In its ninth year, the annual poll of designers revealed an ongoing love for maximalism and eclecticism, as well as a dedication to organic modernism . Mid-century modernism cooled in 2024, then warmed in 2025. Color drenching is expected to be big, with burgundy and chocolate browns still favored, but gentler hues — butter yellow, cornflower blue, baby pink and pistachio — are coming into focus. Art Deco remains beloved, and there are whispers of the rise of rattan, glass blocks and paper lanterns — a clear nod to 1980s style. Wallpaper is hot, with designers telling us they will sheathe entire rooms in it, including the ceiling. Furniture customization continues to be a go-to for designers, but pre-1920s antiques have gained in popularity, indicating an increasing prioritization of handcrafted and precious materials.
Color Me Mine
The Spring/Summer 2026 collections on the runways of New York, Paris and Milan were lit up with color and subdued by softness, mirroring trends already showing up in interiors. One color emerged as the new fashion darling: powder pink, paired with red by Rachel Scott, on pairs of heels at Versace and matched with green at Prada.
Interior designers are seeing pink, too. Noz Nozawa turned a San Francisco living room into a rosy riot that began with a Barbie pink on the baseboards and climbed to a decrescendo of light pink on the ceiling. Pastels, Nozawa says, “always feel cheerful — somewhere between a soft color and a confidently low-key statement.” She’s currently excited about “pastels that are not quite an exact color by name — yellows that are halfway to cooked-leek green, lavenders that are also sort of pink, mauves that are almost gray.”
Butter yellow, somewhere between a sugar cookie and a Sister Parish drawing room, is coming up in the rankings. Jessica Davis, of Atelier Davis, beat many to the punch, placing a custom yellow sofa in what she called her “color-forward lounge” for the Southeastern Designer Showhouse in 2024. Davis combined this with a ruffle pendant (skirting alert — more on that later), pillows dressed in flame-stitch and floral motifs (both rising), a vintage spindle-arm chair and a Jane Smith figurative painting (an art style designers are still heavily favoring for 2026).
Cornflower blue will be more in play next year, with 31 percent of designers anticipating incorporating it into a project. In the cedar-paneled game room of a vacation house in the Yosemite Valley, the design firm Chango, under the creative direction of Susana Simonpietri, alternated a blue linen with a burnt-orange corduroy on a contemporary sectional; a third fabric, a natural blend peppered with traditional Swedish kilim rug motifs, has hints of a similar blue.
Designers are fragmented on green, but one thing is clear: Emerald is waning — going from being favored by 33 percent in 2023 to 18 percent in 2025 — as are olive and sage. These deeper greens are making way for subtler shades, like avocado, mint and lime, with pistachio making a strong debut among designers, cited by 20 percent.
Burgundy is seen as thrice as nice in the 2025 survey as in 2022, with 21 percent of designers set on using it, versus the earlier 7 percent.
Designer Crystal Sinclair found an unexpected site for the tone, in the form of Rosso Levanto marble for a waterfall-edge kitchen island of a family home in Harlem. Sinclair continued the drama with a zellige-tile backsplash and a Murano chandelier, both favored by the designers in the 1stDibs poll, and offset the impact of the milky-white-veined island with light gray walls. This juxtaposition exemplifies how designers mix unexpected colors and materials to great effect, a proclivity that will remain vigorous in 2026.
The living room of a project in New York’s West Village by Studio Shamshiri stands out for its distinctive use of deep red. “The burgundy lacquer [on the walls] was our way of bringing depth and sensuality to a very intimate room,” says firm founder Pam Shamshiri. “Burgundy carries warmth, sophistication and quiet drama that makes a space feel both grounded and elevated. In lacquer, it becomes almost liquid. It’s not just a color, it’s a feeling.”
Against the reflective majesty of the burgundy backdrop, Studio Shamshiri set a Throne chair by Carlo Bugatti, master of experimental Art Nouveau furniture — another style seeing a renaissance. (A note for designers who lean into everything from Josef Hoffmann to Jugenstil: Your good eye is gaining recognition from your fellow designers, so you may want to grab that piece you’ve had your eye on for 2026.)
For Shamshiri, this impactful background for such an important piece shows just how dedicated she is to the color. “It reflects light in a way that feels alive, changing throughout the day from deep plum to glowing cherry, depending on the atmosphere,” she says. “It’s an incredibly effective color, because it sits between worlds. It brings emotion into a space without overwhelming it.”
