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The Cut

30 mins | May 13, 2020

Will the millennial aesthetic ever end?

“To what degree does design confer false authority on anything it touches?” Pop simplicity, house plants and sans-serif: the millennial aesthetic is an era where design itself is the product, and all design looks the same — but has this notion created an inescapable echo chamber? Molly Fischer explores in The Cut. "If you simultaneously can’t afford any frills and can’t afford any failure, you end up with millennial design: crowd-pleasing, risk-averse, calling just enough attention to itself to make it clear that you tried. For a cohort reared to achieve and then released into an economy where achievement held no guarantees, the millennial aesthetic provides something that looks a little like bourgeois stability, at least. This is a style that makes basic success cheap and easy; it requires little in the way of special access, skills, or goods. It is style that can be borrowed, inhabited temporarily or virtually. At the very least, you can stay a few hours in a photogenic co-working venue. At the very least, Squarespace gives you the tools you need to build your own presentable online home."