Or the Urban definition: Something tumblr weirdos say way too often and use it for every damn thing under the sun. A generally annoying word.
Ok, I rather the first definition since it is the basis of what I am writing. My aesthetic tends to shift from serious high end mixed with everything to everything mixed with a serious high end. What I collect, what I use in personal decor, depends drastically on me and what I want to look at. Living room serious with only original artworks compare to the kitschy vibrant kitchen. But all of it is for my visual inclination.
In selling, I tend to be playful but stay to consumer wants, even the things that they do not know about yet. Buyers are on a current trend for about a blink, embracing the entirety of what they believe to be "it". My least favorite of these has been the shabby chic with chalk painting and variations there of. The shabby design aesthetics has been capitalized to no ridiculous end and has brought a whole industry with reproduction products from China. This apparently has spilled into the barn/farm flavor of the month as well.
Barn/farm was initially industrial/salvage or primitives and for some reason it has taken off on its own. My issue with it is that dealers have based their whole easthetic on this current wave. Their DBA, etc... not a wise choice. So how do you wrap your mind around this? You do not. You let it be the wave that it is. For those of us in the business for any extended period of time, we see the signs.
A show, a couple, a rush to success, compromised aesthetic.
Yes, the Fixer Upper couple comes to mind. Yes, everyone loves them. Yes, they appear to be who they portray but because of a rush to success, they too compromised their easthetic. Their cornerstone shop is filled with barn/farm reproductions from China at a huge mark up. In the reviews of their current venture it is the primary complaint. We are all privy to the same wholesalers so we see the compromise and markup.
The consumers aesthetic is "compromised" in a catch twenty two. Buyers love the rural raw pieces that say America, work, sweat, simplicity but we are buying China. Now of course there is someone in China working hard, assembling, taking care in their manufacturing in a massive scale, but it misses the point. The catch is that to capture the "feel" we have bought it from a country we associate with cheap labor, poor materials and bad manufacturing. That becomes not the "feel". We do not want the visual of a Chinese woman hunkered down putting things together and then product shipped in a c-train to America. Never mind my view of manufacturing in a country where there are no regulations on environmental responsibilities.
So although my aesthetic can be somewhat narrow minded, I do think it is important to look at the long term. I let pieces sometimes guide me, I do not let a movement, a craze dictate. The drawback, I never know where my day, week, month will go and I never know what the flavor is going to be until it hits me. That can be challenging and that can be what drives you. My friend Sigrid once told me, "...just go with it and trust yourself". So the hunt is not only for the item but for what satisfies your aesthetic. You know when it comes at you like a ton of bricks. Your aesthetic is complete.
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