You have a point.
I can't explain why it's so, I'm only relieved that it's so.
Fashion cycles aren't in sync with interior design, they move faster-- fashion's always hungry for newness, even if it's just rehash from yesteryear. (Hey-- it's easier than actually devising something new; besides, 1980's fashion really IS new to the 2010 teenager.)
What's your evidence that 1980's music is back in full force, anyhow?
Begging the question.
Hmm... I remember 80s fashion and music REALLY well, and I don't see them coming back "full force" at all.
I mean... Leggings are back, but the huge batwing sweaters that accompanied them in the 80s aren't. Neither are gigantic shoulderpads in women's dresses, Members Only jackets, or legwarmers. You don't see everyone walking around in high-waisted acid-washed jeans and aviator sunglasses these days, either, and I would fall down laughing if I saw someone wearing a neon tracksuit in public.
People who think 80s music is back don't remember 80s music. There are no heavy-metal hair bands packing arenas this decade. There's no beatboxing on modern hip-hop records. There are no saxophone solos in modern pop music, and not a whole lot of synthesizers being played by popular bands.
So... I don't think it's much of a surprise that black lacquer, brass-and-glass, geometric mirrors, neon sculptures, and Nagel prints haven't really come back in fashion.
fastfwd
80's fashion is back full force, trust me. Shoulder pads and all:
http://fashiongonerogue.com/?s=80s&=Search
80s Design
I think Italian 80s design has a certain niche interest. Memphis was intended to shake things up in 80s and meant to be an ephemeral design movement or fad. I have a large collection of early Memphis design and am working with museum for exhibition and other museums are interested for it to tour which may increase popularity. People either love it or hate it and I understand and enjoy both opinions. The prices at auction have been up and down and too early to know where it's going in the future.
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/holy_memphis-milano_best_colle...
One more on the fashion note
this pretty much says it all:
http://fashiongonerogue.com/year-in-review-the-1980s-revisited/
Please.
the_beloved: Replace "80s" with some other decade in the first URL you posted, and you'll see that 20s, 30, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s fashion is equally "back in full force".
An uninspired designer reaching into the past for an unoriginal idea is not a fashion trend. If 80s fashion were truly back, we'd be seeing it on the streets, not just in highly stylized fashion-mag photo shoots or in the collections of young designers who're just trying everything they can think of to get noticed.
Seriously, go back and look at what people were actually wearing in the 80s. It was a really distinct look, and it's not experiencing a revival.
But to get back to the original question... One reason that 80s design (by which I assume you mean 80s home decor) isn't coming back is that even back then, it obviously had no staying power -- it was cutting-edge for a minute and then almost immediately started to look tacky.
A bigger reason, though, is that it hasn't been away long enough. Unlike fashion trends, which completely disappear when they're outdated, and can then be appreciated anew by young people who don't associate them with the earlier time period in which they were first fashionable, home-decor trends remain visible for a long time. In the 70s and 80s, no one wanted mid-century furniture, and lots of beautiful mid-century homes were remodeled with tacky add-ons and awful floor and wall treatments because back then, all that old 50s stuff looked horribly dated, like what you'd see in Grandma's house.
Same thing now: Your grandmother isn't still wearing the fashions she wore in the 80s, but her house probably hasn't changed. It'll be at least another ten or twenty years before we can stop associating 80's design with Grandma so we can judge it on its own merits. Such as they are.
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