7 ‘Grandmillennial’ Interior Design Trends

THOUGH 35, Whitney McGregor considers herself an old soul, an identity she shares with many young people drawn to unmodern things. The Greenville, S.C., designer—one of many self-identifying grandmillennials giving new life to traditional décor—embraces florals on florals and doesn’t quail in the face of scallop-trim.

Décor motifs like scallop-trim are subject to the trend-pendulum’s swing. “It all comes in cycles,” said 68-year-old Dallas designer Cathy Kincaid. When she graduated in 1974, she considered her midcentury-modern sorority house horribly dated. She spent the next 20 years finding fresh appeal in ornate dressmaker details like trims and tassels but, another two decades later, was peeling hand-painted scenic floral paper from her clients’ walls as midcentury came roaring back.

Today, in turn, many millennials covet patterns and ornaments their parents found frumpy. Ms. McGregor and her ilk find inspiration in historical American designers like Elsie de Wolfe, who brightened heavy Victorian interiors with trellises and chintz in the early 20th century, and Mark Hampton, who later in the century would cover walls, furniture and windows in the same floral print.

“We are looking back on what has stood the test of time,” said New York designer Lilse McKenna, 32, who swears by delicate Sister Parish patterns and Les Indiennes block prints. Style archaeologists like Ms. McKenna don’t just re-enact history, however, said Ms. Kinkaid: “They temper the traditional with the contemporary.”

Here, seven design trends we can thank grandmillennials for resurrecting, plus how to find, layer and live with them without accidentally re-creating a high school production of “Arsenic and Old Lace.”

Deck the Everything

Allover pattern—be it petite stripes, soft geometrics, fauna or florals—is a cornerstone of the movement. Some decorators apply a single print everywhere, from wall coverings to headboards and lampshades. Others mix the scale of their prints. Either way, the impact is swift and thunderous. “It’s impossible for it not to create a mood,” said Ms. McGregor, who considers the move her design secret weapon. “It’s just so easy,” she said. “I don’t have to make seven decisions.” If applying allover pattern strikes you as too much of a commitment, limit your swathing to curtains and walls, and cover a sofa or headboard in a solid colour that appears in the print.

Brown Is the New Black

“We’ve all made mistakes with inexpensive, do-it-yourself dressers,” said Benjamin Reynaert, 38, a New York creative director for a furniture company. Currently restoring a Victorian home in Wilmington, Del., he plans to bring in durable, “brown furniture,” a once disparaging term for vintage and antique wood pieces, so that he doesn’t have to replace pieces too soon. London TV host and writer Louise Roe, 39, recently renovated a country cottage, building an Instagram following of over 100K as she documented the process and shared her back-to-the-future style inspirations. Ms. Roe believes brown furniture grounds a room and lends a rich warmth. But she warned, “If you get too many antiques in the same room, it starts to look like the set of ‘Downton Abbey’.” Ms. Roe also recommends pairing brown furniture with simple, pale carpets or a bright piece of art to counterbalance its visual weight.

Scallops and Ruffles

“Ten years ago, if I told a client I wanted to put a ruffled trim on their sofa, they would have said ‘Hell, no!’” said Ms. McGregor. Since then, she has slowly incorporated scalloped pillows and ruffled trim into her designs. (“Scallops are the gateway drug to ruffles,” she quipped.) She recommends British upstart Matilda Goad’s scalloped lampshades for beginners and suggests studying ruffled chairs and curtains by legendary 20th-century designers such as American Albert Hadley and France’s Madeleine Castaing. Ms. Roe makes up her guest room with crisp white linens edged in red-embroidered scallops. That high-contrast colour scheme offsets what could become treacly in softer colours.

Grown-Up Illustrations

“When spending $30,000 on an original piece of art isn’t an option, you can hang a grid of 12 prints for a fraction of the price,” said Ms. McGregor. High quality Audubon reproductions (called giclées) on One Kings Lane range from $155 to $400, and some of these bird prints come framed. Ms. McKenna grouped and reframed a client’s collection of antique Vanity Fair magazine illustrations to display above a desk. She matted them with traditional Italian bookbinder paper, adding old-timey gravitas, but kept the frames themselves simple.

