Background
Nostalgia, and how it presents
In 1688, the term nostalgia was coined by Johannes Hofer, a Swiss physician, who defined it as a “morbid longing to return to one’s home or native country, severe homesickness considered as a disease” (Etymonline). In the years since then, nostalgia has lost its association with mental illness, and its definition has greatly expanded in scope. Per current understanding, nostalgia refers to a sentimental yearning for the past, and a desire to return to the perceived happiness of an earlier place or time (Dictionary.com, 2019). This is a complex and powerful psychological phenomenon, which can stem from a wide variety of experiences and ideologies. Generally, though, characteristics of nostalgia include a constructed vision of some facet of the past, and a belief that it was better, in at least some respect, than the present (Smith and Campbell 2017).
In their 2003 book Beyond the Ruins: The Meanings of Deindustrialization, authors Jefferson Cowie and Joseph Heathcott describe the phenomenon they named “smokestack nostalgia.” In its original context, smokestack nostalgia refers to the phenomenon observed in regards to the immediate aftermath deindustrialization, wherein former industrial workers would romanticize and historicize the work done in factories, mines, and other industrial job sites. With the romantic veneer of nostalgia, workers focused on their memories of job security, laborer camaraderie, and working class pride, seemingly disregarding the fact that it was hard, grueling, and often dangerous work which destroyed people’s health, and resulted in many laborer deaths (Strangleman 2013).
Academic discourse on the subject of nostalgia largely paints it in a negative light, as maudlin and often reactionary. Certainly, conservative politicians frequently appeal to nostalgia and a perceived values of the past, seen with Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump, among others (Gentry 2014, Behler et al. 2021). Like the former industrial workers and smokestack nostalgia, this reactionary nostalgia stems from economic anxiety, and the perceived threat of out-groups. There is also, parallel to this, a strong element of nationalism in these reactionary appeals to the past, seen most obviously with Donald Trump’s recent presidential campaign slogan: “Make America great again.”
On its own, however, nostalgia is a neutral, or frequently positive emotion. A 2006 study by Wildschut et al. concluded that nostalgia “bolsters social bonds, increases positive self-regard, and generates positive affect.” A connection to the past can promote cultural identity, provide comfort, and provide context for navigating the world.
To this point, if nostalgia can stem from reactionary politics, can it also be used to push progressive social values and political agendas? Smith and Campbell (2017) discuss the idea of progressive nostalgia in their paper ‘Nostalgia for the future’: memory, nostalgia and the politics of class. The authors describe progressive nostalgia as critically contextualizing the present through an understanding of the past. To return to the idea of smokestack nostalgia, the glorification of an industrial past might result in xenophobic and anti-immigrant reactions, seen with the “stealing our jobs” line of rhetoric common in conservative politics. However, it might also result in a critical response to comparative lack of bargaining power that labor unions currently have, or the financial stability that many families were able to maintain in the postwar era, in the face of a skyrocketing cost of living.
Both of these ideas ultimately stem from an idealization of the past (often disregarding, for example, the racism and exclusionary policies of the 1950s), and Smith and Campbell acknowledge that there is not a sharp line dividing reactionary and progressive nostalgia, and that the two are often intertwined. However, the way they divide the two is by determining if the root of the sentiment is simply to return to a “better” past, versus using aspects of the past as a framework for looking to the future.
The focus of this analysis is not industrial heritage, but interior design, and how products are marketed to consumers using nostalgia. However, having a framework of understanding of where nostalgia stems from, emotionally and psychologically, and the ways it can manifest are crucial for understanding the decisions and marketing strategies at play.
Nostalgia marketing and interior design
The original goal of this analysis was to examine the commonly observed belief that interior design products, including appliances, decor, and especially furniture are not made as well as they were in the past, and the ways nostalgia flavors this impression (Hartman 2023, Singh 2024, Vlamis 2024). In many cases, the decline in furniture manufacturing quality is empirically measurable, as seen with Cooper et al’s 2021 analysis, Furniture lifetimes in a circular economy: a state of the art review, which pointed to the use of less durable materials and marketing decisions to favor short product lifespans, prompting consumers to buy replacement products more frequently than they would with furniture which was made from more durable, repairable material. This is in contrast to the common production processes used up until about the 1980s, wherein furniture was largely manufactured domestically (Mullin 2020), and used more durable, high-quality materials such as solid wood or wood veneer, even for pieces which were mass manufactured and targeted at the middle class demographic (Cooper at al. 2021).
