The name kitsch comes from the German word kitsch, which translates as “vulgarity, hack-work, bad taste”. This term appeared at the end of the 19th century in Germany, where at that time mass production of goods began, imitating luxurious and antique items that were previously available only to rich and distinguished people. The wealthy industrialists, who did not understand art, who did not have the innate sense of taste inherent to the nobles, gladly acquired fakes for fabulous money, and the upper class of the working class echoed them, furnishing dwellings with cheap trinkets.
Over time, kitsch acquired new features and resulted in a whole direction in the design, bright, shocking, ironic, merging and mixing almost all existing styles. How does the kitsch style look today in the interior of an apartment?
Basic principles and style ideas
Kitsch can be perceived in different ways. It originated as a cheap copy of palace luxury, based on imitations, copying the furnishings of palaces and apartments of aristocrats. Over time, the style was adopted by creative and free-thinking people, expressing their attitude to the world and modern values in the decoration of dwellings. Exaggerating and bringing to the grotesque the copying of luxury with the help of antique and cheap furniture, decor, decoration, they simultaneously prove their originality and ridicule the consumer character of modern society, losing its human appearance in the race for material goods. Apartments in the style of kitsch are decorated in bright acid colors using elements of fusion, eclecticism, boho, pop art, loft, symbolizing freedom from conventions, frameworks, and rules, including those inherent in any styles. The main ideas of kitsch are freedom,
The design of modern apartments in the style of kitsch immediately catches the eye, such an interior cannot be confused with anything thanks to the following easily recognizable features:
- an abundance of bright, contrasting and neon tones;
- a combination of incompatible styles, colors, shapes, textures of furniture, decoration, interior, as in the photo below;
- the absence of restrictions, including in the quantity and quality of decor;
- the neighborhood of expensive and cheap, old and newfangled, originals and penny trinkets.
How to realize the interior of the apartment in the style of kitsch?
The easiest way to create an apartment design in the spirit of kitsch, based on the finished design in a particular style. A few bright accessories, furniture alteration (dyeing, hauling, rich tint textiles), new lamps will turn the classic living room, bedroom or dining room into a shocking room in the best kitsch traditions. It remains only to raid the nearest flea market, buy old, cheap things or crack a grandmother’s chest gathering dust in the country house and furnish the apartment with all this beauty.
If you are not confident in your abilities, take as a basis the furnishing of apartments of ordinary citizens of the times of the USSR. Designers claim that the combination of Yugoslav walls, carpets on the walls and Czech crystal in sideboards is one of the most vivid examples of kitsch. This interior needs only bright colors, purple walls, yellow sofas, and neon curtains to become kitsch in the modern sense of the word because the main style-forming idea of affordable luxury is present here.
There is a gradation of ways to design apartments in the style of kitsch according to the degree of professionalism and available prim:
- Kitsch lumpen. To make an apartment in this style everyone can. You will need only the most inexpensive materials and decor. The walls and furniture are painted in acid and neon colors, the free space will be filled with diverse and flashy accessories from the flea market or from the mezzanine.
- Psevdoroskosh. The interior with bright colors is complemented by elements imitating wealth: plaster stucco, bronze paint for gilding, marble, and natural wood, reproductions of famous paintings, lambrequins and ruffles on the windows, canopies over the beds, plastic fireplace portals.
- Designer kitsch. Everything here is serious and not so cheap, because a specialist who skillfully combines interior items from different eras, styles, colors, and cost, takes quality, modern materials, unique furniture, and handmade accessories, as in the photo example. Keep reading how to paint bubbles.
Colors and materials
With regard to interiors in the spirit of kitsch, the principle of “the brighter the better.” The most unimaginable and catchy combinations of tones, including neon ones, are allowed. The most characteristic is violet, lemon-yellow, golden, pink, crimson, magenta, lime green. Just do not forget that you will have to somehow live in all this multicolor, so it would be wiser to balance the screaming gamut with neutral colors. So, on the background of bright walls, pastel, and laconic furniture looks great, and gray, graphite or sand color will become a stand for bright accessories and fancy colored furniture, as in the photo below.