Dressing Up

Textile skirting around tables and bathroom basins slips pretty texture and softness into a space. “It’s a great way to add another pattern into the room,” Ms. McKenna said. In a Nashville powder room by local firm Alexander Interiors, for example, plaid ruffles under the sink complement a fruity floral wallpaper while obscuring ugly plumbing. A skirt can disguise storage as well, hiding everything from kids toys to Wi-Fi routers. In her Manhattan living room, Ms. McKenna covered IKEA shelving with a tassel-trimmed linen until she was able to replace the piece with a handsome, proper cabinet.

Sheen On

Anathema to modernists, chintz has found a new fan base among grandmillennials. The cotton or cotton-blend floral, usually on a white background, has been treated to give it a slight shine. In grandmillennial décor, it appears on everything from pillows to ceilings. Ms. McKenna likes the busier, denser patterns on family-room sofas, where they can hide signs of wear well. When reassuring clients wary of print overload, Ms. McGregor tells them: “Even if a chintz headboard or sofa seems like a huge commitment on its own, once you’ve layered on the pillows, it’s just a dab of chintz.” And, as she puts it: “It’s a way to live with flowers 365 days of the year.”

Shade Parade

Lampshades, either paper or fabric, quickly add a spot of texture and colour. Ms. McGregor tells clients to toss the boring paper shades that come with their lamps. “It’s like the family photo that comes with the picture frame,” joked the designer, who commissions custom shades that feature vivid color, gathered fabrics, prints or all three.

In the room that kicks off this article (pictured above), Ms. McKenna paired a green ceramic lamp with a gathered lampshade that is block printed in the same colours as those in the chair cushion. “You might not even notice them at first,” she said of printed lampshades. But that’s exactly the effect she is going for. Ms. Roe turns to Pooky for lampshade purchases and inspiration. The site offers everything from marbled paper shades to ones constructed from gathered silk ikats. Her unexpected favourite? A black shade with gold lining which she says creates a cozy glow.

PARIS —Paris has long been a byword for luxurious living. The traditional components of the upscale home, from parquet floors to elaborate moldings, have their origins here. Yet settling down in just the right address in this low-rise, high-density city may be the greatest luxury of all.

Tradition reigns supreme in Paris real estate, where certain conditions seem set in stone—the western half of the city, on either side of the Seine, has long been more expensive than the east. But in the fashion world’s capital, parts of the housing market are also subject to shifting fads. In the trendy, hilly northeast, a roving cool factor can send prices in this year’s hip neighborhood rising, while last year’s might seem like a sudden bargain.

This week, with the opening of the Olympic Games and the eyes of the world turned toward Paris, The Wall Street Journal looks at the most expensive and desirable areas in the City of Light.

The Most Expensive Arrondissement: the 6th

Known for historic architecture, elegant apartment houses and bohemian street cred, the 6th Arrondissement is Paris’s answer to Manhattan’s West Village. Like its New York counterpart, the 6th’s starving-artist days are long behind it. But the charm that first wooed notable residents like Gertrude Stein and Jean-Paul Sartre is still largely intact, attracting high-minded tourists and deep-pocketed homeowners who can afford its once-edgy, now serene atmosphere.

Le Breton George V Notaires, a Paris notary with an international clientele, says the 6th consistently holds the title of most expensive arrondissement among Paris’s 20 administrative districts, and 2023 was no exception. Last year, average home prices reached $1,428 a square foot—almost 30% higher than the Paris average of $1,100 a square foot.

According to Meilleurs Agents, the Paris real estate appraisal company, the 6th is also home to three of the city’s five most expensive streets. Rue de Furstemberg, a secluded loop between Boulevard Saint-Germain and the Seine, comes in on top, with average prices of $2,454 a square foot as of March 2024.

For more than two decades, Kyle Branum, a 51-year-old attorney, and Kimberly Branum, a 60-year-old retired CEO, have been regular visitors to Paris, opting for apartment rentals and ultimately an ownership interest in an apartment in the city’s 7th Arrondissement, a sedate Left Bank district known for its discreet atmosphere and plutocratic residents.

