The Melt is a newsletter by, about and largely to entertain Jason Diamond. Hopefully you also like it and will consider subscribing and sharing this post.
I have this whole theory that I have come up simply by looking around at the world. I might be wrong, but I think you can tell a lot about where we’re at as a culture by the way we design things. I won’t use this space to launch into some beauty vs. functionality debate, because I have something more important to get to, but I will say that when I look at the way we design things, be it houses or cars or buildings, I often think to myself, “Man, we really hate each other.” Everything looks too cold and boring, or we build these new buildings with gigantic glass window where everybody can seem to see in, as if that’s the point. Like we don’t feel sufficiently watched so we need people to be able to peek inside where we sleep and eat.
But like I said, that’s a whole big discussion that I’m not here to have. And besides, tastes change. Future generations might think modern design is cozy, and that makes sense since they’ll all have to live in caves after the planet melts, so I won’t talk too badly. Instead of talking shit, you could say I’m here to talk where we shit. Yes, we’re here to talk about bathrooms. Specifically the bathroom trends of the coming year.
Yes, this is a serious discussion about something that is very important to me. I love bathrooms. If you invite me over to your home, I won’t judge you based on how your bathroom looks, but I will walk out of your loo thinking I know a lot more about you. Cleanliness is obviously part of it. Like if you have the bathroom from Trainspotting then you and I are likely never talking again, but I also appreciate a little clutter in a bathroom. Clutter is fine, I just don’t like filth. In the filth universe, bathroom filth is obviously the most disgusting, with kitchen filth coming in second. The only difference between the two is if your kitchen is filthy then I simply won’t ever eat at your house. If your bathroom is disgusting, then I’ll assume you don’t wash your hands after you go to the bathroom and, honestly, that’s disgusting.
But beyond that, I look for other things. Like what sort of toothpaste do you use? Do you put thought into that sort of thing? Do you moisturize? If you have a guest bathroom and I’m not allowed that personally look into your life, what sort of hand soap do you have for your guests? What’s the towel situation? Is there a candle? What kind? Is it a candle you can get at Target for ten bucks, or do you really go out of your way to make sure your guests have an experience by having a lit candle from D.S. & Durga or did you also maybe go to Olmsted and decide you also needed one of those charcoal candles? If so, good on you!
The point is, if the eyes are the window of the soul, then the bathroom is the part of your home that I can go into and look deep inside of you and tell what kind of a person you are. It’s like a colonoscopy to show me your true self.
That’s probably where my obsession with taking pictures of bathrooms I like comes from. It’s also why I will literally rip pages of Town & Country or Architectural Digest out and put them in a folder I have tucked away that’s labeled “Bathroom inspiration.” Sometimes I feel a little weird about this, but then I see something like Apartment Therapy posting their yearly look at the “Bathroom Interior Design Trends” for the coming year, and I think to myself that I’m not as alone as I thought in my bathroom interest.
This year, interestingly, things aren’t all that different from last. I’ve been wondering what that means. The Japandi style, a fusion of Japanese and Nordic, feels a little obvious, frankly. I mean, the Japanese pretty much own the bathroom game. If you’ve ever been there then you know what I’m talking about. America failed the minute we didn’t try to compete with Japan in the heated toilet market. But the Nordic thing throws me off. I know you want to be chill when you go to the bathroom, but the natural hues really throw me off. I like a cozy bathroom. This doesn’t strike me as cozy. It feels very "three seashells” from Demolition Man to me. That said, I do think if you had some soft music playing in your bathroom, like the excellent Light in the Attic Japanese new age comp Kankyō Ongaku, then maybe this could work.
The other two trends for 2022 are a little more straightforward, but they bring me to something I find myself bringing up when I’m around my friends and they just brush me off like I’m being crazy. But excuse me if I think more people should paint or wallpaper their bathrooms. I think that’s nice! Those are the other two big trends according to Apartment Therapy, namely wallpaper and green hues, and I get why I personally don’t see enough of that given that I live in New York City and we have small bathrooms and usually don’t live in the same place for more than a year or two. Decorating a bathroom isn’t really a priority. But I will say that painting a bathroom can really change things and it’s a fun little project that I wish more people would undertake.
But if you’re not going to paint or wallpaper your bathroom, could I at least make a suggestion? The photo above is from a little roadside place I ate at recently in Anguilla. In any other situation, that blue toilet would remind me of this:
And all due respect to Mel, but I don’t want to ever think about that angry toilet from Look Who’s Talking Too. I recently had a long conversation with my shrink about that scene and I can’t stop thinking about it because I seriously think that blue Anguilla toilet may have cured me. Now when I see a blue toilet, I think to myself that it would look great with a painting hung over it. This is a seriously under-utilized trick, and I’d personally love to see “More art hung over the toilet” in 2022 and beyond.