Decorating Styles Explained: How to Recognise Them, How to Mix Them

Mid-century, Scandinavian, japandi, industrial, Mediterranean, Memphis: the signs that identify each style — and the rules for mixing them.

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Style names are less about classifying than about choosing: to recognise a style is to know what belongs together — and therefore what can be mixed. Here are the six that shape today's interiors, each with its distinctive signs, its materials and its signature pieces.

Mid-century: compass legs and teak

Born between 1945 and 1965, from Danish workshops to Californian studios. Its signs: tapered or compass legs, teak and walnut, organic forms — the Noguchi table is its manifesto. The low sideboard is its reigning piece, the Eames DSW its chair. It is the most liquid style on the vintage market: everything can be found, everything can be resold. Its interiors are gathered on our mid-century page.

Scandinavian: light first

The Nordic cousin of the above, conceived for winters without sun: pale woods (oak, birch), off-white walls, wool and hides, soft lines. The Wegner Wishbone sums it up: visible craft, comfort without display. How to recognise it: nothing shines, everything is matt and tactile. Its interiors are on the Scandinavian page.

Japandi: the meeting

The contraction of Japan and Scandinavia says it all: the same woods, the same fibres, but lower lines, a more muted palette — beige, greige, brown — and emptiness as a material in its own right. It is the style that demands the fewest pieces of furniture and the most discipline: decluttering is structurally part of it. Its interiors are on the japandi page.

Industrial: the workshop owned

Black metal, raw wood, patinated leather, wired glass: the vocabulary of factories and workshops moved into the home. Its signs: exposed structures, castors, factory stools, charcoal grey as a backdrop. Its well-known drift: the total look that turns the living room into a show-flat loft set. It works better as an accent — a workshop lamp, a trade table — than rolled out wall to wall.

Mediterranean: earth and lime

Lime-washed walls, terracotta on the floor and in the tones, bleached woods, rattan and ceramics: the style that runs through Spain, Greece and southern Italy. How to recognise it: the colours seem sun-faded, the surfaces are irregular and the white is never cold. Its interiors are on the Mediterranean page.

Memphis: colour as manifesto

Milan, 1981: the group founded by Ettore Sottsass blows up good taste — printed laminates, primary forms stacked up, plain colours without hierarchy. Sottsass's Ultrafragola, which predates the group, announces its spirit; Mendini's Proust armchair, a cousin of Alchimia, shares the same pointillist insolence. Memphis is not lived as a total look: it is dosed, one piece per interior, like a punctuation mark. Its interiors are on the memphis page.

Mixing them without the room contradicting itself

The decorators' rule: a dominant style that sets the ground — the large furniture, the walls — and one or two accents from elsewhere. Natural bridges help: mid-century and Scandinavian share their woods and marry seamlessly; japandi and Mediterranean share fibres and renders; industrial warmed with leather joins mid-century. The free electrons — Memphis, seventies chrome, Art Deco — arrive as objects: a mirror, a lamp, an armchair.

The Beyit tip

A piece's style is read in its legs: tapered compass = mid-century, chromed tubular sledge = tubular Bauhaus, pale wood foot = Scandinavian, lacquered geometric base = Memphis. Faced with an unknown piece, look at the bottom before the top — it is the most reliable test on the vintage market.