Is the Upcycling Trend Getting Upcycled in 2023?

Is the Upcycling Trend Getting Upcycled in 2023?

Since time immemorial, mankind has been stumbling across once-loved furniture that has bravely withstood the test of time and has decided it is finally deserving of a new life – a better more stylish life.

Well, that may be a slight exaggeration. The cavemen certainly didn’t stumble across a mid-century bureau and decide it needed an all-over covering of chalk paint and a change of knobs, after all. The minimalists of the 1920s weren’t just plucking the petals from Art Nouveau relics and calling it Bauhaus.

But, even so, the point is that upcycling furniture is a rite of passage for every new generation.It’s a chance to take something strong and sturdy and, perhaps, beloved, and turn it into something almost completely new – with ‘almost’ behind the operative term. It’s an opportunity to avoid one’s home looking like a carbon copy of their parents’ and grandparents’ homes, without totally severing that tie and finding oneself adrift in the ‘outer space’ of directionless interior design.

In short, it’s a way to take charge, create something that speaks to your own creativity and style, but preserve that key element that unites every single disparate interior design style together: the need for strong, hard-wearing, and high-quality pieces.

Upcycling in a nutshell

For the past twenty (or so) years, upcycling has skyrocketed in popularity. Between YouTube tutorials, Pinterest board inspiration, TV programmes and full-page magazine spreads, more and more people have found themselves with a paintbrush in hand, and a heart full of confidence.

Like any DIY pursuit, there are plenty of success stories and plenty of near-misses – and a fair few that landed miles from the target. Creativity knows no bounds, and nowhere does that ring truer than it does in the world of day-glow pink kitchen dressers, vintage trunks bolted onto hairpin iron legs, wood palette garden furniture, and kitchen utensil chandeliers.

It’s a fun, light-hearted world to dip your toe into if you come into possession of some strong, high-quality furniture that just isn’t to your tastes.

And yet…

‘Sympathetic’ is the new ‘Experimental’

The furniture paint may have made us all feel bold and brash at some time or another, but 2023 seems to promise a new era for upcycling. Rather than working against the original piece and trying to spin it into something brand new, edgy and modern, we are seeing a growing trend toward understated change – a sort of hybrid of restoration and the hotter buzzword of ‘upcycling’.

It may not sound particularly ground-breaking but, after more than a decade of at-home DIY-ers taking a more avante garde approach to resurrecting old sofas and bureaus, it’s the sort of cultural reset that deserves renewed attention.

The basics of upcycling – reupholstering, revarnishing, repainting, reviving – all stay the same. The key difference is the level of sympathy we are willing to show them.

This coincides with a significant shift in favour of eclecticism. These days, matching furniture sets are falling out of favour – interior design that swings too far in the direction of one particular movement or era is less palatable than one that represents something of a pastiche of different cultures and movements. One mid-century piece does not necessitate an entire room straight off the set of Mad Men, just as one Chesterfield sofa no longer necessitates a matching four-piece set of armchairs and footrests.

It's also a perfect example of society’s growing interesting in renewability and reducing waste. While upcycling has always emphasised the environmental benefits it offers, it has also emphasised the power it offers to reinvent old pieces – to build on top of strong craftmanship and long-lasting materials with something more exciting than what they currently offer.

Now, however, the simple beauty of wood grain – maybe even the scars of a long-departed death watch beetle, or the shakes and knots found in old wooden pieces – uneven edges and imperfections caused by less rigid manufacturing techniques. Rather than speaking to raw creativity and self-expression, this new philosophy speaks to a notion of heritage – of building a life’s worth of beautiful and strong pieces to define your home with – and of wielding simplicity to create something entirely original.

This is, of course, something we hold in high regard at Penny Morrison. Slow production of pieces that are intended to last for generations – pieces that meld beauty with longevity, both of style and substance – and quality materials that can breathe fresh life into a home without reinventing it in a way that lasts only a short time.