A Windsor chair in hot-molded plastic. A glass skull used as an olive-oil container. A lounger made from the Coney Island boardwalk. At first, it would seem these things have little in common. But each represents an attempt to reimagine the past—its colors, its style, its artifacts—toward fresh and exciting ends. They are all part of “the new old.”

Anyone who’s been to a downtown restaurant has seen this ersatz design movement percolating: the antlers on the wall, the sepia photographs, and all those Edison bulbs. But “the old” is much more elastic than that. At the recent Milan furniture fair, many designers, like Marcel Wanders, were redefining the classics with new materials and reworked silhouettes. He presented a side chair in Lucite and wood, putting a new spin on the turned leg.

Naturally, this is far from the only design movement out there. The seventies is another rage. (Actually, that almost counts as the new old, too.) But the new old is a particularly enthralling one, because it allows for such a range of expression and discoveries. Some people go antiquing at the Paris flea market. Others, in a time-honored tradition, find great stuff on the street. (Just don’t, as per another, ahem, story in this issue, pick up any curbside mattresses on Park Avenue.) Some make the furniture themselves. Here we visit five homes whose residents have indulged their fascination with the past—from Versailles to Victorianism—and then, go here for some great new objects that tweak history, including Wanders’s chair, a Baroque plastic frame, and that Coney Island chaise longue.

Photographs by The Selby

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