On the other hand, the rhetorical talking point of “they just don’t make it like they used to” can easily blend into the much more reactionary “reject modernity, embrace tradition,” a sentiment which is primarily an internet meme (Know Your Meme 2020), but reveals a traditionalist, fascist-adjacent if not outright fascist ideology with regards to culture, gender, religion, art, and most relevant to this analysis, architecture and design, as seen in figure 1.
Figure 1. Image posted to r/GreatBritishMemes by a deleted user, titled “traditional architecture”
A goal of this analysis was to determine if there was a specific time period in which marketers began to use this nostalgia to evoke the past, both stylistically and in terms of quality, and how the type of marketing changed over time in response to the historical context of the advertisement. This also required a deeper look into nostalgia marketing, and the different ways this is achieved by marketing.
In the 2024 literature review by Dam, Hartmann, and Brunk titled Marketing the past: a literature review and future directions for researching retro, heritage, nostalgia, and vintage, the authors discussed different types of marketing which appeal to the past, and the strategies for each.
Their broad categories were:
1. Retro, which is a purely aesthetic fusion of past and present, and uses the visuals of the past, updated to be in line with present expectations of performance and functionality. A few contemporary examples of retro interior design products can be seen with Ikea’s revival of products from their past catalogues, or with the design of luxury kitchen appliances from brands such as Smeg, which uses an aesthetic reminiscent of streamline modern design.
Figure 2. Screenshot of Ikea.com, 2025, titled “Nytillverkad collection: vintage IKEA, reimagined”
Figure 3. Screenshot of Smeg.com, showing a product page for their retro-style refrigerator product
According to Dam, Hartmann, and Brunk (2024), the marketing appeal in retro product design is to provide comfort to consumers by appealing and connecting to the past that they know, “thus, retro marketing can momentarily reassure consumers by sending them back to an imagined space of moral certainty and romance while at the same time fostering feelings of uniqueness, newness, and exclusivity.” Retro products provide stability and resolution to the tension between past and present.
2. Heritage brands, broadly speaking, leverage brand reputation and the perception of authenticity. The longevity of the brand (or at least the brand name) carries an implicit assumption of quality and consumer trust (Dam, Hartmann, and Brunk 2024). A phenomenon more tailored to furniture is that heritage is used to refer to the style or design of the furniture, rather than the specific brand, though the two may often be intertwined (Ettema 1982). In either case, heritage furniture carries associations of quality craftsmanship, durable materials, and (often, but not always) a historicist design character. A few examples of contemporary heritage furniture marketing include high-end design companies such as Vitra, or tradition and craftsmanship-oriented pieces, such as the various distributors of Amish furniture, shown in figures 4-5.
Figure 4. Screenshot of Vitra.com, showing the product page for the 1959 chair by Verner Panton
Figure 5. Screenshot of Amishfurniturefactory.com, from the homepage
Heritage furniture, particularly in cases like Vitra’s, are associated with authenticity. An authentic Eames lounge chair from Herman Miller, for example, is considerably more valuable than a superficially similar knockoff, as seen in figures 6-7.
Figure 6. Screenshot of Hermanmiller.com, showing the product page for the Eames lounge chair
Figure 7. Screenshot of Wayfair.com, showing the product page for an Eames lounge chair knockoff
While part of this is certainly the quality of the materials and the craftsmanship, the perceived authenticity of the genuine Herman Miller chair also adds to its value. As a side note, the images for the knockoff listing appear to be AI-generated, adding to the perceptual gap in quality between the two.
An additional wrinkle in defining heritage, as it comes to furniture, is that brand names might be bought and sold, and manufacturers using lower-quality material and craftsmanship techniques might use the brand name recognition to establish consumer trust, while selling an inferior product to that which was produced under that brand name in the past. This can be seen with Broyhill. The company was a major player in the mid–century American furniture manufacturing business, and produced a number of very popular and well-known designs, one of which is depicted in figure 8.
Figure 8. Broyhill Brasilia walnut dresser, 1960
After a series of bankruptcies, the Broyhill brand name and trademark was sold multiple times, eventually coming to land with Big Lots in 2019 (Hartman 2023), which is now also undergoing bankruptcy and restructuring, leaving the future of even the brand name uncertain (Kroll Restructuring Administration 2024). Regardless, the quality and design character of Broyhill furniture which gained it its reputation in the mid 20th century is no more, and only the Broyhill name remains. A similar story can be seen with the Lane Furniture Company, another American furniture manufacturer founded in 1912, which has also declared bankruptcy and sold its name and trademark (Moss 2023). In these cases, as well as others, the heritage label is based on perceived brand quality, regardless of actual quality, and rely on the nostalgic idea of furniture being of generally better quality in the past.
