Elements of Style
Trends in Design (Furniture & Home)
Recycled, reused & repurposed is everywhere these days. The recent New York International Gift Fair featured hundreds of vendors incorporating recycled products into their lines. Green has impacted everyday design with gusto, not only because designers are looking for planet-friendly solutions in product and design, but because consumers want this too. The Sundance Channel even has Green programming; my favorite, “Big Ideas for a Small Planet.” The seed that Al Gore planted with his film “An Inconvenient Truth” has taken root and is sprouting around the planet. Not only are we re-examining energy, fashion and food, but also the design of the everyday things in our lives.
Designers have begun to look at everyday objects, interpreting them in eco-friendly material: organic cotton, hemp, felt, recycled cardboard, cork, plastic bottles recycled into polyester, reused wood, repurposed glass bottles and even tires. Product packaging is even becoming eco-friendlier, utilizing more recyclable cardboard and less of the hard plastic.
Imagine: bowls, purses and lamp shades made from felt; stools and binders made from cork. Today, even furniture is being constructed from cardboard.
Good design also makes ecological sense. The better something is made and designed, the less likely we are to throw it away, as has often driven our mass consumer society. “Against Thowawayism” is the ad campaign of Iittala a Finnish company: design so good you hold on to it for years. Some of their glassware was designed 75 years ago, and is still cutting edge today.
Asbury Park can be viewed as a recycled, repurposed city. We have taken what other’s did not want and created homes and businesses for ourselves in the shell of a city. Street by street homes have been restored and local businesses are sprouting from Main Street, along Cookman and Bang Avenues, all the way to the Boardwalk. Many wrote off Asbury Park, but we are making a come back in spite of the economy.
Buying previously owned furniture is Green. Besides, what trip to Asbury Park would be complete without stopping by House of Modern Living @ 718 Cookman Avenue? Billy Meisch was a pioneer here in town for more than a decade, with great (even famous) mid-century furniture, collectibles you’d expect to see in SoHo or Palm Springs. Billy’s collection of Dansk wood classic serveware, which is for sale, would be at home in a fine mid-century museum. FS20, catty-corner across Cookman, is a great compliment to the mid-century look. FS20 recycles selling great stripped-down industrial pieces, old signage, and great glass fixtures. Porcelain latex glove molds, carnival clown heads, and funky 60’s bars. There is also Corazza Mid-Century on the boardwalk, for a wilder take. Owner Kathleen Banks even has pieces previously owned by Luther Vandross. Buying previously-owned furniture is great and is definitely Green.
New to Asbury Park, my partner and I are recent transplants from New York City. We loved the small town, urban feel of Asbury Park and the creativity of the people we still meet everyday. We opened our own store Shelter Home, just up from House of Modern Living, as an expression of our love for good design, in home decor, furniture, and unique gifts. People come to Asbury Park to create, to do something for themselves, to express and to connect. We are all different and all part of this wonderfully funky Mayberry-by-the-Sea. We are All Asbury Park.
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