March 30th, 2011

Stencil Renaissance

You know that saying, “everything old is new again”? Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to apply to the aging human body, but it sure seems to apply to the popularity of stenciled pattern through the ages. After falling out of favor in the early part of the 2oth century, stencils enjoyed  a major resurgence following the Bicentennial celebration of America in 1976.  I became heavily involved obsessed with stencils in the 80′s as I spoke about in this recent post, and watched stencils as an elegant wall decorating choice grow exponentially through the 90′s and early 2000′s.  As fashion trends come and go, so too do decorating trends, and wall stenciling gave up ground to other types of surface treatment options such as Venetian Plaster, gilding, and various other mediums, and eventually gave way altogether to that awful trend of JUST plain, unadorned paint.  Phew! Glad THAT seems to have passed quickly!walls-stencils-royal-design

Well…..stencils seem to be BACK in a very BIG way these day (happy dance!) as a whole new generation of young designers and home decorators are discovering stenciling anew! Case in point: this lovely post recently on our Royal Design Studio stencils by Brittany at A Daily Dose of Harri Ette. (I am reposting her photo montage above) Brittany is not alone! I see bloggers worldwide now ”discovering” stencils as an outlet for creativity and personal design expression in their own homes. Another example is Angel Li’s post on 77+Love. So, if you hang around long enough you can be be “trendy” all over again! :)

One Response to “Stencil Renaissance”

  1. Regina Says:

    I am just giddy with glee at the stencil resurgence. Plus, there’s no seams, you can color them in any scheme (instead of being relegated to the company’s available choices) and you can pick any style and size you’d like. What’s not to love?!? Those blog posts are great, btw!