3. Vintage, as a term, refers to pieces which were manufactured in the past, and carry a material connection to that time. Like heritage brands, vintage pieces are associated with authenticity, but to a greater degree, and with the added perception of being unique, or even “the original” as opposed to a replica – even an authorized replica. Returning to the example of the Eames Lounge Chair, seen in figures 6-7, even the authentic piece from Herman Miller, produced new to order, carries less value than an “original,” period-produced piece, which is listed for approximately 2x the price of a new chair, shown in figure 9.
Figure 9. Screenshot of 1stdibs.com, showing a listing for an Eames lounge chair produced in the 1970s.
According to Dam, Hartmann, and Brunk (2024), vintage pieces allow the consumer to have a personal, meaningful relationship to the past. Sentimentality and exclusivity are common tactics used in the marketing of vintage items. Due to the nature of vintage pieces as, by definition, out of production and limited, the nature of vintage marketing is very different from the new products which fall into the retro or heritage categories, and much less likely to be seen in the case studies from The House Beautiful. Nevertheless, this type of nostalgia marketing is culturally significant, particularly when examining the idea that people largely perceive furniture of the past as being higher quality than newly produced options from budget brands. In a similar vein, platforms such as Chairish or 1stdibs, for reselling vintage home goods have grown substantially since 2020, particularly among millennials, in part due to association with the sustainability of buying secondhand (The Ethos Editors 2023).
Objective and Methodology
This analysis examines several research questions:
- How is nostalgia leveraged in advertisements for interior design products?
- Is there an identifiable shift in how marketing uses nostalgia in response to current (for the time) events?
- Is there an identifiable difference between marketing which targets reactionary vs. progressive nostalgia?
- If so, can these also be tied to historical context?
Case studies consist of advertisements published in The House Beautiful magazine, spanning from 1905-2015. At least one ad per decade has been selected, more during particularly tumultuous periods during the 20th century (e.g. world war 2). Advertisements which were considered eligible for use as case studies had to meet at least one of the following criteria:
- Products designed using historicist style, wherein the historicism was a major part of the intended appeal
- Glorification/idealization of history
- References to craftsmanship of the past
- Sentimental appeal to the past
There is a caveat to criterion 1 in that ads which feature products designed in a historicist style, but do not explicitly harken to that history in the verbiage, have been excluded from analysis. An example of this kind of advertisement is shown in figure 10, for reference:
Figure 10. An advertisement from the January 1969 edition of House Beautiful
In this case, while the pictured piece of furniture is historicist in style, the text indicates that the intended appeal of the product is that is is French Provincial in style, rather than directly calling on the past as part of the marketing. While there is likely an element of idealization of history being leveraged in ads such as this, the selected case study ads reference the past in more direct ways.
The selected case study advertisements have been roughly categorized by the type of nostalgia marketing that seems to be the most prominent element in design and presentation (retro, heritage, vintage, or general nostalgia) and analyzed within their historical context.
Case Studies and Analysis
1900s
Figure 11. An advertisement from the October 1905 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
This advertisement calls out specific events in American history, and glorifies that history by declaring that the products are “reproduction[s] … of the furniture used by the forefathers.”
This ad, as well as many others which were observed during research but not selected for analysis, depicts reproductions of 18th century furniture, and ties this style directly to what seems to be interpreted as a golden age of American history, and leveraging both nostalgia and nationalism in these types of ads.
1910s
Figure 12. An advertisement from the June 1911 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
This advertisement, interestingly, directly compares their material (“old hickory”) with popular material choices of the day (wicker, willow, painted wood), stating that it is more durable than these new materials. This is at least one case of the “they just don’t make it like they used to” sentiment going back at least as far as 1911.
Figure 13. An advertisement from the April 1916 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
This ad emphasizes fidelity and authenticity in their reproductions of historical designs, leveraging one of the hallmarks of heritage design. The desirability of these historical designs is taken as a given.
1920s
Figure 14. An advertisement from the November 1923 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
This ad appeals to the consumer with a direct and personal connection to American history, promising an accurate reproduction of historical objects. It makes a stong association between owning a piece of this history and the idea of being perceived as “cultured.”
