If you’re lucky, you get to see trends come around a second and possibly even a third time. When platform shoes came back into vogue in the late 1990s, how I wished I’d kept the ones I wore to my Grade 8 grad.
But the boomerang effect of a trend, in fashion or elsewhere, usually arrives with a modern twist. Had I kept the clunky platforms of my teens, they might have simply looked dated instead of retro. And so it is with the return of the parlour, brought to our attention by celebrity designer Jane Lockhart. An old-fashioned parlour might bring to mind stiff-backed chairs and a silver tea service polished to a high sheen. Guests were shepherded into the parlour for social time. Visiting is still a component of a parlour’s purpose, but Lockhart is finding that families are also using the new parlour as an escape from the onslaught of information that never seems to stop.
“People are really struggling with deciding, what are we going to do with this front room? It’s really kind of an anti-room, a relief from the high technology of the back of the house where the kitchen is and the family room. People say they want to keep their dining room because they use it, but there’s this other room that has no specific use. They don’t want to make it open concept because that’s too much room. So, this front room is a place where people can talk. Where they can quietly read or listen to music.”
Although formal furniture no longer means covered in plastic or all the comfort of a bed of nails, Lockhart says the parlour tends to contain furnishings a little less relaxed than you’d find in a family room.
“It’s not all loungy. It’s not the kind of room where you slouch and put your feet up. It’s kind of like a library, where you sit quietly and think. A fireplace is useful in there. It’s a nice focal point in that space.”
Anyone who’s tried to visit with another adult over the sing-alongs inspired by a Disney movie or the shouts that go along with Nintendo, would probably agree that family togetherness sometimes has its limits. A parlour offers an escape that’s just down the hall.
“Adults can sit, have drinks and snacks and a conversation with each other instead of all looking in one direction toward a TV or other media device. The set-up is less like a sofa and loveseat where it’s awkward for everyone to gather. It’s more like four chairs gathered around a centre table, like a low coffee table.”
As much as we want to be tethered to our smartphones and other gadgets, we’re also looking for breaks from the constant barrage of noise and frenetic thinking. The parlour, which Lockhart says comes from the French word parlez which means to speak, offers that respite, even if it’s just to consume media in a calm environment. “More and more, television watching will be mobile, whether it’s on a mobile phone or a tablet. This allows you to have a main component in a media room or family room but then a family member can go off into this quiet room and with headphones, watch their own device. Everything is driven by smartphones or TVs. And what the parlour does is give you a break from the hubbub of that space.”
The new parlour is a media-free room that’s a quiet space, where people can relax and just enjoy each others’ company without TVs blaring, smartphones beeping and tablets clicking. In the ’70s, that described just about every room in the house. Perhaps my old platforms would have fit into the future after all.