We would have believed in a simple decorative fad, but there is something else. A gray shade on the walls, a beige sofa, light wood furniture: in millennials, interior decoration follows the same visual, sober and silent language. But this sleek style is not by chance. According to several specialists, he betrays much more than aesthetic tastes: he reveals a psychological relationship to the environment and the past.
No more vintage!
If this generation favors neutral tones, it would first be to flee the flamboyant visual heritage of the 80s and 90s. Growing up in houses filled with bright colors and flashy patterns, children of the 90s developed an aversion to exuberance. “I think it’s a natural reaction for millennials to be allergic in warm colors“Explains Loren Kreiss, American interior decorator.
Her Canadian sister Marissa Warner adds that this choice meets a need for calm: “The trend of shades of gray really responds to our desire to move away from the very stimulating decoration of our childhood, in order to go towards a simpler and serene environment“.
Why the millennials rely on a decoration in neutral tones
Beyond the family inheritance, chromatic neutrality is a response to ambient stress. This generation had a relatively stable childhood in the 2000s, before switching to a series of crises: 2008 financial crash, pandemic, climate emergency. Gray, beige and broken white then become symbolic shelters: colors that do not act, which reassure, which calm.
Through this sober palette, millennials also seek to establish a feeling of control in a chaotic world. Their interior becomes an organized mental space, a secure cocoon where each object has its place and its function. It is a opposite to external disorder.
But it is not only a matter of inner peace. This approach also aligns with another very anchored value in this generation: sustainability.
A gray decoration, but a lasting and economical choice
In a Deloitte study of 2023, we learn that 60 % of Millennials are ready to pay more for sustainable products. It is therefore no coincidence that the gray style spreads. Not only are these colors timeless, but they agree with all the stylistic developments to come. In other words, no need to redo all the decor with each new Pinterest trend.
This choice is eminently practical, but also economical: we avoid superfluous spending, we buy less but better, we think about each object, each nuance. A taupe wall today will not shock in ten years, unlike a bright orange or lemon green.
Psychologist Marissa Warner nevertheless proposes not to sink into a monotonous greyness: “Add a few touches of colors, especially through furniture and works of art, to warm up the space“. For her, the ideal solution consists of”consider your gray decoration as a canvas that deserves to be enriched“.
When the decor becomes a reading of the emotional state
What we hang on a wall, the color you choose for a curtain or the material of a carpet, everything says something. Not just our taste, but of our experience. Gray, among millennials, is more than a aesthetic choice: it is an adaptation strategy.
In a world where emotions are over-surveyed, where notifications flash endlessly and where anxiety soar, creating a neutral visual universe is almost survival instinct. Minimalism is no longer a trend, it is a reflex. And gray, a silent mirror of their time.