Can fast furnishings ever be timeless?

Morris & Co is partnering with everybody and I have questions

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of The Bell!

You know I’m always banging on about the importance of craftsmanship, quality, and lasting value in the products we buy. And that will always remain one of the primary themes of this newsletter.

However! There’s a balance to be struck with budget and need. Sometimes you can’t wait around to find the perfect bed frame at an estate sale; you need a bed to sleep on and you need it now. And sometimes you can’t splash out for that 100% wool Persian rug. (Although I would argue a wool area rug is one of the better, higher-impact investments you can make for your home. More on the irony of this concerning one of my purchases, later.)

Image courtesy of Morris & Co, by @whittneyparkinson on IG

For example, I personally am a happy customer of the Ikea Billy Bookshelf. I would argue it’s a timeless piece. Lol, I know—but seriously. It’s simple, straightforward modern design; looks good in any kind of house; endlessly “hackable” to make its look and function more custom.

However, it falls into the category of things that are probably more expensive to pack and move to a new place than rebuy and rebuild when you get there… making it vulnerable to getting thrown away when people move house. If you can gift it to someone else when moving, though, and it takes on a second life, that’s better. If the new owner regifts it when they’re done, even better. (My neighborhood has a “Buy Nothing” Facebook group where people post stuff they’re giving away and other people pick it up. Consider starting one of these for your neighborhood if it doesn’t exist already!)

Or, just pay to move the bookshelf, since you already own it and it’s already built. And because, like I say, you can customize it to your new needs and keep the value going.

So, the question of whether or not it’s wasteful to buy fast furniture like an Ikea bookshelf in the first place depends on what you do with it.

I’ve been pondering this question for a few months now, ever since I bought a Morris & Co for Ruggable area rug for my bedroom and realized it’s not natural materials… after it arrived. So I just kept it. I don’t know why I assumed! Probably because the Morris & Co brand is so high-end.

Image courtesy of Ruggable.com. Looks pretty great, right?

Interesting!! Ruggable is actually advertising “timeless style” as a perk of their Morris & Co collaboration. And “machine washable” and “spillproof materials” are nice ways to say “polyester.” Sigh. I was shopping in too much of a hurry—and too focused on design and appearance—to examine all this!

Morris & Co’s recent partnerships with fast furnishing brands like Ruggable and now Zara Home are really interesting to me. Morris & Co was founded by William Morris in 1861, and he was one of the most influential figures in the Arts and Crafts movement. All about craftsmanship and quality! His floral illustrations are stunning and versatile, working just as well on wallpaper as fabric as rugs.

Image courtesy of ZaraHome.com. Kind of washed out versions of the original Morris & Co prints, no? That fits the Zara Home aesthetic though, and no doubt they know their customer well.

The Morris & Co brand is also super high-end. It’s one I would, and probably will, do a Heritage Series on (Edit: I did. Read it here). Handcrafted wallpapers run $350-$400 / roll. Made-to-measure pillows start around $150 but as high as $400, depending on the fabric. You get it. So by applying a Morris & Co design on an affordable product like a Ruggable rug, it’s basically the same as a luxury fashion designer doing a line for H&M. You get the look, but is the look empty without the quality?

All style and no substance?

For Morris & Co this is particularly, idk, poignant—seeing as the entire brand was founded on a resurgence of decorative arts and craftsmanship between 1880 and 1920. And the central company still upholds that value, to the best of my knowledge.

Image courtesy of Morris & Co, by @katierosenfeld on IG

I like the rug fine! It’s pretty, it’s low-maintenance. It’s in our bedroom now and I’ll probably put it in my daughter’s room in a few years, where it’ll be easy to clean up spills. But I don’t love it. My bare feet can tell the difference, lol. There’s something plasticky about a synthetic rug. Am I a snob? Yes. Eventually, I will give or throw it away—it’s not something that will be handed down through the generations in my family, which a rug absolutely has the potential for.

So I would say the Ruggable rug is not a timeless purchase with lasting value—despite having a timeless design. For me, design alone is not enough for me to keep a homeware item for my entire life and beyond.

But other people will have a different definition. Maybe they have a wool allergy, or just aren’t a wool rug snob. If the Ruggable rug still looks good in 30 years, maybe it will still be going strong for other people who bought it. Same with the Zara stuff—some of it is 100% linen, not bad.

So can fast furnishings ever be timeless? The question is up to everyone to decide for themselves.

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Talk to you Friday with this week’s recs.

xx Jane

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