Antiques in Interior Design Inspired by Film and TV

From the memorable last words providing the epilogue to Barry Lyndon, Stanley Kubrick's monumental drama set in the 18th Century, to the beloved Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and beyond—film and television have inspired antique interior design for as long as it has existed. Whether it's nostalgia for the 1960s or 70s or the love of Bridgerton, many of us are inspired to try and create a room that reminds us of our favorite movie or television we love to rewatch.

There are many ways that media can inspire a home's interiors, but which TV and movies have been inspiring antique interior style lately?

Regency and Victorian Antiques

We've covered how to bring the regal look of Bridgerton into your home, and there is a solid reason why this television show is capturing hearts, minds, and interiors. Set in the early 19th Century and based on Regency-era novels, the show followed the Bridgerton siblings' exploration of love in high society.

Regency-era antiques and reproductions encourage many to decorate their home with rich fabrics, floral upholstery, and jewel-tone color palettes, embracing luxury, comfort, and decadence in homes.

Another television show that has influenced a more regency-era look in the home is Downtown Abby, with lavish Highclere Castle interiors with rich colors and more decadent fabrics. Downtown Abbey, set between 1910 and 1926, also features Elizabethan influences in the Victorian era with feminine-influences style using machine-turned spools and spiral profiles beginning to become popular in the early 1900s.

Hollywood Regency and Art Deco

Emerging from California during the 1930s, the Hollywood Regency style, also known as Regency Moderne or Hollywood Glam, is an American interior design style that is a product of the Golden Age of cinema inspired by the heady glitz and glamour of the silver screen.

Film designers throughout the 1930s and 1950s built over-the-top dream interiors for movies that looked amazing on camera with attention to detail, color, texture, composition, and finishes. Hollywood soon developed a taste for interior décor mimicking these sets, and many turned to glamming up their homes in a similar style.

At the time, Hollywood stars lived larger-than-life in movie set-worthy private residences, where actors such as Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, and Gloria Swanson, for example, were still in the business of showcasing Hollywood's mystique and glamor.

Hollywood Regency was also famous alongside Art Deco, but the two styles were quite distinctive.

Hollywood Regency and maximalists pair flawlessly together, and despite the years, has never truly gone out of style.

Some hallmarks of the Hollywood Regency Style:

• All about maximalism and grandeur, opulent and showy, with a lot of gold accents
• Vibrant hues, black and white palettes, or a mix of both
• Eclectic art pieces or décor with textures like polished stone, fur, silk, velvet, lucite
• Sparkle and shine with metallic accents and glossy, lacquered surfaces

Hallmarks of the Art Deco Style:

• Design qualities of machine-made objects
• Relative simplicity, planarity, symmetry, and unvaried repetition of the elements
• Art Deco often showcases simple, clean shapes with a more streamlined look
• Ornamentation is geometric or stylized motifs such as florals, animals, and sun rays
• Substances used include plastics, vita-glass, and reinforced concrete, combined with more natural materials like jade, silver, ivory, or chrome

Midcentury Interior Design

The television show The Brady Bunch influenced the most popular interior design movement between 1933 and 1965. The Midcentury-style features minimal fuss and ornamentation, sleek lines, and organic shapes. Other hallmarks of Midcentury design include exposed ceilings and beams, open floor plans, partial brick or stone, glass walls, and short staircases.

Two dominant color palettes, bright or muted pastels, can be used in Midcentury interior design. For example, teal, turquoise, lime, pink, pale blue, and yellow were trendy colors that shifted in the 1970s toward more earth tones.

Midcentury interior design was featured again from 2007 to 2015 in the popular television show Mad Men.

Other Hallmarks of Midcentury Style:

• New at the time, furnishing materials such as fiberglass, cement, steel, plastic laminates, plexiglass, plywood, and tubular metals
• Panels and exposed beams in various kinds of wood, such as walnut, teak, rosewood, and mahogany
• Vinyl, polyester, wool, velvet, and boucle fabrics

1970s Avant-garde

In 2022, in a survey of 600 decorators on 1stDibs, 26 percent said they'd witnessed a resurgence of the distinctive 70s hallmarks of design. The avant-garde 1970s interior design trends are making a definite comeback. Earth tones and fun, multi-color concepts are current trends paired with low-slung, soft furniture, which was a similar sentiment echoed in the 70s.

At first glance, you may think of some more questionable choices of the 70s, such as plastic-covered furniture with glaring neon colors and musty-looking shag carpets. Luckily, the more restrained, curated, and sophisticated aspects of the 70s-inspired design are being used, ditching many other outdated elements.

Many earthy, warm, or cool browns and other warm tones with natural and raw materials like wood or exposed concrete, paired with bold geometry and patterns, are repurposed into modern interiors. Today's resurgence is a more stripped-back, simplistic presentation of texture prioritized over form, with simple shapes covered in softer, colorful materials.

Sunken living rooms, or 'conversation pits,' are becoming popular again, with room dividers and upholstered seating. Hallmarks of the 70s, such as bringing nature indoors using velvet, rattan, and patterned wallpaper, are also being modernized and used in interior concepts.

Movies such as American Hustle and Argo showcased some of the best (and perhaps worst) trends of the 70s. At the same time, the Pandemic heavily affected interior design trends away from stark minimalism, as many turned toward wanting to create a more comforting, relaxing, and lounge-worthy home—which the 1970s certainly captured.

Many people gravitate toward designs that aren't rooted in taste but what is unique and comforting to the homeowner and experiment with challenging aesthetics from prior years. Vintage, retro, and antiques are back beautifully and remain a focal point as Eclectic and personal appears to be the newest style in interiors.

We are excited to see what each year brings for antiques and antique reproductions!