'House Beautiful': Style and Consumption in the Home

from Intumus: Interior Design Reader Edited by Mark Taylor and Juleanna Preston 2006 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Ruth Madigan and Moira Munro

Ruth Madigan and Moira Munro's discussion of self-expression, personal style, and the constraints of social class and familial relations takes a social science approach to domestic consumption. Their qualitative interviews of working- and lower middle-class households suggest that 'good design' is not a condition of 'good taste'. Occupiers tended to reflect notions of homeliness, warmth and welcoming, in which consumer decisions are driven by use-value over style. For these consumers, judgements on their home are more concerned with respectability above style and visual presentation. Central to this work is a realisation that the domestic interior is constantly renegotiated in order to resolve the tension between identity and social role.

Twentieth-century changes in the technologies of heating, plumbing and refrigeration have had profound effects on the physical design of mass housing: the introduction of bathrooms, the disappearance of sculleries and the advent of the fitted kitchen.¹ More recent innovations in technology have focused on the home as a leisure centre, rather than the 'labour saving' devices for a place of (house) work. Deep-freezers, dishwashers and tumble dryers were first included in the General Household Survey in the 1970s, while video recorders, home computers and CD players were added in the 1980s, and wrought their impact primarily on the living-room or lounge. The central focus of the modern living-room has switched from the fire-place to the television. Televisions, which like radios² were initially disguised to look like pieces of furniture housed in wooden cabinets, have graduated from brown plastic teak-effect to a more obviously technological black casing, along with the video and sound system. The hi-tech look created a more masculine and industrial aesthetic. It is perhaps no coincidence that men rather than women were the target for home-based consumption in this area of leisure products, reflecting a gendered division of labour in which the home still functions as a place of rest, leisure and recuperation for men, but remains a place of work for women.³

The broad movements of contemporary design: Art deco, Moderne, Scandinavian modern, Hi-tech, only partially reflect popular preferences. If we look at what is actually available in modestly priced, mass-market stores (Landmark, MFI) we find a range of

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choices which might be described as either traditional cottagey (flowers and pine); country house (flowers and mahogany); modern, hi-tech (plain colours and black ash); and postmodern (pastel colours and beech). There are many influences on the currents of popular taste. Adrian Forty has pointed out how different regimes of commercial management are reflected in different styles of office design.⁴ The industrial efficiency of the hi-tech design was associated with Taylorist 'scientific' management regimes, only to be supplanted by a softer design (lighter colours and 'personal enclaves') to accompany the later human relations school of management. Office design has a real echo in home design where the starker contrasts of hi-tech are rapidly being replaced by pastel shades, lighter woods, and softer upholstery not unlike the 'customer friendly' refits which have transformed the public areas of building societies and banks over the last five years.

In practice, all these styles spill over into one another because few people buy all their furniture at the one time and because the styles themselves are hybrid. Lower income households are less likely to buy new furniture at all, relying on second hand purchases and hand-me-downs. Even when furniture is put together in room displays (as in mass-market mail order catalogues) the hi-tech style, for example, matches black ash units, black leather seating and plain floor coverings, with ruched bordello curtains and embossed velveteen wallpaper. It is these touches of plush which for most consumers rescues an otherwise sparse, Spartan style and imparts a feeling of comfort, luxury and indulgence which is important to many people's ideal of 'home,' but conflicts with a designer view of style, and no doubt 'good taste.' One can see both Hollywood and the country house providing images of what constitutes luxury in popular taste.

Change in the furniture industry has been a product of changes in retailing and distribution⁵ rather than innovations in the production line. Production methods have on the whole remained rather traditional, relying on standardisation to make cost savings, batch production rather than mass production, power tools rather than automation. Ironically it is this which has enabled producers to continue to describe their products as 'made by the finest craftsmen,' 'upholstered by hand' with all the connotations of luxury hand-made objects and skilled crafts, when in fact most three-piece suites are constructed from the roughest of frames (hand made) and covered with foam and fabric using nothing more refined than a staple gun.⁶

This claim to craftsmanship is important in the iconography of furniture. It reinforces the familial values which are central to ideas of 'home:' solidity, continuity and honesty. But it also has important class overtones. As Bourdieu notes, the upper classes have always had a preference for antique products which may directly represent family continuity through inheritance, and may also be seen as investment.⁷ These values have been reiterated by the professional and managerial middle classes' choice of reproduction furniture, old rather than antique, or real wood (the history of stripped pine would tell a

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tale), though the language of craft production is also used to promote even cheaper ranges of furniture.