Kitsch is characterized by deliberate replacement with cheap analogs of natural and expensive materials. However, this does not mean that they should be of poor quality. Parquet flooring or stone slabs imitate linoleum with the appropriate coloring, plastic wall panels impersonate leather, brocade, satin, wooden upholstery, paint – for gilding, plastic – for plaster, marble, porcelain, cast iron forging, and glass pretend to be crystal.
Wall, ceiling and floor decoration
The kitsch style in the interior of the apartment is expressed in bright colors of large surfaces: walls, floor, and ceiling. Linoleum is often used as a floor covering, imitating a certain expensive finish: wood, stone. It is appropriate in this interior leveling, 3D-floor with the effect of depth and perspective. One of the obligatory decorations of the rooms in the style of kitsch is a carpet of bright, rich colors, futuristic form. The carpet can have an animal print, a pattern imitating the skin of a leopard is especially popular, and there are also faux fur carpets with a long nap, as a symbol of luxury and shocking.
Walls are covered with wallpaper, including liquid, paper, textured, fabric, embossed, plain or floral print. Contrast finishing with coatings of different colors and textures, painting in any colors, painting, graffiti, decorative plaster, photo wallpaper with perspective, imitation of stone, brick, wood, metal, volume panels, full-wall mirrors are allowed.
The ceiling, as a rule, is decorated with plastic stucco molding, sockets for chandeliers, moldings, it can be painted in any color. An alternative to whitewashing and painting is a multi-level ceiling with LED lighting (in other interior styles, this technique is already considered a move, but kitsch accepts everything), a mirror coating, painting in the palace style, as well as any drawings and ornaments, including those glowing in the dark.
Textiles and furniture
In the interior of the apartment in the style of kitsch will fit the “expensive” textiles: brocade, satin, velvet, silk, plush, tapestries. Such furniture is upholstered with upholstered furniture, blankets, and bedspreads and covers for cushions are sewn from it. The windows are decorated with rich, fluffy and heavy curtains with grabs, pelmets, embossed and embroidered patterns. A burgundy canopy should be hung above the bed, bright velvet pillows with gold tassels, the fringe will be placed on the sofa, a tablecloth will decorate the table.
Furniture can be any; in the kitsch style, modern mirror tables, rare wardrobes, a grandmother’s chest of drawers with curved legs, painted in neon-lime color, and an old solid wood sideboard are quite calm and organic. It is not necessary to purchase new sofas – just drag the old bright fabric or cover it with a rich color, paint the chairs, chair legs, dressers and cabinet fronts in contrasting and juicy shades, replace the accessories with the “gold” handles to add all this with an antique coffee table with the nearest flea market and fashionable designer ottoman – and it turns out clean kitsch.
Decor, accessories, and fixtures
Decor and accessories when decorating rooms in the spirit of kitsch are used in abundance. It is time to get and proudly show the guests a collection of souvenirs, postcards, photographs, porcelain elephants and dishes. You can decorate the walls with patterned plates, mix them with family photos in different-sized frames, put rows of beer mugs and handmade dolls on the shelves, and instead of a carpet on the wall hanging panels in the style of patchwork or Mexican sombrero.
The posters in cheap frames look neatly and organically in the interior in the style of kitsch, adjacent to the landscapes of contemporary artists, reproductions of famous paintings and posters in the spirit of pop art. Fireplace portals, candlesticks, and painted figurines complement stained glass windows, paintings, and graffiti on the walls, an abundance of mirrors. In short, you can hang out and put everything in, the main thing is to learn how to correctly combine incongruous things and stop in time.
For an apartment in the style of kitsch, there are no restrictions on the choice of lamps. You can mix the central ceiling chandelier with glass pendants with a floor lamp bought at the flea market, floral print shades, modern spots, and high-tech suspensions.
Lightweight version of the apartment in the spirit of kitsch
Try to balance saturated colors with neutral surfaces, and the abundance of accessories with a minimum of shiny, sparkling and reflective light elements. Not every person will be able to live in an atmosphere oversaturated with colors, details, decorations and superfluous things that are not enough for each other. Sometimes it is enough to give a strict interior a couple of new notes, filling it with self-irony, fashionable, vintage things and bright textiles to bring the spirit of kitsch into the apartment – shocking, rebellious and frankly revolutionary. Successful in your experiments!
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