#Art #Deco #Cats #Meow #WorthPoint
The Roaring Twenties are roaring back in style. Art deco, a beloved aesthetic for over 100 years, is experiencing a revival as one of the most significant trends for interior design in 2025.
A new generation is appreciating art deco’s glamorous roots, driving demand for antique and vintage fashions, jewelry, lighting, hand-carved and hand-painted case pieces, other furniture, and decorative objects.
While art deco is making a comeback in the regular world, the collecting world has appreciated these pieces for years. Listings recorded in WorthPoint’s Price Guide attest to this. In January alone, over 16,000 items related to art deco were sold, including chairs, chandeliers, tables, and figurines.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ART DECO
Though art deco designs began to appear in the 1910s, particularly in jewelry, the style made its official debut at the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes.
Known for its bold style and dazzling glamour, art deco embraced all things modern and sleek. Its hallmarks of polished geometric forms and patterns (stylized florals, sunbursts, and zigzags), elegant lines, and lush materials in jewel tones borrowed globally from ancient Egyptian design, Africa’s tribal designs, and Paris’ sophistication. It was also inspired by the Industrial Revolution’s silhouettes of machines and skyscrapers.
The original art deco era, which flourished through the 1930s, embodied a spirit of creativity, freedom, and innovation, and designers embraced its boundary-breaking sensibility and rich aesthetic.
Art deco’s popularity began dwindling in the United States by 1939, but it made a comeback in the 1960s. It has waxed and waned in the decades since and now, a century after its debut, art deco antiques and collectibles are hot commodities again.
French art deco leather club chairs, initially designed for exclusive gentlemen’s clubs and lounges of Paris during the 1920s, are prized by collectors and interior designers today for their exceptional craftsmanship and timeless design. This pair sold for $4,560 in 2024.
A FAVORITE OF COLLECTORS AND DESIGNERS
Art deco is back in vogue this year as a major interior design trend because its bold signature style contrasts with recent minimalist trends and offers timeless sophistication that appeals to people seeking to inject some opulence and personality into their homes.
Whether you’re looking to jazz up a room or an entire house, art deco is a classic design that suits different-sized spaces. Its history and nostalgic allure are other reasons why people want to bring deco pieces into their spaces.
Surveys on design and market trends conducted by 1stDibs, a leading online antique and vintage marketplace, and the Asheford Institute of Antiques reflect art deco’s staying power.
Of the more than 600 interior designers taking 1stDibs’ 2025 trend survey, over 80 percent said they plan to use furniture and other items from the 1920s to the 1990s in their work. Twenty-four percent of that group further vowed to specifically furnish with more art deco pieces in 2025 than before.
Asheford’s annual surveys on decorative art and market trends are conducted with dealers across the U.S. and Canada who operate their own antiques and vintage or estate sale/appraisal businesses and are divided into three age groups: 20 to 40, 40 to 60, and 60 to 80.
For the past five years, art deco has consistently been one of the Top 10 collecting categories in all age groups. Here’s how it fared in the 2024 survey of over 2,600 dealers:
- Age 20 to 40, the No. 2 market trend: Dealers reported robust sales for a variety of items, from smaller pieces like clocks, decorative objects, jewelry, and lighting to larger furniture items, including chairs and case pieces (furniture used for storage).
- Age 40 to 60, the No. 4 market trend: These dealers reported strong sales for traditional furniture and case pieces over smaller collectibles like clocks, lamps, and jewelry.
- Age 60 to 80, the No. 1 market trend: Dealers said that prices for authentic art deco pieces doubled from just a year ago. From French Gueridon dining tables, bedside walnut cabinets, and lounge chairs to chrome-plated wall sconces and watches, dealers said all art deco pieces are selling well.
“The art deco movement has managed to posit itself into the consciousness and hearts of collectors from across the decorative arts spectrum,” said Asheford researchers.
Researchers have observed that many dealers who have long questioned whether art deco could surpass mid-century modern’s dominance over the past decade are now finding that art deco significantly outperforms mid-century modern in nearly every category. As a result, they believe it is worthwhile to increase their inventory of art deco pieces.
WORTHPOINT’S TRENDING ART DECO PIECES
WorthPoint’s Price Guide also reflects these market trends and art deco’s appeal. Over 1.2 million listings since 2020 have referenced “art deco” and the top three categories during that period were jewelry, furniture and furnishings, and ceramics. The highest-selling art deco item was a 40-piece tableware set that sold for $614,233 in 2020.
Of the nearly 247,000 items sold in just the last year, furniture and furnishings overtook jewelry for the top category, while ceramics remained third. Some of the biggest art deco sellers in 2024 were:
Being such a popular period of design means that many art deco pieces can carry a high price tag, as these examples show. Factors affecting values include age, condition, quality, popularity, rarity, and if it was made by notable artists in the art deco movement. Art deco sculptures have seen a wide range of prices over the past year, selling for anywhere from $10 to thousands of dollars for pieces created by notable artists from that era. One prominent figure is Romain de Tirtoff, a Russian-born French designer known by the pseudonym Erté, who is often referred to as the “Father of art deco.” A series of bronze sculptures Erté produced in the 1980s are avidly sought today and have sold between $800 and over $12,000 in the last year.
Also selling well in the past year were pieces that are among the easiest to add to your home if you want some art deco flair and can be found at more affordable prices. These include bookends, clocks, hardware, lamps, mirrors, rugs, and vases.
If you’re not already on the art deco bandwagon, consider jumping on the trend this year. Thanks to the efforts of collectors and dealers, the design aesthetic continues to live on a century after it was first introduced and shows no signs of slowing down, making it easy to create a space that Jay Gatsby would approve of.
To learn more about art deco’s history, check out the second edition of the Collector’s Guide to art deco in WorthPoint’s Library. You can also explore our Dictionary pages on art deco items across various collector categories.
Adina K. Francis has been a writer and editor in the antiques and collectibles field for more than twenty years. She has a bit of an obsession with the Victorians and thinks that dogs are one of life’s greatest gifts.
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