Despite these elements of conservatism in the furniture industry, there have been some important changes. The growth in out-of-town stores accessible to car owners⁸ with lower rentals mean more space for display, with mock-up interiors including suggested colour schemes and accessories. The addition of cafés and children's play areas indicates a shift towards 'leisure shopping,' recognising that many people like to browse and absorb ideas without any immediate intention to buy. Ironically, DIY stores are an increasingly important outlet for furniture, particularly flat-pack furniture which perhaps represents the biggest single innovation in furniture production and marketing, overcoming many of the problems of storage and transport and substantially reducing labour costs in construction. Other mass-market stores remain relatively specialised however. Few have followed the Habitat/IKEA route, selling a 'total life-style concept' though these stores have undoubtedly had an impact on taste beyond their immediate range of customers.

Our own research begins to explore how far the aesthetics of the home are influenced by fashion (i.e. commercially-inspired styles designed to sell) and the extent to which these styles reflect other meanings derived from definitions of home in terms of familism or social class. These considerations were explored in two closely related pieces of empirical work: a postal questionnaire with 382 respondents, and twenty extended interviews, both carried out in 1991 …

It was immediately striking in our interviews that there was not generally a strong involvement with design as a way of expressing and demonstrating 'good taste.' Our sample of working-class and lower middle-class households did not appear to share the vocabulary of design and style promoted so strongly in the design-conscious 1980s. Responses to questions about how major items were chosen undermined the notion that respondents generally had a firm idea of the style they wanted to present. Instead, they pragmatically went out and bought what was available.

Mrs N: We just went to the shop. It was as simple as that. I didn't sit and plan it out or anything (aged 26, owner-occupier).

Such comments should not be taken to imply that there was no care or no interest in furnishing and decorating of the home, but the specifics of design were not uppermost. For most people such considerations were subordinated to other, related images of home, family and social class. When asked to describe what impression they hoped other people would have of their home, typically respondents expressed notions connected to familial ideology – homeliness, warmth and a welcoming feel:

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Mrs G: That you can come in at any time, it's nice and homely (aged 28, owner-occupier).

Mrs R: You can come in and feel at ease, they don't have to feel that they have to watch what they are doing (aged 45, owner-occupier).

These expressions are also closely related to findings explored in our previous work which examined the meaning of privacy in the home. We argued that an important element of familial ideology was that the home should be a relaxed 'back-region' where material wealth and show is much less important than the human relationships sustained.

There is, however, a tension between the notion of home as a place in which to relax and the recognition that the home may also be revealing about the household. In the social groupings represented in this sample, the social standing of the household appears to be more strongly reflected in criteria of respectability, expressed as keeping up standards of cleanliness and tidiness, rather than overt striking for 'good taste' or a 'sense of distinction.'⁹ (… p 47)

The postmodern debate has rightly drawn attention to the pleasure people take in consumption. This is an important antidote to a rather one-sided view of consumers solely as 'victims' of aggressive marketing and manipulative advertising. However, the view of consumption as pleasurable leisure activity and a means of self-expression is easily overdrawn. 'Home' is an important expression of identity, yet it is an identity which is only partially achieved through appearances (furnishings and decor) and overt consumption. The social relations and 'etiquette' which dictate both relations within the household, and between the household and a wider public, are for most people much more important. The human relationships of being able to make people feel welcome, comfortable and relaxed, either as outsiders or as family members appear to be the dominant concern of the households in this study. They did not engage in discussions of style and design when expressing the way in which they hoped to achieve this effect. However, this apparent rejection of the centrality of consumption in shaping and expressing meanings of the home does not represent the full complexity of the relationship between the household and the home for the households in our study.

First, it is important to remember that this study contained households on relatively modest incomes. There is no doubt that participation in lifestyle shopping, careful co-ordination of style and detailed attention to 'taste' is severely restricted by considerations of cost and utility. The expense of buying major items militates against the development of a grand design and severely restricts the ability to respond to any new fashions in home furnishing. In the typical case things are acquired gradually and expected to last some time. It was evident that an important criterion for choosing furnishings and décor was their functionality, variously expressed as suitability for children, ease of keeping clean

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and the probable life of the item. Use value is a concept which gets neglected in the whole debate about the playfulness of signs and symbols.

Second, the judgements that these respondents typically believe are made about their houses are not to do with visual presentation and style, but to do with respectability. Standards of cleanliness and the efficiency of domestic organisation carry heavy moral overtones.¹⁰ They are laden with judgements about social worth, as embodied in the division between the 'respectable' or decent poor and the 'feckless' or undeserving – though by no means confined to those who would consider themselves poor. These are issues which create anxiety not playfulness, particularly for women. Women typically take the responsibility for setting and maintaining standards of housekeeping and bear the brunt of unfavourable judgements. A common strategy of dealing with the potential conflict between the notion of home as a place of comfort and relaxation and the high standards of housekeeping required, is to reconcile the two in the notion that it is impossible to be relaxed or comfortable in a house that does not meet the high standard of cleanliness and tidiness desired. This, of course, implies a burden of constant effort to maintain these standards.

