One thing that seemed crystal clear when looking through the images from the fall design fairs is how much I was looking through things quite literally. From transparent glass to translucent resins, gauzy textiles to perforated screens, many products and installations coyly flirted between reveal and conceal. As we near the end of another stress-filled year, the design world seems ready for a little romance.

When I speak of romantic design, I’m not referring to heart-shaped chairs and rose-patterned curtains, but rather the escapism of the Romantic Era of the late 18th to early 19th century. Let’s face it, the world has been a particularly scary place as of late. Between a global pandemic, the climate crisis, polarizing political rhetoric, and a barrage of misinformation, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. Though some people can find solace by unplugging, others seek to create a mental safe space through the physical objects that surround them.

It should be no surprise, then, that the fashion world has been alluding to romance since 2018, and expects this style mood to last into 2023 (if not beyond). Or that interest in Cottagecore has surged since the start of the pandemic. Or that Netflix’s Bridgerton became the streaming service’s most popular series of all time until it was recently dethroned by the dystopian drama Squid Game (though Squid Game seems like an outlier in this trend, the series plays on a dichotomy between childhood nostalgia and class inequality, thereby creating a yin-yang struggle between romanticizing the past versus facing the harsh realities of the present).

This romanticism can be seen in more than just the craze for nap dresses and granny-chic décor. For those wanting a more sophisticated look, the blurring of the outward reality happens in different ways.

Living In an Ethereal World

Ethereal, gauzy, and translucent décor and installations packed the design fair booths and open spaces in September. At Design Miami/Basel, Studio Drift presented their Shy Synchrony, a mesmerizing installation featuring their suspended Shylight lamps that slowly rose and fell in a synchronized choreography. The opening and closing of the billowy lamps replicated the rhythms of the natural world by alluding to the way blossoms open at daybreak and close at dusk. Visitors were treated to this dream-like space as they entered the fair—a symbolic separation from the chaotic world beyond its doors.

In London, this separation happened using the mixed reality magic of Tim Drum. In partnership with Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, Drum created a visual spectacle at the Victoria & Albert Museum that contained no physical components beyond a pair of mixed reality glasses. Titled Medusa after both the mythological figure and zoological classification for jellyfish (subphylum Medusozoa), the augmented reality experience featured cascading layers of reed-like ripples that morphed and responded to the viewer’s movement. The immersive experience blended elements of light, sound, and kinetics to connect the viewer to the natural world, while simultaneously removing them from it.

Product designers and architects are already finding other uses for the blurring and transportive effect such layering provides. Take for instance Kengo Kuma’s use of cascading aluminum chains to reflect light into a darkened stairwell at the Casa Batlló in Barcelona—an effect not unlike the Medusa exhibit. There’s also the Multi-layer collection of furniture by Studio Chacha that relies on layers of colored glass to create different visual effects. Or the Pollux chandelier by Quasar whose intricate structure of metal rods and LED lights create a haunting nebula that feels it could exist in four dimensions.

The Unicorn Effect

While ethereal layers are one way to blur the outside world, they by far are not alone. Throughout the pandemic, color has become an important aspect of home décor for those looking to brighten their spaces during lockdown. Designers have responded with a plethora of colors from muted rusts to vibrant greens. While some designers use color to represent the natural world, others have found ways to use it for the opposite effect. Translucent, gradient, and iridescent colors are now a strong trend in product design.

Despite a collective push toward sustainable practices, more and more designers are turning to resin and plastics to create work in a range of mouthwatering candy colors that are a fraction of the weight of glass. From the lozenge-like tops of their coffee tables to the Otter Pop look of their screens, pieces from Draga & Aurel’s Transparency Matters collection are just one of many examples of how designers are using this material to evoke a sense of childhood wonder.

Not long ago, clear acrylic furniture was all the rage. Today, both acrylic and glass has been given a unicorn effect, appearing in color-shifting gradients and prismatic iridescence. Though this trend has been developing for a few years now, it was seen to its fullest during the September fairs. The glass furniture by Amsterdam-based Latvian designer Germans Ermičs makes an excellent example. Those familiar with Ermičs’ work know he has been using eye-catching ombres in glass since 2015—but it didn’t stop his Shaping Color installation at Design Miami/Basel from becoming one of the fair’s most Instagrammed exhibits (of course, that was done two of the season’s most popular colors didn’t hurt!).

What makes this color-shifting trend so mesmerizing now is the way it blurs our perception. Nothing is as it seems. It’s an intoxicating sentiment that becomes even more alluring during times of crisis.

Welcome to the Bubble

The final aspect of this trend toward Romanticism is found in something we’ve become all too familiar with—the bubble. Though life in a bubble has proven not all it’s cracked up to be, it’s certainly been in the press a lot lately. From the filter bubbles used to explain the surprising outcome of the 2016 election, to the social pandemic bubbles that have defined our world for the past 19 months, bubbles have become an important aspect of our everyday lives. It should be no surprise then that they are also part of a growing design vocabulary. I’ll be diving deeper into “bubble theory” in my December post. For now, I’m just going to focus on their romantic aspect.

Remember the excitement you felt blowing soap bubbles as a kid (or perhaps still do as an adult)? The activity can indeed a playful form of stress relief. But more than just that, soap-like bubbles play well with the other trends described above. They possess a translucent iridescence that is ethereal in its fragility. Furthermore, plastic bubbles are often seen as protective—an association that goes back 50 years with the birth of David Vetter, aka “the boy in the bubble.”

To see how this translates into contemporary design, look no further than the Future Archeology exhibit presented by Alcova during Fuorisalone. The installation, a collaboration between Objects of Common Interest and Etage Projects, featured steel furniture with a holographic sheen alongside transparent monoliths filled with light. Adam Sokol used a similar effect for the Beijing office spaces at Zhen Fund. Outfitting the space with a series of curved walls, Sokol created an illusion of glazed bubbles that seem to change as light moves across them. The glass walls are fogged at the bottom, allowing for privacy and a gradient effect when the vibrant curtains of each space are drawn.

This need to soften our surroundings is all part of a collective desire to feel safe in an ever-changing world. It is part of a new age of Romanticism that puts emphasis on how design effects our emotions and mental health. The Romantic Era of the late 18th to early 19th century sprung from the upheaval of political events and social reform movements. It was spurred by advancements in science and industry. In short, it came during a time of great disruption. If any of this sounds familiar to current day, you are not wrong. Today’s Romanticism will continue to empower design for many years to come.