Designers’ love for chocolate brown (once again the survey’s most cited color) has nearly doubled over four years, with 33 percent planning to use the hue next year, compared with 17 percent in 2022. Tan has plummeted, losing two-thirds of its popularity since 2023, while mocha mousse and French gray have come onto the scene. White, slate gray and black slid into single digits, as the focus has shifted to brighter colors, with one notable exception: purple, whose popularity has shrunk almost as quickly as it peaked over the past three years. (Lilac, on the other hand, has broken out, cited by 18 percent of designers, as has mauve, with 16 percent of designers aiming to turn to the dusty hue next year.)
These trends suggest that designers and clients are thinking more broadly about color, eschewing the expected in favor of the novel and extending welcome to the entire spectrum. “I’m not surprised that pastels are an emerging interest,” Nozawa says. “Frankly, I have loved seeing chocolate browns and periwinkles, and burgundies with butter yellows, together. So the growth in pastels coming out of all the rich earthy browns of 2025 makes lots of sense.”
Rooms to Grow
Clients in 2025 had a seemingly insatiable desire to redesign their living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms, in that order. Designers are expecting even more robust demand for upgrading these rooms, with kitchens possibly overtaking living rooms as the most requested rooms in 2026. While living rooms dominated in 2025, with 63 percent of designers creating these spaces for clients, just 55 percent foresee living-room redesigns in 2026, a hair below the 58 percent who anticipate kitchen remodels.
“Every living room needs something that invites people to linger, a sense of warmth and ease that comes from good lighting, layered materials and seating that encourages conversation,” says Boston-based designer Nina Farmer. “Even the most refined room should feel welcoming and lived in.”
The next-most in-demand spaces — dining rooms, home offices, walk-in closets and patios — have had some rises and falls because of changing cultural norms. Requests for home offices, for example, fell by half between 2022 and 2025, reflecting the post-pandemic return to the workplace for many clients. A slight backslide in outdoor spaces over the same period is possibly related to less need for social distancing, while an uptick in new dining rooms stems from a desire to celebrate the ability to gather together again.
When presented with an “if money were no object” scenario for bonus rooms, designers were most likely to recommend second or outdoor kitchens, mudrooms, saunas, libraries, solariums and meditation rooms — reflecting a move toward personal retreats. In South West London, Sophie Ashby, of Studio Ashby, tucked one such haven, a small, oak-floored reading room, into a contemporary family home. “The priority was to create living spaces that felt timeless and right for family life, with smaller spaces tailored to quiet time,” Ashby says of the project. Ever the trendsetter, Ashby found a way to incorporate a bit of burgundy with the sofa, and yellow with the tiny side table.
Styles and Eras: To the Max
Fear not, lovers of layering: Maximalism’s rise shows no signs of slowing, with 39 percent of designers believing the layered look will remain popular in 2026. Designer Brittany Giannone, of San Francisco’s ABD Studio, put a most contemporary spin on the style in a San Francisco Edwardian house. Setting the scene with a silk damask on the walls, she furnished the combined dining room and salon with Joaquim Tenreiro chairs, velvet-upholstered benches, a dark patterned rug and, the pièce de résistance, a meditative glass wall sculpture by contemporary artist Olafur Eliasson.
“For me, maximalism isn’t about more for the sake of more,” Giannone says. “It’s about layering to create depth, warmth and a personal narrative. It’s the layering of mixed patterns, styles of art, types of textiles and cherished objects in a way that feels collected over time rather than decorated all at once. Maximalism, when done well, feels soulful and generous — it reveals itself slowly and invites you to look closer. And when you do, there is a sense of thoughtful composition, restraint and intention beneath the richness.”
The second- and third-most-cited survey styles, eclecticism and organic modernism are still very much à la mode for designers. New Orleans–based Penny Francis is so devoted to the former that she named her firm Eclectic Home. Francis is fond of mixing styles and periods from Art Deco to mid-century modernism to Bauhaus — all still at the top of designers’ minds for next year.
Organic modernism is well represented in the living room of a Barcelona apartment by Charles and Co., in which a “citrus palette,” as principal Vicky Charles terms it, mingles with long, languid shapes and chunky, hardwood furniture.
