Dion Chang on the Revolving Door of Home Decor Trends

by Nina on Apr 7th, 2010

Traditional basin

Fashion guru and trend analyst Dion Chang throws his keen eye on bathroom trends in The Property Magazine. Chang, the editor of The State We’re In: The 2010 Flux Trend Review is quick to point out that trends come and go, and come again so think twice before you redo your bathroom:

The fashion industry has taught me one important lesson about trends; like any dish laced with too much garlic, a trend will repeat itself, over and over again. The frequency of the repetition does vary, but it’s inevitable. On average, fashion trends repeat themselves every five years, just long enough for them to have some sort of nostalgic connotation. Decorating trends have a much longer lifespan, but they too eventually succumb to the déjà vu phenomenon.

Take the simple washbasin. Most of us grew up brushing our teeth in front of a stand-alone pedestal. The only real design variations were your taps or perhaps the shape of the basin. There were some that had clever indents on either side of the basin rim, ostensibly to hold the soap and drain the excess water away, but somehow they never really worked. Your soap either slipped into the basin or got waterlogged. But that's not really the point. The pedestal basin retained its prime position as a staple bathroom fixture for decades.