Residence Supply Channels the 90s in its Nostalgic Edition Campaign
Residence Supply introduces The Nostalgic Edition today, a new creative direction that guides the independent design house through the fourth quarter with a series of special collections and a campaign built around interiors, materials, domestic imagery, and the feeling of being the host. The campaign aims to make nostalgia useful by exploring why some rooms and objects remain relevant thirty years later.
The creative direction pulls from a variety of worlds, including those built by Nancy Meyers and Nora Ephron, the early years of Martha Stewart Living, Ralph Lauren Home, and those memories of kitchens, bedrooms, and living rooms that turned into havens for loud laughs and endless conversations. All rooms are layered well, maybe even with an extra blanket or two. All to serve us Feel-good objects for Feel-good moments. "It's so easy to say that when we talk about the 90s, we're talking about nostalgia in general," says Residence Supply Creative Director Catherine Montoya. "But I wanted to go deeper than that and look at what was actually comforting about that time. For me personally, it came down to effort."
The ’90s Inspire a New Approach to Warmth and Character
The rise of warm minimalism made natural materials in the home more common, but also flattened the eccentricity that made older homes more memorable to begin with. First, we silenced our rooms. Then we muted the color palettes and made them more uniform. Finally, we tried to force our objects to disappear into the space's architecture when they were designed to participate with it.
Residence Supply is betting that consumers are ready to live around more evidence of themselves and their lived experiences again. That renewed interest in patterns, patina, unique objects, and rooms assembled over time is evidence of that belief. Those who remember living through the 90s would remember it to be a particularly rich era for mirrored inspiration. It was a period when it was common to aspire to rooms with mahogany tables, brass fixtures, floral arrangements, personal libraries, and a few different shades of cream balanced with a rather indulgent color. Very few things were restrained for the sake of just blending in. Almost everything that was memorable was memorable because they were very specific. "I didn't grow up in the 90s, but I grew up close enough to feel its spirit carry over, especially in the effort the adults around me put into making the holidays, for example, feel whimsical," says Montoya. It was an era where hours were "spent baking, everyone hoping the recipe would "work out," and handmade holiday cards for every loved one" was the norm.
New Collections Bring the Nostalgic Edition to Life
Unlike a collection built around a single material, finish, or product category, The Nostalgic Edition is orchestrated around our emotions and the relationship we have with the objects we identify with. The common language between the Brass Toggle Switch and the Mashi Pendant Light becomes the ability for both to exist in a room from thirty years ago, a room today, and a room thirty years in the future. Which isn't a foreign concept for Residence Supply. The house works predominantly in natural materials such as solid brass, wood, and stone, building through historic forms and old-world methods while still leaving room for what's created to converse fluently with the present.
The Nostalgic Edition is a 360 campaign for Residence Supply, living across the brand's website, social channels, email campaigns, paid advertising, partnerships, and editorial platform M.F.G., the cultural journal published by the design house. The strategy reflects a deeper thesis held by the brand: that campaigns are just as much creative explorations of chosen concepts as they are opportunities to indulge in richer conversations with their audience and customers.
The Nostalgic Edition is Residence Supply’s Q4 creative direction, exploring the warmth, character, materials, and domestic rituals that made the ’90s feel like home. Explore The Nostalgic Edition and the collections released throughout the campaign.