For a residence nestled in a canyon just above Hollywood, Studio Shamshiri and Marmol Radziner created an ambience defined by organic modernism. In the dining room, a specially commissioned Giancarlo Valle parchment-and-bronze pendant hangs above a table and chairs by George Nakashima Woodworkers. “To us, organic modernism is about reconciling the rigor of modern design with the imperfection of natural materials,” says Shamshiri. “It’s about creating modern spaces that still feel human, tactile, alive and emotional.”
Mid-century modernism is trending upward (it’s slightly more popular with non-U.S. than stateside designers, cited by 30 percent and 26 percent, respectively). Minimalism and Scandinavian modernism are remaining steady. But Art Deco is having a moment, its popularity increasing slightly among U.S. designers (to 20 percent) and skyrocketing among non-U.S. ones (to 30 percent).
The dining room of a 19th-century Cambridge home by Nina Farmer shows Deco’s enduring influence on furnishings designed decades after its first flowering in the 1920s. Although most of the pieces in the room hail from the mid-20th century, their dark woods, thick silhouettes and rounded edges display a decidedly Deco bent. “I find that when you’re working with such a recognizable era, it’s important not to re-create a set piece,” Farmer says. “The goal is to capture the spirit rather than the period. By juxtaposing Deco silhouettes with modern upholstery, organic textures and abstract art, rooms feel timeless rather than thematic.”
Neoclassicism is down across the board (tapped by 17 percent of U.S. respondents and 7 percent of those outside the States). But designers are split geographically on cottagecore, with the cheeky, cozy theme still holding on in the U.S. but trending down elsewhere. Rounding out the styles to watch, brutalism, Bauhaus and Art Nouveau are all ascendant after a sleepy few years. It’s worth noting that brutalism plays surprisingly well with others, as evidenced in a Gramercy Park townhouse by Rupp Studio, where a Paul Evans wall piece is perfectly at home with MCM curves.
As for favored decades, Art Nouveau is poised to make a comeback in 2026 (with 23 percent of designers favoring it for next year’s projects, up from 15 percent this year), while the popularity of the 1970s, with its earth tones and bohemianism, is waning, down 13 percentage points over the past four years. The 1980s remains steady but looks set to get a boost for 2026, given the increased use of glass bricks and paper lamps.
Furniture: Curves, Wicker and Skirts Are In
We should pause to celebrate the inevitable return of a standout design classic. The once-ubiquitous skirted sofa — think Sally Sirkin Lewis, Thomas Britt and pretty much everything in Architectural Digest circa 1979 — is coming back, and fast. It has leapt into the survey at a healthy popularity level of 24 percent. Once languishing with overworked valances, draped tables, grandfather clocks and potted plants, this star of dramatic night shoots is being showcased in a pared-back version, a comfort item rendered in refined fabrics and combined with more-contemporary companions.
For the drawing room of the 2025 Kips Bay showhouse in Manhattan, Alessandra Branca skirted a stripe-covered sofa in the style of Jean-Michel Frank, partnering it with 1960s Brazilian cowhide chairs and an antique African Senufo wood coffee table from Andrianna Shamaris. In a Miami residence for which he channeled Jean Cocteau’s famed designs for the Côte d’Azur villa Santo Sospir, Fabrizio Casiraghi went with wide distinct pleats in a sage green for the living room sofa, which blends beautifully with 1930s French chairs and a 19th-century English table.
Curvy and irregular-shaped furniture is still very much at the forefront of most design schemes — but with 43 percent of designers believing it will be popular in 2026, down from 48 percent in 2025, its position is not quite as commanding as in years past. Second in popularity are Murano-glass pendants. In a Neo-Georgian in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights by Catherine Kwong, a pair of vintage Murano-glass petal chandeliers is the star of the dining room, a shimmering representation of a beloved designer choice.
Nipping at the heels of Murano glass in the furniture, lighting fixtures and decor category are cane, wicker and rattan pieces, irregularly shaped rugs and oversize and pleated lighting, cited by between 17 and 27 percent of designers.
