The 'grandmillennial' look

Justina Uram-Mubangu, a lawyer, wife and mother, is like many of us right now: living and working at home, trying to stay safe and balance it all.

What keeps her at peace are her surroundings. Her colorful home is full of items she loves: wicker, chinoiserie and floral chintz. She collects Blue Willow china and ginger jars. She cherishes a crystal chandelier and the collection of milk glass that she inherited from one of her grandmothers.

In fact, it was from her grandmothers that she got her love of "pretty things."

"Both of my grandmothers had parlors, fancy sitting rooms at the front of their homes that we could look at but never enter. These rooms fascinated me. I loved how quiet and peaceful they were, and, of course, how lovely they were."

Although she doesn't cordon off any rooms in her own home, she considers herself a traditionalist or, as she likes to say, "a lover of timeless decor."

Uram-Mubangu of Fairfax, Va., is hardly the only millennial to reject the modern farmhouse look that many of her contemporaries emulate. Nor does the midcentury modern style popular among today's design influencers speak to her. Instead, she is a "grandmillennial," a name that was coined last fall by Emma Bazilian, a senior features editor at House Beautiful.

Bazilian, an avid needlepointer (a common pastime for grandmillennials), loves chintz and is obsessed with skirted dressing tables. Last summer, she noticed a decorating undercurrent bubbling up on social media.

What Bazilian uncovered was 30-somethings who collectively oohed and aahed over images of faded floral pillow shams and rooms from the '80s, images that seem fresh and exciting to them because they grew up in the more neutral, toned-down homes of their parents.

By giving these like-minded traditionalists a name, Bazilian legitimatized a movement.

Southern blogger Katherine Medlin has taken the grandmillennial taxonomy and run with it. On her blog, Pender and Peony (penderandpeony.com), she posts everything from "affordable wallpapers for the grandmillennial" to "style tips for the grandmillennial's dining room."

She also lists the ingredients for the grandmillennial style: natural wicker, rattan and bamboo furniture and accessories, floral patterns and chintz, monograms, all things chinoiserie, foo dogs, anything with a scalloped edge, lots of color (blue and green are favorites), fringe and fine china.

Although inspired by their grandmothers' homes, grandmillennials have a fresher, more relaxed approach to design. While Uram-Mubangu's grandmothers preferred deep colors and heavy, dark wood, she prefers light colors (whites, blues and greens), light wood and clean lines.

The look also is about honoring history and the longing to imbue meaning in every object.

"Walking into a store and purchasing everything new at once is my worst nightmare," said Liz Eichholz, creative director of Weezie Towels (weezietowels.com). "I love for things to feel layered and collected with a story behind each little element."

Eichholz says grandmillennials want items that tell a story or show their personality. This includes a mix of old and new, color and pattern, but always with a sense of calm.

This desire to honor history is not ironic; grandmillennials are searching for something deeper in their environments. They crave the happy, pretty elements of the past, because they find them comforting — particularly now. "The world is awful and scary and falling apart," Bazilian says.

For Uram-Mubangu, it's a connection to her maternal grandmother.