“The 7th was the only place we stayed,” says Kimberly, “but we spent most of our time in the 6th.”

In 2022, inspired by the strength of the dollar, the Branums decided to fulfil a longstanding dream of buying in Paris. Working with Paris Property Group, they opted for a 1,465-square-foot, three-bedroom in a building dating to the 17th century on a side street in the 6th Arrondissement. They paid $2.7 million for the unit and then spent just over $1 million on the renovation, working with Franco-American visual artist Monte Laster, who also does interiors.

The couple, who live in Santa Barbara, Calif., plan to spend about three months a year in Paris, hosting children and grandchildren, and cooking after forays to local food markets. Their new kitchen, which includes a French stove from luxury appliance brand Lacanche, is Kimberly’s favourite room, she says.

Another American, investor Ashley Maddox, 49, is also considering relocating.

In 2012, the longtime Paris resident bought a dingy, overstuffed 1,765-square-foot apartment in the 6th and started from scratch. She paid $2.5 million and undertook a gut renovation and building improvements for about $800,000. A centrepiece of the home now is the one-time salon, which was turned into an open-plan kitchen and dining area where Maddox and her three children tend to hang out, American-style. Just outside her door are some of the city’s best-known bakeries and cheesemongers, and she is a short walk from the Jardin du Luxembourg, the Left Bank’s premier green space.

“A lot of the majesty of the city is accessible from here,” she says. “It’s so central, it’s bananas.” Now that two of her children are going away to school, she has listed the four-bedroom apartment with Varenne for $5 million.

The Most Expensive Neighbourhoods: Notre-Dame and Invalides

Garrow Kedigian is moving up in the world of Parisian real estate by heading south of the Seine.

During the pandemic, the Canada-born, New York-based interior designer reassessed his life, he says, and decided “I’m not going to wait any longer to have a pied-à-terre in Paris.”

He originally selected a 1,130-square-foot one-bedroom in the trendy 9th Arrondissement, an up-and-coming Right Bank district just below Montmartre. But he soon realised it was too small for his extended stays, not to mention hosting guests from out of town.

After paying about $1.6 million in 2022 and then investing about $55,000 in new decor, he put the unit up for sale in early 2024 and went house-shopping a second time. He ended up in the Invalides quarter of the 7th Arrondissement in the shadow of one Paris’s signature monuments, the golden-domed Hôtel des Invalides, which dates to the 17th century and is fronted by a grand esplanade.

His new neighbourhood vies for Paris’s most expensive with the Notre-Dame quarter in the 4th Arrondissement, centred on a few islands in the Seine behind its namesake cathedral. According to Le Breton, home prices in the Notre-Dame neighbourhood were $1,818 a square foot in 2023, followed by $1,568 a square foot in Invalides.

After breaking even on his Right Bank one-bedroom, Kedigian paid $2.4 million for his new 1,450-square-foot two-bedroom in a late 19th-century building. It has southern exposures, rounded living-room windows and “gorgeous floors,” he says. Kedigian, who bought the new flat through Junot Fine Properties/Knight Frank, plans to spend up to $435,000 on a renovation that will involve restoring the original 12-foot ceiling height in many of the rooms, as well as rescuing the ceilings’ elaborate stucco detailing. He expects to finish in 2025.

Over in the Notre-Dame neighbourhood, Belles demeures de France/Christie’s recently sold a 2,370-square-foot, four-bedroom home for close to the asking price of about $8.6 million, or about $3,630 a square foot. Listing agent Marie-Hélène Lundgreen says this places the unit near the very top of Paris luxury real estate, where prime homes typically sell between $2,530 and $4,040 a square foot.

The Most Expensive Suburb: Neuilly-sur-Seine

The Boulevard Périphérique, the 22-mile ring road that surrounds Paris and its 20 arrondissements, was once a line in the sand for Parisians, who regarded the French capital’s numerous suburbs as something to drive through on their way to and from vacation. The past few decades have seen waves of gentrification beyond the city’s borders, upgrading humble or industrial districts to the north and east into prime residential areas. And it has turned Neuilly-sur-Seine, just northwest of the city, into a luxury compound of first resort.

