In 2015, when I was an editor at Bebe magazine in New York, I did something I immediately regretted (I didn't cut my bangs): I painted the master bedroom of my apartment a deep, Ivy League hunter green. Ralph Lauren's Polo Bar had just opened on East 55th Street, and I'd seen so many Instagram posts about the space that I fantasized about falling asleep every night with a glass of Ardbeg and some barely legible, lofty book.
After all, it seems that DIY sometimes has a “No! No!” to it. The eco-paint I bought applied evenly like jelly, even after multiple coats, and made my bedroom feel like I was in an underwater kelp forest. The light bouncing off the new wall color made my fair Irish skin no longer look fresh and porcelain, but sickly and pale. Like I had cholera. Sexy!
We lived in that room for a long time, but to distract myself on Election Day 2016, I made my world beautiful again, painting that room at least a soft (and rather inviting, I might add) peach color. I learned my lesson Instagram-wise: just because something looks great on the small screen doesn't mean it's worthy of prime time at home, nor should you try to do it yourself.
Polo Bar
A corner of the second floor of the Polo Bar in New York City.
Considering how important Instagram is in the design world, I think this is a lesson that rings true for many of us (pun intended). Does Instagram inspire creativity or stifle it with the same paint and furniture colors? For design lovers, is using Instagram for inspiration like taking a photo of yourself getting a haircut with your favorite celebrity? In other words, is it inevitably going to be disappointing? I shared my thoughts with six pros from around the country and asked for their opinions.
“I truly believe that Instagram is both a powerful tool and an inexhaustible fountainhead of information,” says Houston designer Paloma Contreras, whose new book, “The New Classic Home” (Abrams Publishing), due out in October, is the inspiration behind it. “But the key is your ability to discern information from the deluge of images you're exposed to every day and maintain your own perspective and point of view.”
The point is, did I love deep green spaces, chinoiserie-style ginger jars, and botanical prints, or was I simply consuming them so often that I developed a taste for them?
“It's almost a turnstile that you see over and over again, and it seems to me like there are a lot of accounts where even leaders in the design industry are producing this kind of mediocrity,” says Charleston designer Jacob Rose. “Frankly, I think it's an insult to the client, because it's like saying, 'Here's a boring design I've already done 27 times, and you're bored, so here you go.'”
Still, Rose and the other designers I contacted for this article all say that Instagram isn't ruining design; quite the opposite: You just need to know how to use the app to your advantage.
“Instagram allows you to create or replicate original content,” says KD Reid, a designer based in Newark, N.J. “For designers, it's an essential tool for sharing, inspiring, and reaching new audiences. As a designer, I strive to create new, innovative, and fresh inspiration.”
JP Horton, a designer based in Charlottesville, Virginia, finds the platform a treasure trove of information and inspiration: “For me, it has been an amazing tool for networking with peers, discovering new vendors, and exposing me to other people's design work, past and present, that I would not have had access to otherwise.”
And let's not forget that Instagram is heavily filtered, even when it says #nofilter. Still, “overall, I find Instagram more inspiring than soul-crushing,” says Washington, DC-based designer Annie Elliott. “While the feed certainly features strongly styled rooms, precise vignettes, and candid-but-not-candid lifestyle photos, I think there's a recognition that Instagram isn't real life.”
For one thing, I have never posted a photo of a green bedroom.