How TikTok Influencers are Shaping Interior Design Trends Today
Interior design for furniture retailers is booming on TikTok. With more than 5.9 billion views of #interiordesign, influencers are doing everything from dorm-room decor to midnight makeovers to redesigning entire homes.
Lured in during the pandemic, people all over the world signed up in an effort to stay connected and engaged. Since January of 2020, TikTok has seen its adult user base expand 550%. For a platform that allows only three minutes of video per post, up from 15 seconds, its reach is expanding exponentially. Now, it hosts over a billion active users every month. And these users are here for the #design.
Interior Designs At the Top
An analysis of Google hashtag searches reveals #ModernFarmhouse to be 2021’s most popular internet interior design trend. Better Homes and Gardens describes it as “harnessing country elements with a contemporary spin … blending clean lines, neutral color palettes, layered textures, and natural materials.”
By combining curated minimalism with a chunky style, Modern Farmhouse embraces Americana without ribbon-decked geese or flag draped toaster covers. In their TikTok videos, manicured rooms show seemingly effortless transformations from dreary dogeared apartments to the bright, open spaces of whitewashed cathedral ceilings. And demand responded. Sofas with clean lines, leather upholstered dining chairs, and wooden tables have rocketed in popularity.
Midcentury Modern, another clean-lined retro style is also climbing the TikTok charts, up 23% between January and June of this year.
With 103 million views, users between 25 and 40 have never seen so much of 1950. Bertoia wire chairs and spindle-legged tables abound. Nostalgia for what they perceive to be a simpler time is alluring.
Millennial Marketing
Yet, as effectively as TikTok seems to be fueling trends, studies show that the Millennials and Gen Z who are consuming them don’t want to feel that they are being marketed to. In their average daily consumption of more than an hour on TikTok alone, users prefer the “authentic” touch of real people demonstrating what they believe to be obtainable goals. They want to feel that “the look” is within their reach without herculean effort or hiring a contractor.
It needs to be seen in a snap, too. Of a three minute video, brands have the first five seconds in which to capture the attention of their viewer or risk being swept aside for the next pitch. TikTok consumers want to be amused. They long to be engaged.
How Do They Do That?
The most popular “creators”, as users who post video and audio content are called, of interior design material tend to be women and girls between 16 and 40. As influencers, some of them monetize the attention they get through call-outs of branded merchandise.
Katie Mack of @CandyColoredHome, famous for her devotion to all things pink, reps for BedThreads, JuJu wallpapers, and a great many other artists and artisans, dropping links in her hashtags at the bottom of every video, in comments, and interviews.
Other popular creators work directly for larger outlets. Jaclyn Harper of @JaclynHDesigns is an HGTV stylist and uses both platforms to expand her professional reach. Some of them even do it simply for love of design and a desire to make something beautiful, like Galey Alix of @GaleyAlix, reigning queen of TikTok DIY. Though she will reveal her sources if you ask her directly.
Many of the young people who had to work at home during the pandemic do not want to return to a traditional office space. They are finding ways to transition to home offices, or let’s be honest, kitchen tables, all over the world. Without the hustle and grind of forty hours a week away from domestic spaces, replacing that kitchen table, or even that kitchen, seems a little more worth doing. TikTok is showing them how.