Florals and Wallpaper for the Win
Florals and botanicals are in a holding pattern as the motifs of choice for both 2025 and ’26, with 22 percent of designers expecting them to continue trending into next year. “Allover” wallpaper, meanwhile, is gaining momentum. For the low-ceilinged, odd-angled guest bedroom in the San Francisco Edwardian by ABD Studio, Giannone melded these two trends, cladding the room in Wild Thing by Lewis & Wood. “We chose to wrap the entire room — ceiling included — in one continuous floral print,” Giannone says. “Doing so softens the geometry and allows the pattern to visually dissolve the transitions in the architecture. The effect is transportive — you feel enveloped, as though stepping into a secret, cocooned world.” Giannone also nods to a “British sensibility” with the fully immersive pattern. “Many English country houses carry a toile, chintz or floral across every surface,” she says. “I love the intimacy and quiet romance this approach creates.”
Color drenching is trending evenly with wallpapered ceilings, followed by heritage-style murals and upholstered walls. Patterns to watch include geometric, striped, leopard, plaid, flame-stitch brocade, toile, shibori, houndstooth, checkerboard and ikat. In other words, designers are ready to mix things up.
Art for Art’s Sake
Designers favor paintings, sculpture, drawings and photographs, in that order, for 2026, with mixed media also making a decent showing. But the intangibility of NFTs has left designers cold, with the popularity of digital art stuck in the single digits for several years.
Artful furnishings, like the powerhouse Vladimir Kagan Serpentine sofa and the Charles and Ray Eames lounge chair and ottoman, still rule the ratings, but their sway has eroded slightly as more-niche vintage designs inch up. In addition to, or perhaps instead of, these top dogs, designers expect to find ways to integrate into their schemes Kaare Klint Safari chairs, Afra & Tobia Scarpa Soriana seating, Guillerme et Chambron Catherine lounge chairs, de Sede Snake sofas and Marcel Breuer Cesca chairs.
In lighting as in furniture, less common choices are becoming more desirable. The iconic Isamu Noguchi Akari lamp, dominant at 32 percent in 2021, slipped to 18 percent for 2026. The Venini-style mushroom lamp held on at 10 percent, and the Poul Henningsen Artichoke lamp regained a bit of ground. But designers are planning to refresh their lighting by bringing in the Ingo Maurer Lampampe paper lamp, &Tradition Flowerpot and Louis Poulsen Panthella all showing upward movement in their popularity.
Consider the Source
Many designers emphasized their dedication to buying locally as a sustainable practice, with an overwhelming 72 percent of them planning to source pieces from domestic sellers in 2026. In addition to being quicker and more sustainable than resorting to overseas dealers, this approach to acquiring furnishings for projects avoids the challenges and uncertainties caused by recent tariffs, which are a major pressure point for designers, influencing sourcing decisions and timelines. One designer predicts “more domestic sourcing to avoid tariffs” in the design industry for 2026.
How Designers Are Thinking About AI
Among the most intriguing changes reported in the 2026 survey is in designers’ use of AI, specifically ChatGPT and Midjourney, which has tripled from 9 percent of respondents in 2023 to 29 percent in 2025. Another 20 percent of designers aim to adopt AI in their practice in 2026. But overwhelmingly, designers plan to keep AI in the back end and mostly out of the creative sphere, using it for tasks like text generation and renderings. “I am going to be one of the last of my generation to accept anything meaningfully good or useful from AI,” says Nozawa. “But in my office we do appreciate non-generative AI for image manipulations.”
Giannone, of ABD Studio, says the firm employs AI “selectively and in supportive ways — primarily for workflow efficiency, research, drafting documents and early conceptual ideation. The sensory and emotional aspects of design — scale, proportion, materiality and how a room feels — those remain wholly human. AI can assist, but it cannot replace intuition, collaboration or the lived experience of being in space.”
Shamshiri agrees. “We’re beginning to explore AI as a creative collaborator rather than a replacement for human intuition,” she says. “We use it in very controlled ways to help visualize early concept directions, explore narrative possibilities and sometimes to prototype materials or moods that would otherwise take weeks to sketch out. But for us, design is about emotion and human experience. AI can support that process by expanding what’s possible, but it can’t feel, and it can’t sense context the way people can. So, it’s a tool, not a voice. It’s there to help us see more clearly what we already imagine.”
“I’ve begun exploring AI tools more on the operational side of the business, for research, material sourcing and visual exploration,” adds Farmer. “It’s a useful starting point for organization and ideation, but the human eye and hand remain essential. Design, at its best, is still about intuition and striking the right balance.”
For designers, this sentiment is likely to endure through 2026, and well beyond.
