There is something interesting happening with the word retro in furniture at the moment.
It has become a broad way of describing furniture that takes us back to earlier periods — sometimes the 1950s and 60s, sometimes the 70s and early 80s, and often a mixture of influences rather than one particular style.
Curves, rounded corners, bullnose edges and softer forms are appearing everywhere again. Some feel familiar because we’ve seen versions of them before.
But furniture design has always borrowed from what came before it. An element disappears for a while, returns in another form and is often mixed with influences from somewhere else.
That is really what we’re seeing now.
There are elements of the cleaner modernist furniture of the 1950s and 60s — the period our Otis side tables probably reference most strongly. Through the 70s and into the 80s, other forms became more pronounced: curves, glass, bullnose edges and more substantial bases. Today we’re seeing many of those ideas reappear, but interpreted quite differently.
Art Deco is also frequently referenced when people talk about the return of curves. There are certainly elements contemporary designers borrow from Deco, but Deco itself is a very definite style.
So rather than trying to put everything into one historical category, perhaps the more interesting way to look at contemporary side tables and furniture design is as design borrowing — taking elements from different periods without recreating any one of them.
For us, that’s much more interesting than simply saying retro is back.
Taking influence from the past without recreating it
Very few design ideas appear completely out of nowhere.
Forms, proportions and ideas can disappear for decades and then return in a way that suddenly feels new. What makes them interesting is how they’re reinterpreted for their own time.
Look around contemporary interiors and there are curves almost everywhere.
Sofas have become softer, rounder and sometimes almost bulbous. Ottomans can have pebble-like forms. Coffee tables and designer side tables are using rounded edges, bullnose profiles, substantial curved bases and softer geometry.
We’ve seen versions of many of these ideas before.
What changes is how they’re interpreted.
1980s timber bullnose side tables influenced by Art Deco
These tables are a particularly interesting example. They were designed and made in the 1980s, yet they were themselves drawing on the language of an earlier Art Deco period. One generation of design was already borrowing from another.
Technology and manufacturing have also moved enormously. Forms that may once have been quite heavy can now be produced with greater refinement. A substantial pedestal base doesn’t necessarily have to feel visually heavy. A generous table can have presence while still appearing light.
Taking influence from the past isn’t about reproducing it. It’s about recognising an idea that still has value and asking what we can do with it now.
Early-1980s glass side table with red sphere
This early-1980s table makes that point particularly well. Without knowing its age, it could easily be mistaken for a contemporary design. Its round form, glass and sculptural geometry feel remarkably current.
That is what makes looking backwards interesting. Something that appears new today may have a much longer design lineage.
The Otis tables sit naturally within that conversation.
Their rounded forms have more of a 1960s retro influence, but they aren’t intended as reproductions of a 1960s table. The different heights, overlapping composition and ability to separate the pieces make them very much about contemporary living.
They take something familiar and move it forward.
And once we get beyond how side tables look, the more important conversation becomes how they’re used.
The first question isn’t style — what does the side table need to do?
A side table is one of the smaller pieces of furniture in a room, but it can have a surprising number of jobs.
Is it going to hold a lamp?
Does it need enough room for a book, phone and cup of coffee?
Will it stay permanently beside a sofa, or should you be able to move it around?
Could two smaller side tables sometimes do the job of one larger coffee table?
Those questions affect the height, size and form of the piece.
Many of the side tables we design sit somewhere around 500–550 mm high, but I don’t believe there is one measurement that automatically makes a side table right.
You have to look at what it’s sitting beside.
The height and shape of the sofa arm matter. The depth of the seating matters. Most importantly, how somebody actually wants to use the table matters.
My understanding of that goes right back to my apprenticeship in chair and couch making. When you’re building chair and sofa frames, you quickly learn that furniture has to relate to the human body.
The same principle applies to side tables.
Sometimes we’ll design a table so that it comes closer to or partially across the sofa area. You shouldn’t necessarily have to lean forward every time you want your phone, remote, iPad, morning coffee — or that all-important glass of wine.
The surface can simply be where you need it.
That is also where custom side tables can make sense. Designing custom furniture gives us the opportunity to consider the height, dimensions and proportions of a side table in relation to the sofa, the room and the way the client actually lives.
It’s a small thing, but good furniture is often about those small things.
Genuine 1980s mobile side table/trolley on castors
Mobility isn’t a new idea either. This genuine 1980s piece sits on castors, allowing it to move from beside a sofa to a position in front of it. Depending on the height of the seating, pieces like this could even partially tuck into the sofa area.
The styling belongs to its period, but the ergonomic idea behind it remains completely relevant.
Scale matters — even with a small table
Scale is something we talk about with clients constantly.
People are often cautious about furniture being too large. They’ll look at a room and worry that a bigger coffee table or side table is going to dominate it, so their instinct is to go smaller.
But smaller isn’t automatically better.
Sometimes a table that’s too small makes the room feel less resolved because it doesn’t have enough relationship with the sofa, chairs or other furniture around it.
Going slightly larger can actually make everything feel calmer.
The important distinction is between scale and visual weight.
Something can be generous in size without feeling heavy.
Curves can soften it. The base can create openness underneath it. The thickness of the top, materials and proportions all influence how substantial a piece feels.