In 2023, Neuilly’s average home price of $1,092 a square foot made the leafy, stately community Paris’s most expensive suburb.

Longtime residents, Alain and Michèle Bigio, decided this year is the right time to list their 7,730-square-foot, four-bedroom townhouse on a gated Neuilly street.

The couple, now in their mid 70s, completed the home in 1990, two years after they purchased a small parcel of garden from the owners next door for an undisclosed amount. Having relocated from a white-marble château outside Paris, the couple echoed their previous home by using white- and cream-coloured stone in the new four-story build. The Bigios, who will relocate just back over the border in the 16th Arrondissement, have listed the property with Emile Garcin Propriétés for $14.7 million.

The couple raised two adult children here and undertook upgrades in their empty-nester years—most recently, an indoor pool in the basement and a new elevator.

The cool, pale interiors give way to dark and sardonic images in the former staff’s quarters in the basement where Alain works on his hobby—surreal and satirical paintings, whose risqué content means that his wife prefers they stay downstairs. “I’m not a painter,” he says. “But I paint.”

The Trendiest Arrondissement: the 9th

French interior designer Julie Hamon is theatre royalty. Her grandfather was playwright Jean Anouilh, a giant of 20th-century French literature, and her sister is actress Gwendoline Hamon. The 52-year-old, who divides her time between Paris and the U.K., still remembers when the city’s 9th Arrondissement, where she and her husband bought their 1,885-square-foot duplex in 2017, was a place to have fun rather than put down roots. Now, the 9th is the place to do both.

The 9th, a largely 19th-century district, is Paris at its most urban. But what it lacks in parks and other green spaces, it makes up with nightlife and a bustling street life. Among Paris’s gentrifying districts, which have been transformed since 2000 from near-slums to the brink of luxury, the 9th has emerged as the clear winner. According to Le Breton, average 2023 home prices here were $1,062 a square foot, while its nearest competitors for the cool crown, the 10th and the 11th, have yet to break $1,011 a square foot.

A co-principal in the Bobo Design Studio, Hamon—whose gut renovation includes a dramatic skylight, a home cinema and air conditioning—still seems surprised at how far her arrondissement has come. “The 9th used to be well known for all the theatres, nightclubs and strip clubs,” she says. “But it was never a place where you wanted to live—now it’s the place to be.”

With their youngest child about to go to college, she and her husband, 52-year-old entrepreneur Guillaume Clignet, decided to list their Paris home for $3.45 million and live in London full-time. Propriétés Parisiennes/Sotheby’s is handling the listing, which has just gone into contract after about six months on the market.

The 9th’s music venues were a draw for 44-year-old American musician and piano dealer, Ronen Segev, who divides his time between Miami and a 1,725-square-foot, two-bedroom in the lower reaches of the arrondissement. Aided by Paris Property Group, Segev purchased the apartment at auction during the pandemic, sight unseen, for $1.69 million. He spent $270,000 on a renovation, knocking down a wall to make a larger salon suitable for home concerts.

During the Olympics, Segev is renting out the space for about $22,850 a week to attendees of the Games. Otherwise, he prefers longer-term sublets to visiting musicians for $32,700 a month.

Most Exclusive Address: Avenue Junot

Hidden in the hilly expanses of the 18th Arrondissement lies a legendary street that, for those in the know, is the city’s most exclusive address. Avenue Junot, a bucolic tree-lined lane, is a fairy-tale version of the city, separate from the gritty bustle that surrounds it.

Homes here rarely come up for sale, and, when they do, they tend to be off-market, or sold before they can be listed. Martine Kuperfis—whose Paris-based Junot Group real-estate company is named for the street—says the most expensive units here are penthouses with views over the whole of the city.

In 2021, her agency sold a 3,230-square-foot triplex apartment, with a 1,400-square-foot terrace, for $8.5 million. At about $2,630 a square foot, that is three times the current average price in the whole of the 18th.

Among its current Junot listings is a 1930s 1,220-square-foot townhouse on the avenue’s cobblestone extension, with an asking price of $2.8 million.