These Decor Trends Took Over TikTok Last Year—Here’s What to Expect in 2023

Hint: We’re going back to the classics.

Spend just a couple of hours scrolling through TikTok (a pretty easy endeavor), and you’ll likely become familiar with whatever aesthetic or “core” has a hold on the app at the moment. Even if you’re not a user yourself, you’ve probably heard of the major players that came out of 2022—but what you may not realize is the impact they’ve had on the interior design world.

Take Barbiecore: Set off by excitement for the upcoming film, people were posting pink-inspired rooms and pieces nonstop last year—the hashtag has nearly 230 million views.

At Chairish, a contemporary vintage decor and furniture site, vice president of merchandising Noel Fahden saw the trend start to take off before it became huge.

“We were selling these 1980s postmodern laminate casegoods, especially in mauve-y, dusty pink, and they were selling really quickly,” she says. “And then we started to see all of the Barbiecore movement. It’s always interesting because we're watching what sells on our site every single day, right? And so we see these microtrends emerge, sooner sometimes than you’d even see them in the broader landscape.”

Here’s a recap of all the trends that defined decor on TikTok 2022 and what you can expect to see in the coming months.

2022 TikTok Decor Trends

Cottagecore

Possibly the longest-lasting TikTok home style to date, cottagecore started gaining traction on the internet in 2020 amid the pandemic. It’s an aesthetic that Chairish has been promoting for a few years now in the form of antique pieces and sculptural table top pieces.

“It’s almost like the next iteration of farmhouse,” Fahden says. “But for our customer and what our customer likes, it’s actually been more of like an English country look that we first identified well over three years ago. It was the pleated lampshades,  rustic English furniture—this idea of collections and layers and ruffles.”

Grandmillennial

Grandmillennial goes hand in hand with cottagecore in its vintage feel and also takes a lot of inspiration from English styles. Fahden describes it as the use of chintz, florals, pillows with a ruffled border, and box pleats on a slipcover.

TikToks about the style have shown up on #ThriftTok and feature room transformations complete with kitschy wallpaper, darker furniture, and “the tiny art movement.”

Maximalism

“Maximalism is something that we’ve been merchandising toward since I've been at Chairish, over seven years,” Fahden says. “For our customer, it’s color, patterns that are over the top, and animal print as a neutral.”

After the minimalism of the 2010s, all things eclectic are back in a bold way—especially mixing different styles and contemporary and vintage pieces. On TikTok you can find a plethora of home tours with custom-painted walls, loud rugs, and even colorful appliances.

Texture

From living walls to ’70s-inspired trends, people are looking for ways to incorporate texture into their space. The design has made its way onto TikTok prominently with DIY canvas artwork made with modeling paste, and it shows how the interior design space is moving toward adding as much visual interest to a room as possible.

“There's two things that relate to it,” Fahden says. “First of all, wallpaper. We do have some grasscloth wallpaper that gives you that texture. To me a lot of it was like flooded plaster on the walls, and we actually see a lot of interest in plaster furniture.”

:

Coastal Grandmother

The instability of the last few years has led to a desire for comfort in the home. With a relaxed, beachy feel, coastal grandmother ties in with the other quirky, whimsical TikTok aesthetics. Fahden has seen it materialize on Chairish specifically with four-poster beds.

“[It’s] this idea of being kind of cocooned, even in architecture,” she says. “I know that there’s been a little bit of a move away from these huge, open-floor plan spaces. We might be kind of returning [to being] more cozy.”

In 2023: A Return to Traditional

Although the year just started, Fahn is seeing a transition into a new overarching design style.

“With the exception of Barbiecore, if you think about coastal grandmother, cottagecore, and grandmillennial, there’s something very traditional and familiar about them,” she says. “And much of the trends in home and fashion are kind of on a 20 year cycle. So I would expect to see trends that are just more straightforward. It's about [being] traditional.”

The hashtag #traditionalhome has 12.8 million views on TikTok, and included in the trend is adding more walls, classic wood furniture, and of course, thrifted decor. Fahden lists English pine dressers, antique porcelain tableware, and wallpaper as a way to get the look. Although the nature of the internet is to push a new aesthetic every week, Fahden believes this traditional shift will prevail, along with more interior ideas and keeping the planet in mind when decorating.

“I think it really started with Instagram and Pinterest, but there's just so much more of an awareness of design and interest in design,” Fahden says. “It’s like this instant access to new looks and new trends and new ways of showing things. But I also think there’s just obviously such a movement and an awareness and an interest in sustainability and the importance of vintage.”