Interior Designers on Design Trends to Look for in 2023, and What's on Its Way Out

Making pronouncements about the design world is a bit like installing a gallery wall. You gather pieces from all over, arrange them before you in what feels like harmony and stand back to take them all in at once. This season, the team at 1stDibs approached that installation just as you’d imagine an online design marketplace would. They quizzed 880 designers from all over the world on what’s waxing and waning in the interior design world, then they created a composite portrait of the responses. This is the scene they arranged — and what you can expect to see appearing in (and disappearing from) the spaces we’ll move through this year. Make yourself comfortable, and have a look at what’s in store for design in 2023.

For the third year in a row, designers called opulent emerald the most on-trend tone. Rich and satisfying as textural velvet upholstery and as a gleaming lacquered or mineral surface, saturated green is a perennial favorite for bringing interiors across the style spectrum to life.

Second only to deep emerald, sage green is sprouting up in designers’ fields of vision as well. If you’re not in the market to plant yourself firmly in this trend with a major piece of furniture, there’s lots of room for clippings, notes 1stDibs editorial director and trends expert Anthony Barzilay Freund. “Color is easily added to a room through strategically placed objects, whether a celadon-green vase on a bookshelf or a small, abstract print in primary hues hung on an otherwise-blank wall.”

Speaking of green, a whopping 91% of interior designers reported that they expect demand for interior plants to continue to trend in 2023. Given that sustainability is also on their minds (and among their clients’ priorities), native plants are likely to play key roles in refreshed interiors — and accents like garden clippings and foraged foliage have cameos to make as well.

Pros also expressed a taste for mustard yellow, a sophisticated way to counterbalance all that on-trend green, as in this sleek living room. Want to season your own space with this buzzy tone? “A table lamp, small collection of ceramic bowls or polychromatic area rug layered on top of a neutral carpet can introduce color in clever ways,” Freund notes.

While neutral design schemes like the wonderfully warm wood and textiles in this sitting room continue to enjoy popularity, previous years’ heavy hitters are falling out of favor in a big way. When asked about the most on-trend colors for 2023, designers were least likely to mention light gray. White, in turn, experienced the steepest decline in popularity, dropping from 24% in last year’s survey to 14% this time around.

Shades with cool undertones, like lavender and mauve, are experiencing spikes in favorability among tastemakers; in terms of increased popularity, both nearly doubled. The team at 1stDibs takes note of those trends as evidence that ‘80s-era palettes are enjoying a resurgence — with a contemporary spin.

When asked to choose the materials they favor most from among 18 options, the tastemakers 1stDibs surveyed overwhelmingly chose wood and plaster (which each received 24% of the vote). Shinier and more manufactured surfaces like chrome, by contrast, received just 6% of respondents’ top nods.

What's the favorite medium designers intend to use more of in 2023? Sculpture, with nearly half (44%) of the vote. “Sculpture has the power to add visual interest to a room in a way that furniture and two-dimensional art like paintings, prints or photographs can’t always achieve on their own,” Freund says. “In addition to providing a space with a compelling silhouette, sculpture can also introduce texture (the top sculpture materials on 1stDibs are bronze, resin, ceramic and wood), or a surprising jolt of color (vinyl paint rounds out the top five materials).”

The “absolute best-selling styles” at 1stDibs, according to Freund, are contemporary, pop art, abstract, modern and street art pieces. “A well-placed piece of sculpture has the power to disturb a design scheme that otherwise feels too symmetrical or safe,” he says.

In the realm of metallic finishes, first place goes to bronze, which 20% of designers ranked as their top choice, followed by copper and nickel. Rose gold and gold, by contrast, were cited as the least popular choices for 2023.

The percentage of pieces that are customized to clients’ specifications has declined over the past four years (from 58% to 47%), designers reported to 1stDibs. That trend dovetails handily with increased interest in sustainability. Investing ingenuity in finding the perfect piece to complete a design like this one has the benefit of conserving physical materials that would be consumed in constructing or tailoring them.

Get ready for pastels and chintz. When asked which of the past seven decades was most likely to make a style comeback, nearly a third of designers pointed to the 1980s. Keep your eyes peeled for bold floral fabrics in window treatments, upholstered pieces and even wall coverings.

Another era likely to experience a retro resurgence in the new year? The 1950s and their celebrated design classics (like Saarinen’s Tulip Table, born in 1956 and every bit as handsome today in this dining nook, above). Designers expect pieces like these to steal the spotlight from ‘70s-era offerings, which were three times as popular in last year’s survey as they are now.

One in three of the pros surveyed reported that they would draw on resources like the elegant charcoals in this living room. Also part of the picture? Photographs, which one in three designers will be deploying more often as well.

The focus on creating home offices that sharpened at the height of the pandemic has grown a bit fuzzier, and designers have noted a decline in requests for the spaces from their clients. They anticipate a drop from the 66% they predicted back in 2020 to just 32% for the coming year. Might multipurpose vignettes like this one — which can serve as a work areas in a pinch — take their place?

Major pieces like the lighting-as-sculpture in this space are attracting serious attention from designers and their clients. “Furnishings in a room often occupy the same horizontal plane, so a large, totemic sculpture can break that up with its strong vertical presence,” Freund explains. “It can also help with scale, mediating between oversized sofas, so popular nowadays, and the more diminutive other pieces in the space.”

Designers reported that our appreciation for organic modernism — that is, open-concept spaces, natural tones, expansive upholstered seating and a focus on materials’ inherent beauty — is a current that will carry on through the new year. More than 80% of survey respondents said that casually cozy spaces like the home pictured here will remain popular.

Designers reported that demand for patterned wallpaper will maintain momentum: 85% of them said that we’ll fall just as hard for installations like this black-and-white beauty (in a room by Nate Berkus) in the year to come as we did in 2022.

From literal views like the sight of this lush bed of hydrangea and the table’s eye-popping arrangement to more delicate, figurative representations like the dining room’s hand-painted recess, pros contend that flowering designs continue to… you know. Animal prints, by contrast, will enjoy less popularity.

In the realm of two-dimensional art, designers reported that they were most likely to deploy paintings in their upcoming interiors. The media they favor least, in turn, included NFTs and digital art, as well as ephemera posters (that is, works like vintage advertisements that weren’t created as long-term decor).

While it’s impossible to get more than 800 designers to reach agreement on a single point, they came awfully close on the subject of sustainability: 94% of them told 1stDibs they believed it would once again be important to consumers next year. That’s been the case for each of the last few years, and the statistic could be even higher in 2024.

Curvaceous seating like the pieces arranged here are all the rage, and designers named Vladimir Kagan’s classic Serpentine Sofa one of the key iconic furnishings of the next year. Softness gives an edge, if you will. Another shapely (but fiberglass) icon, Faye Toogood’s Roly Poly Chair, received just one vote for every seven of the Serpentine’s.

Designers’ relationships with artisans grow closer all the time. Survey respondents said they expect to purchase 65% of the pieces they use directly from makers next year. That’s a significant increase from previous years when fewer than half of designers expressed interest in that kind of transaction.

Going big when we go home will be all the rage in 2023, and Freund reports significant activity among 1stDibs' users looking for major pieces like the one above this fireplace. “Abstract and figurative prints in large sizes are our most popular categories, with abstract prints showing 14% year-over-year growth,” he says. “Landscape prints are our third most popular category.”