Figure 15. An advertisement from the November 1923 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
This advertisement calls on the historical applications of walnut, and associates the material with tradition, a connection to a lost (idealized) history, and quality.
1930s
Figure 16. An advertisement from the February 1935 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
This ad romanticises the past, with specific attention to the idea of the Grand Tour, creating an association between historicist styles and the perceived luxury of the English upper class during the 18th century.
Figure 17. An advertisement from the March 1935 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
This ad highlights a perception of artisans of the past as producing higher quality work than current craftspeople/manufacturers (present company excluded, of course). This reinforces the idea that the “they just don’t make it like they used to” sentiment is not a new phenomenon.
1940s
Figure 18. An advertisement from the January 1942 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
Much like the ad shown in figure 14, makes a direct emotional appeal to the consumer’s nationalist feelings towards a constructed ideal American history, framing the product as something that was used by “heroic” historical figures (George Washington, Paul Revere).
Figure 19. An article featuring furniture products from the February 1942 edition of House Beautiful
Category: General nostalgia
This article is not an ad placed by the manufacturer, but does feature and highlight specific products, and showcases an interesting perspective, and as such was included in these case studies as an exception. It demonstrates a desirability of the functionality of modernist design, in terms of modularity, efficiency, and flexibility of layout, while also calling out to traditional design aesthetics, describing them as “warm and cheery.” This attitude displays anxiety regarding modernity and the war, and an implication of longing to return to what might be seen as friendlier or simpler times.
Figure 20. An advertisement from the November 1942 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Retro
This ad depicts a product which romanticizes the antebellum south, as well as specifically referencing the confederacy. In a phenomenon similar to smokestack nostalgia, the perceived sophistication and charm of the south are highlighted, while the negative aspects (vast inequality, widespread poverty, and enslavement) are not part of this constructed past.
Figure 21. An advertisement from the March 1944 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
This ad appeals strongly to nationalism, referencing the war effort, and uses the tag line “keep up the American way of living” to call back to an idealized “normalcy” of pre-war American life, which this product, according to the ad, is consistent with.
Figure 22. An advertisement from the March 1944 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
This ad appeals to tradition through the use of specific references to Christianity. It calls out craftsmanship of the past and brand history as being associated with morality and steadiness, in contrast to current times, which are tumultuous and frightening.
The ads published in House Beautiful during the years that the USA was involved in world war 2 are not unique in their heavy push toward nationalism in addition to nostalgia, but the amount of nationalism on display, as well as the general concentration of nationalistic ads both increased. This type of advertising, combined with the glorification of the past, specifically appeal to reactionary nostalgia.
1950s
Figure 23. An advertisement from the April 1956 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
There are a few pieces to unpack with this ad. First, whereas in the first half of the 20th century, historicist styles and period reproductions tended to focus on furniture of the 18th century. Here, furniture from the early 1900s is seen as desirable and nostalgic instead. Furthermore, some of the verbiage, emphasizing the advertised product’s solid wood construction, may be a reaction to the increase use of engineered materials and mass production, and a perceived decline in quality in the furniture industry.
1960s
Figure 24. An advertisement from the August 1967 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
The reference to “old time values” in this ad indicate a preference for a past in which things were more affordable, or at least perceived so. This, combined with the reference to early American history and heritage, may be a reaction to a quickly changing society, and economic anxieties associated with the time period (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2024).
1970s
Figure 25. An advertisement from the January 1972 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Retro
The visual juxtaposition between the Greek-inspired product and an elegant, classical interior conflates the two, with the aim of having the consumer project their positive associations with a constructed/idealised version of the past onto the product.
Figure 26. An advertisement from the February 1972 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
This ad associates historicist styles with sophistication and maturity, and presents the product as timeless, in opposition to being trendy. It is during this time period that advertisements begin to use “timelessness” as a point of appeal more frequently, particularly for products with a historicist design, leveraging a romanticised and consistent past in opposition to an ever-changing, confusing present.
1980s
Figure 27. An advertisement from the January 1981 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
The 1980s show a swing back into nationalism in advertising, consistent with marked economic, social, and political conservatism in the USA, concurrent with the Reagan administration (Encyclopedia.com 2019). In this ad, reproductions of 18th century furniture return to the spotlight, highlighting authenticity and the perceived superior craftsmanship of the past.
Figure 28. An advertisement from the March 1981 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
Similarly to the product depicted in figure 20, this ad romanticizes the “grace and elegance” of the antebellum south, emphasizing aesthetics and disregarding and of the negative aspects of this time period.
