DESIGN through the DECADES

Over the past 100 years, Home Beautiful has seen an immeasurable amount of change. As society progressed, our abodes evolved and reflected our shifting priorities and lifestyles. From the trends we try to forget about to the styles that transport us back to our childhood homes, these are the design directions that defined each decade.

- WORDS HANNA MARTON | STYLING NONCI NYONI | PHOTOGRAPHY ALANA LANDSBERRY PRODUCED BY KATRINA YAXLEY & ELLE LOVELOCK

1920s

The Australian Home Beautiful launched in 1925, celebrating our uniquely antipodean ways of life. An interwar housing boom meant that thousands of new homes were built and they needed decorating, pronto. With the buttoned-up Victorian era long gone, the Jazz Age saw Aussies shirking formal interiors for cosy living spaces. Plush armchairs and footstools with skirted upholstery offered respite for weary workers – usually the man of the house – or a serene spot to sit and read works by F Scott Fitzgerald or Miles Franklin. Folding privacy screens made their way here from Asia, while geometric patterns, as seen in the rug and armchair (opposite), were a key trend. Touches of opulence emerged in tassels, chintz and house plants. Roaring fires warmed '20s hearths, as families were oblivious to the economic curveball yet to come.

1930s

Curves, colour and class marked '30s Art Deco design, particularly in unexpected places, such as the bathroom - the star of this 1931 issue of The Australian Home Beautiful (this page). In the cover story, EV Lavater writes, “There has been in recent years a remarkable advance towards new standards of beauty and convenience in bathrooms. The trend towards the use of harmonising or pleasing contrast of colors [sic] in porcelain fixtures, floor and wall tile has revolutionised this once despised adjunct to a home”.

1940s