Third, advertising is designed to play on insecurities about being a good housewife/mother, and an attractive/fashionable wife or worker. The images that are presented create pressures to consume, underpinned both by the desire to have a clean and respectable house in which things are not worn or used, but also to be stylish. Shops and magazines often display fully coordinated sets of goods (furniture, carpets, fabrics, wallpapers, accessories) and design ranges with carefully matched and contrasting patterns and colours. The current style is arguably to present such displays as if they were an artful and individualistic assemblage, reflecting skill in interior design.

There was a considerable degree of anxiety expressed about an inability to reproduce such a harmonious effect through serendipity, suggesting both that people did feel it was important to achieve the right sort of look and also that a message that it is skill rather than money which achieves the effect is accepted.

We cannot forget that 'commodities' are designed for sale at profit. The creation of a postmodern aesthetic is just as much about selling as the mass marketing associated with Fordist production, even if it presents apparently more differentiated customised products. Differentiation may meet specialised needs and in that sense represents a response to the consumer, but it is also about creating 'needs' and amplifying social divisions. The evidence presented here suggests that people feel under increasing pressure to conform to a heightened consciousness of design and style in the home. For poorer households, this may not represent freedom to manipulate symbols and images in a way that enables self-expression, but may instead serve to re-emphasise their lack of resources.

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We have tried here to get some insight into the way in which women, in particular, view their home and the items they have selected for it. We are very dependent on their own reporting; we did not, for example, participate in shopping trips or the process of decision making. We have to recognise that some responses are purely conventional. Everyone is scathing about the tactics used to sell double-glazing, but that does not mean they are immune to the hard sell. People can obviously be manipulated by advertising without realising, or despite their best intentions. Nonetheless, the apparent contradictions in an individual's responses are most revealing about the processes at work: the conflict between the home as a place to relax and make yourself comfortable, as against an ever-present sense that standards must be maintained; the idea that consumerism is something to be rejected and yet to be seen as out-of-date, or old-fashioned is a personal condemnation; the belief that things should be selected for utility and comfort competing with the desire for things which are new and look new.

Home and family are powerful concepts which shape not only the way in which we perceive our physical surroundings, but also the way in which we construct our surroundings. In some sense the physical can become an embodiment of these culturally dominant ideas. However, we must beware of simply 'reading off' meanings uncritically, without looking at how objects are used in practice. The 'family home' as presented by any of the major house-builders, for example, carries important symbolic meanings which are built-in to the very design of the house. This constrains but it does not determine the way in which the house is used, or the meanings which the consumers attribute to it. It is the complexity of this interaction between the physical and the intellectual, the objective and the subjective, which is emphasised in Bourdieu's concept of 'habitus.' As with other aspects of social life, style in the home is the subject of constant renegotiation. It is an important aspect of self-presentation and a statement about the social roles to which individuals aspire. It is constrained and circumscribed by the dominant and conventional meanings attributed to different patterns of consumption, and the material resources available to the consumer. (… p 56)

Notes

WHE Dudley, Design of Dwellings, HMSO (CHAC, London), 1944.
A Forty, Objects of Desire: Design and Society 1750–1980, Thames and Hudson (London), 1986.
R Deem, All Work and No Play: The Sociology of Women and Leisure, Open University Press (Milton Keynes), 1986.
Forty, Objects of Desire.
L O'Brien and F Harris, Retailing, Shopping, Society and Space, Fulton Publishers (London), 1991.
Despite the relative expensiveness of furniture as a product compared with other household purchases, one-third of all furniture manufacturers have a turnover of £50,000 p.a. or less. Fifty-nine per cent of employees in the furniture industry are in enterprises which employ fewer than 100 people (compared with 18 per cent in the food industry, for example). (CSO Business Monitor 1990).

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7 P Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, Routledge and Kegan Paul (London), 1984.

8 Q Lumsden, 'Take Some Comfort in Furniture', The Independent on Sunday, 25th July 1993.

9 Bourdieu, Distinction.

10 M Roberts, Living in a Man-made World: Gender Assumptions in Modern Housing Design, Routledge (London), 1991.

Ruth Madigan and Moira Munro, "'House Beautiful': Style and Consumption in the Home', Sociology, vol 30 no 1, 1996, pp 41-57.

(Excerpts pp 43-56)

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