Figure 29. An advertisement from the April 1981 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
This ad leverages ideas of authenticity and tradition, and shows a designs of an Art Nouveau style, among others.
Figure 30. An article featuring products from the June 1986 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
The products featured in this article use ideas similar to those seen in the arts and crafts movement, with a perceived superiority of traditional methods of craftsmanship, including artistic expression and material quality. This may be a reaction against increased use of synthetic materials and mass production. It was during the 1980s that American manufacturing began to steadily decline, with more manufacturing being outsourced (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2024).
Figure 31. An advertisement from the July 1988 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
Consistent with the increase in observed nationalism in advertising during the 1980s, this ad creates an emotional appeal to the consumer by forging a connection between their products and a “heroic” figure of American history, Thomas Jefferson.
1990s
Figure 32. An advertisement from the July 1991 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Heritage
Much like ads of previous decades, the manufacturer of colonial-era inspired historicist furniture here uses nationalism and the perceived elegance of the past to appeal to consumers.
Figure 33. An advertisement from the July 1991 edition of House Beautiful
Category: General nostalgia
In addition to the type of advertising for historical styles seen throughout these case studies, the 1990s show the beginning of a trend towards leveraging personal nostalgia – in this case, sentimentality for family members.
2000s
Figure 34. An advertisement from the July 2006 edition of House Beautiful
Category: General nostalgia
Many people associate their childhoods with less complexity in their lives, and more whimsy and wonder. This ad uses that personal nostalgia, targeting consumers who want to experience those feelings again.
While it is difficult to prove a negative, it is worth mentioning that ads which leveraged a glorified depiction of the past became harder to find in House Beautiful, beginning in the 2000s. This may indicate a broader shift in marketing during this time period, or it may be more specific to how interior design products.
2010s
Figure 35. An article featuring products from the April 2015 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Retro
This article features a design motif, and calls out several historical applications of it, including Elsie de Wolfe in American history. This posits this design feature as being “timeless,” similarly to how the historicist style in figure 26 is depicted in opposition to trend cycles. A similar marketing strategy can be seen in figure 36 as well.
Figure 35. An advertisement from the October 2015 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Retro
This ad leverages the past and the idea of timelessness by directly juxtaposing historicist and contemporary imagery.
Figure 37. An advertisement from the October 2015 edition of House Beautiful
Category: Retro
In contrast to previous decades, for which the historicist styles most heavily depicted as worthy of nostalgia were those of the 1700s, the 2010s show a marked increase in appealing to mid-century Modernist styles, including references to a perception of better quality construction during that time. This further emphasizes the idea that “they just don’t make it like they used to” is a persistent idea with regards to nostalgia and perception of the past, and that this idea shifts with the times to incorporate a changing world.
Conclusions
The first research question for this analysis regarded how nostalgia is used in advertising for interior design products. Overall, at least during the 20th century, the overwhelming majority of these ads featured products which fell into the “heritage” category of nostalgia marketing, capitalising on a glorified view of the past, particularly American history, and often highlighting a perception that craftsmanship was superior during previous eras. Somewhat in contrast with initial expectations, the sentiment of “they just don’t make it like they used to” did not emerge in response to the measurable decline in the quality of furniture during the past several decades (Cooper et al. 2021), but has been present throughout the examined time periods. This validates the idea of nostalgia as being sentimental, and based on a constructed and idealized version of the past, which shifts as the present progresses.
While some types of nostalgia-leveraging advertisements were quite consistent throughout most of the case studies, specifically those for 18th century reproduction furniture, there were certainly observable trends and shifts in the depiction of nostalgic products over time, most notably going into the digital era of the 2000s and beyond. During this time period, overt historicism and idealization of history declined, and it became more common to see historicist styles be labeled as “timeless.”
With regards to the framework of reactionary vs progressive nostalgia, many ads which appeal to reactionary nostalgia can be identified, particularly during periods of intense nationalism and conservative ideology, such as world war 2, and the 1980s. It is not easy to identify any cases which specifically call on progressive nostalgia, though many of the ads examined might be considered neutral in this regard. Certainly, nostalgia is not a psychological phenomenon belonging to only one side of the political aisle.
An interesting direction for future analysis might be to compare the broad trends in interior design products to other types of advertising, such as fashion or technology, to better understand how nostalgia was used in marketing widely, versus in industry-specific ways.
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