Thirtiestyle: Home decoration and furnishings from the 1930s

One of MoDA’s best-selling publications is Thirtiestyle: Home decoration and furnishings from the 1930s.

Thirtiestyle is a fascinating and colourful guide to all aspects of decoration and design in the 1930s home. It is a compendium of contemporary illustrations and photographs, and it the shows the choices available to consumers during this period. Author Katie Arber drew on MoDA’s extensive collections of retail and trade catalogues, domestic magazines and household manuals to produce a vibrant and beautifully illustrated guide to the 1930s interior.

“Poirot or Pinner”?

In the foreword to Thirtiestyle Professor Deborah Sugg-Ryan, whose research focuses on the interwar home, reflects on the interiors of the 1930s:

“In the popular imagination of today, 1930s style is a riot of brightly coloured Art Deco geometric and stylised floral patterns dancing across rounded three-piece suites, wallpaper, rugs, curtains and china; furniture in chrome and glass or exotic woods, and ornaments such as semi-naked dancing ladies.

This vision – more Poirot than Pinner – is just one version of a plethora of styles that were available to the growing numbers of interwar owner-occupiers of new speculatively-built semi-detached houses and the tenants of municipal homes. They were aided by advice from magazines, specialist shops, department stores, trade catalogues, books and events such as the annual Daily Mail ideal Home exhibition, many of which are represented in MoDA’s rich collections.” 

Thirtiestyle looks at the various features of a home, including sections on bathrooms and kitchens, fixtures and fittings, furniture, wallpapers and paints, carpets, cushions and upholstery, fireplaces and heating, lighting and finishing touches. Each area is covered in a way that is informative and accessible.Thirtiestyle is just one of a whole range of publications produced by MoDA.  Other titles in the series are: Turn of the Century Style, Fiftiestyle, Sixtiestyle and Seventiestyle.

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