floral prints combined with some more modern ornaments. Its also great to combine both warm and cold tones for an extravagant contrast of colour.

Bathrooms are a hard room to give any distinct style, however, we have the perfect solution: towels. Retro styling uses the primary colours, inspired by the pop art movement, to give a brighter, vibrant touch to any room, so why not bring these fun tones to your bathroom using towels?

Our towel bales are the perfect finishing touches to any bathroom or washroom, with each bale featuring a set of towels perfect for daily use – two face cloths, two hand towels and two bath towels! And in a wide range of colours, you can customise your room with the perfect towel set that gives your room that retro edge you desire.

We hope this blog has inspired you to brighten up your home by inviting the whimsical notes of the 50’s into your decor. We have a huge range of relevant lighting options with a gorgeous vintage style just waiting to be styled beautifully in your home.

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