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While a minimalist interior was a thriving environment just a few years ago, it seems that temporary lockdowns and supply chain-induced bottlenecks have led people to re-evaluate the aesthetics of an empty home.
The result is a resurgence of maximalist home decor that includes patterns, colors and ornaments. Furniture that once had wood grain is now jewel-colored; Streamlined furniture has given way to all squishy and wobbly things; Trends like “Cottagecore” and “Grandmillennial” aim to upgrade handmade, chic and used items.
Is it any wonder that fake food is back too?
Sausage and cheese candles, cast resin croissants and Jell-O salad lamps are in great demand. Retro-style fake cakes are big on Instagram. High-end jewelry brand Mociun sells $ 10,000 worth of engagement rings, as well as fake glasses of spilled wine and melting ice cream cones. And Yukiko Morita’s Pampshade lamps, made from real, canned baked goods, can sell for around $ 80 each.
For John Derian, founder of a home decor and decoupage line of the same name, the resurgence of fake food is very welcome. Mr. Derian has had a fake cake on his kitchen counter at home for 14 years, he said, and he estimates he’s been selling food-themed items in his store for about 20 years, starting with a Nathalie Lete rag doll and had sausages for arms and a steak for the head.
“I love fun things,” he said.
Nowadays, Mr. Derian also offers more elegant fake food items for customers less interested in kitsch, including stone bananas and cherries carved in Tuscany from marble from the same quarry that Michaelangelo preferred.
For about 10 years, Mr. Derian has also been selling grocery candles from Cereria Introna, an Italian company that has existed since 1840. (This year, Cereria Introna, which makes all of their candles by hand and supplies many other design stores including East Fork and Fruit and Flower Shop, saw demand for its food candles in the US rise to the point where it is no longer in was able to fulfill all of his orders.)
Mr. Derian often presents the paraffin wax beauties, which include donuts, cakes, cupcakes and cakes, in the window of his shop.
“Everyone reacts to it with pleasure,” he said. “Sometimes I move them around the store, but I always introduce them because they are just something bright, colorful and happy.”
Over the past few centuries, counterfeit foods have remained popular in more functional settings. In Japan, counterfeit foods, or sampuru, are displayed in restaurant windows and can cost hundreds of dollars to artisans. In the US, fake wedding cakes can help maintain the visual tradition of a layered confection while lowering the price of the real cake served during the reception.
But when it comes to fake food as art objects in the American home, Sarah Archer, design and culture writer and author of the 2019 book The Midcentury Kitchen, suggests looking back to the 1950s and 1960s when fake food became one Mid century trend.
“Blown glass fruit was very popular in the 50s and 60s, especially after World War II, when it was more interesting or tempting for middle-class Americans to go abroad to Italy,” Ms. Archer said in a recent interview. American tourists returned from their travels with glass apples or pears as souvenirs.
Fake fruits made from wax and plastic were also popular, although fake fruits made from these materials could be perceived as kitschy depending on the audience.
“It kind of represents domesticity and a bit of middle-class embellishment, but it’s also a bit cheesy at the same time,” Ms. Archer said. “It takes on a kind of nebulous status.”
For some of the artisans and brands selling counterfeit foods today, the question of taste – or questionable taste – is what led them to trend in the first place.
Leanne Rodriguez, an Oakland, Calif. Artist who is from Elrod, started making counterfeit gelatin salad lamps during the pandemic; In a recent interview, Ms. Rodriguez said she wanted the effects to be “a little gross.”
Inspired by recipes for gelatin salads found in mid-century cookery books, Ms. Rodriguez hangs clay hot dogs, vegetables, and chopped fruits in glittering resin. Her creations, which she has branded Mexakitchen and sells as part of her Mexakitsch line of art, radiate an eerie glow through LED lights inside. Ms. Rodriguez said that fascination with kitsch led her to make the lamps in the first place, and the more she makes them, the more opulent they get.
“A lot of people don’t get it,” said Ms. Rodriguez, whose creations cost between $ 100 and $ 3,500. “And those who get it really love it.”
Cake race
Jazmine Rogers, a content creator based in San Diego, knew the joy fake food can bring to a home from her childhood.
Her grandmother had a collection of counterfeit cardboard fruit, and when Ms. Rogers was decorating her own home in San Diego, she was looking for counterfeit food items to display. In addition to a glass corn on the cob and a glass orange in her home office, she bought a fake cake made of cardboard and filler to hang on the wall.
“There is something that feels really homely to me,” said Ms. Rogers, 25. “It’s like playing with your food, it’s like your food is in places where it shouldn’t be. There’s something funny about that. “
Ms. Rogers’ fake cake was made by Jasmine Archie, an Austin, Texas artist who was amazed and delighted by the market for her eccentric, color-saturated, confectionery-inspired creations.
“People freaked out,” Ms. Archie, 25, said of the first few fake cakes she made. “It’s already on the market, but in my opinion it was still so untapped in my generation. And I was like, OK, I could totally market this and see what could happen. “
Ms. Archie believes that one of the reasons her pieces are so popular is that they represent cakes, especially brightly colored and ornate ones.
“When I see a cake, I always think something celebratory is going on,” said Ms. Archie. “I think when people look at a cake and in my case they just enjoy it.”
It is this joy and playfulness that inspired Mociun, the fine jewelry brand, to sell fake food in their boutique in 2018. Caitlin Mociun, the designer and founder of the Brooklyn-based company, had a personal collection of fake food that the brand would use as props in product shots and as display items in their store. So many customers asked if the counterfeit foods would be on sale that Mociun began offering them alongside ceramics and glass.
“I think the humorous aspect definitely appeals to a lot of people,” said Marney Zaslav, Director of Purchasing and Operations. In the last few years in particular, fake food has become an independent category for Mociun; Items can range in price from $ 15 to $ 400.
“A lot of these things, even if we just put them in our shop window, people definitely stop when they walk by,” said Ms. Zaslav.
Lately, consumers haven’t just been window shopping; You have searched for fake food online.
According to Etsy, there has been a 36 percent increase in searches for faux cakes on the site over the last three months compared to the same period last year.
Over the same period, there was also a 32 percent increase in searches for food-inspired candles and a 16 percent increase in searches for food or fruit-inspired ornaments. (Plus: searches for cereal candles increased by 1,133 percent – perhaps the hottest novelty in counterfeit household goods thanks to TikTok.)
Dayna Isom Johnson, Etsy trending expert, attributed the surge in searches for these items to two factors. “The first is that buyers are looking for creative and playful ways to add brightness and liveliness to their space. Faux food is an easy way to add a sense of freshness to any room while it lasts longer than the original, ”she wrote in an email.
“The other is the influence of social media,” she added. “Etsy sellers can react faster to new trends than large retailers, so we’re constantly seeing new inventory that reflects something we see in the zeitgeist – in this case, the grain-inspired candles.”
Ms. Archer, the design and culture writer, said she believes consumers crave interior design choices that are as reassuring as they are whimsical.
Fake food is “a relatively inexpensive, easy, and creative way to happily drive your home crazy,” she said. “I definitely believe that there is a desire for a feeling of play.”
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