And this brings us back to design borrowing. We can take some of the confidence and generosity of earlier furniture without necessarily taking its physical heaviness with us.
Green gloss side tables with drawer — late-1980s/early-1990s influence
These green gloss tables demonstrate another change in the language of furniture. There is more visual weight, stronger colour and a form that begins to bridge the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Again, elements of that confidence in shape and colour are appearing in contemporary furniture in new ways.
When one Otis became two
We had a client project that illustrates the question of scale particularly well.
The clients found Special Things online because they were looking for Australian-made, locally made furniture with a retro feel.
They were an older couple who still had several pieces they’d owned for many years. They weren’t looking to clear everything out and suddenly create a completely new interior.
They liked what they already had.
They simply wanted to introduce a few new pieces that would sit comfortably alongside it.
They came into our Melbourne studio with photographs of their home, and we talked through a smaller television area they wanted to furnish. It wasn’t their main living room and it wasn’t an enormous space.
Initially, they thought they wanted one Otis table.
Looking at the photographs and proportions of the room, I felt one wasn’t quite going to be enough. It would have looked a little isolated and wouldn’t have given the room the scale it needed.
So I suggested the pair.
The larger and smaller Otis sit at two different heights and overlap, which immediately creates more movement and gives the composition greater presence.
But it also gave the clients something they hadn’t really considered.
The smaller table was easy to move.
It could sit as part of the pair and then, when needed, be pulled beside the sofa and used independently as a side table.
Suddenly the two pieces weren’t simply filling a space. They could change depending on how the clients were using the room.
That’s where flexibility becomes much more valuable than simply following a style.
Mini-Me / Maxi contemporary curved tables
Furniture doesn’t have to live in rigid categories
We tend to give furniture very specific names.
Coffee table. Side table. Occasional table.
Those names are useful, but they don’t necessarily have to dictate how a piece is used.
Two side tables can come together and create the scale of a coffee table. Then one can move beside a chair. Another can come closer to the sofa. When people come over, they can move again.
We’re exploring that idea further with some new side-table designs.
One uses a semicircular form designed to sit neatly beside a sofa. Another takes a section from a round top so the table can nestle closer to the sofa arm.
There are elements within those forms that we’ve seen at different times in design history, but that’s not where the design begins.
The starting point is much simpler:
How is somebody actually going to use it?
Good design has a relationship with longevity
There is another side to this conversation that is worth considering.
When something is well designed and well made, people tend to keep it.
Furniture may eventually pass to another family member, be sold, restored or simply used again by somebody who appreciates it. Some pieces are refurbished and given another life; others remain exactly as they were made.
The older tables shown throughout this story are evidence of that.
Decades after they were designed, they are still useful, interesting and relevant enough to be appreciated again.
That longevity is a very real form of sustainability.
Quality and good design create longevity.
Furniture that remains useful and desirable has a much better chance of staying in homes rather than becoming disposable.
Where locally made and custom furniture fits
There is an enormous range of side tables available.
At one end are highly produced pieces designed to perform a straightforward function. At the other are internationally recognised designer pieces where the designer, provenance and place of manufacture are an important part of what someone is buying.
Locally designed and made furniture occupies another space.
For us, custom furniture is about people who appreciate design, want something Australian made and value knowing where and how their furniture has been made.
That doesn’t mean making a side table complicated simply for the sake of it.
Sometimes its job is very simple.
But proportion, height, material, how it relates to the sofa and whether it can move easily around the room can turn a relatively small piece of furniture into something considerably more useful.
The Otis clients didn’t simply choose a table from a photograph. We talked about their room, looked at what they already owned and worked out what would make sense alongside it.
The result was still a side table.
It was simply the right side table — or, as it turned out, the right two.
The project eventually grew a little further. Because this was their television area, we also designed a compact entertainment unit that carried some of the same visual language and worked with the proportions of the room.
Nothing enormous and nothing over-designed.
Just several pieces considered as part of the same room.
Choosing the right side table
Before choosing a side table purely because you like its style, look at the room around it.
Consider the sofa or chair it will relate to. Think about its height, but also think about reach. Decide what genuinely needs to sit on it.
And look at the visual scale of the furniture around it rather than judging the table on its own.
Don’t automatically assume smaller is safer.
Sometimes the answer is one generous table. Sometimes it’s two pieces working together. Sometimes a side table that can move around the room is far more useful than one that stays permanently in one position.
And sometimes the piece you initially thought you needed isn’t quite the piece that will work best.
That’s where a conversation about scale and use can make a difference.
The right side table should feel as though it belongs there — visually, physically and practically.
Looking backwards can help us design forwards
There is no question that we’re borrowing from the past again.
We’re seeing curves, softened edges, rounded forms, pedestal bases and more confidence in scale. Some of those elements can be traced to Deco, some to the 50s and 60s, and others remind us more of the 70s, 80s or 90s.
But I don’t think the interesting part is deciding exactly which decade everything belongs to.
The interesting part is what we do with those influences now.
We can take the softness of a curve. We can take the confidence of a substantial form. We can use contemporary materials, technology and making techniques to refine those ideas. And then we can design the piece around the way somebody actually lives.
That’s when looking backwards becomes useful.
It’s influence rather than imitation.
We’re not recreating the past.
We’re borrowing from it and moving forward.