This Playful Design Detail Is Starting to Feel Overdone

Here lies Scalloped Decor, 2021–2025. Sweet, charming, and slightly overdone. Survived by ruffles, bobbin trim, and waves.

Yep, that’s headstone copy. And ordinarily I’m not one to yuck another’s yum. I firmly believe tracking trends should be fun and informative for people who geek out about design — not a pejorative practice in the least. But where have all the clean lines and right angles gone? How has the all-curved-everything fad given way to frilly little scallops on everything from built-in bookcases and moldings to furniture, lampshades, rugs, and even toilet paper?

Look, we’re part of the problem. Apartment Therapy clocked the squiggly edge and wave trend coming on strong at the start of the 2020s, as neotenic design helped the collective design conscious get a little more joyful through retreating back to childhood forms. By late 2023, though, a scalloped takeover seemed imminent but certainly not hostile. 

What’s child-like in design, though, often gets a more sophisticated glow-up. Scallops still might remind you of your Pottery Barn Kids bedroom from when you were growing up, or maybe even the drapery your fanciest aunt had, but they have a touch of Art Deco in them too. And this tiny little half-moon-shaped motif sure looks a lot like cottage garden edging. It feels vaguely familiar, but still fresh — the stuff of fairytales, but also classic architecture. 

And so, everything got the scallop treatment because, well, many people like cute things. And can’t we all use an extra reason to smile sometimes? But the past few years have reminded me a bit of the “put a bird on it” bit Portlandia made funny back in 2012. Nothing sums that iconic skit up better than this line: “What a sad little tote bag,” Carrie Brownstein’s character says. “I know — I’ll put a bird on it.” Just swap bird for scallop.

Scalloped edges truly have been everywhere — on furniture, frames, notebooks, tissue paper, pots, bowls, sheets, towels, storage bins, you name it. Some people began painting scalloped faux wainscoting on their walls, while others used the cutesy shapes to trim out their interior doorways and openings. I’ve seen tiles that have scalloped edges, and it’s been used heavily for area rugs, drapery, and even on duvets and pillowcases.

Of course, scallops aren’t new, and design is cyclical. You could argue that they’re a classic because that’s, in some sense, true. Ancient fountains and niches often featured scallops, and the form evolved as a motif seen on ceilings during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The Rococo decor movement saw the scallop take center stage with shell forms, and the Pinterest-perfect curvy edges we’re seeing again today definitely hark back to the gingerbread trim still seen on many historic Victorian homes.

There’s nothing wrong with the scalloped edge explosion at all, if it truly makes you happy to see those little whimsical waves in your home. I just don’t think every item or element in a room needs to be quite this fanciful. A quirky design detail often loses its impact when it’s overdone. 

So I’m just saying maybe stop — and put down the hammer. Does your IKEA BILLY really need to sport sweet scallops on its shelf edges, as it’s proudly displaying your sweet scalloped rattan baskets? The answer is probably no. Maybe try bobbin trim instead?