COLUMN: How to decorate your apartment based off of your fashion style | Culture

When you’re apartment hunting, you usually imagine where pieces of furniture will go in each empty building before you decide on signing a lease. Maybe a potted plant will go behind a pleather couch in the corner, or your bed will be placed delicately against the urban staple of a distressed brick wall. Then after you finish signing the lease, you put on your Zaha Hadid thinking cap and spend hours scrolling through Pinterest trying to find the perfect interior design theme. After you have that figured out, you have to spend even more hours looking through furniture stores trying to find pieces that match the theme while also being affordable. 

This whole process of decorating can take so long you end up sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag inside a bare apartment for the entirety of your lease. Luckily, I have a cheat code for you. Instead of copying other peoples’ room arrangements, you can use your own fashion design to decide how you’ll decorate your new home. 

What you wear can help you determine the type of furniture you should buy, and then after you read up on basic feng shui principles, you’ll be ready to decorate like nobody’s business. 

The goth

So you’re the person who likes to wear all black. You like black washed jeans with leather tops and heavy jewelry; you like eyeliner and black fishnet tights with mini skirts. You might wear a white collared shirt to add a pop of color with a black coat over the top. You listen to Avril Lavigne and you sometimes snarl when people look at you the wrong way. 

For your apartment, you want dark furniture. You should go for a black leather couch with wood accents, black pleather throw pillows, gold candlestick holders to match your heavy jewelry and warm things up, a black faux marble TV stand, an off-white animal pelt rug to imitate that white pop of color you like in your clothing and a black marble coffee table. 

Don’t be afraid to blare some screamo music and decorate your walls with all the noise complaint papers your landlord will certainly give you. You’re a baddie, and you’re not afraid to treat your apartment like a palace of chaos. 

The hipster

You’re usually found in the back of bookstores or inside cozy coffee shops. You like to wear a lot of rings and loose pants. You like tie-dye patterns and soft cotton fabrics. You prefer to wear sandals, and you buy all your clothes from thrift stores. You like quality clothing that doesn’t break the bank. 

According to your style, you’ll want your humble abode to be light and airy with the walls covered in tapestries. You should buy a tie-dye throw blanket, a yellow bean bag chair, a couple cushioned wicker chairs to match your choice of footwear, a peace tapestry to represent the loose pants you tend to wear, a lava lamp and a geode end table to hold all the books you’ve started but haven’t finished.

Before you move, make sure to smudge out any bad energy and add incense sticks for that extra smell-good flair. 

The nature lover 

You love plants and usually talk to trees more than you do your own friends. Every Halloween you dress up as Poison Ivy, and you somehow always get leaves and twigs in your hair. Much like the hipster, you like flowy clothing. You prefer linen and cotton fabrics with neutral colors like cream and muted green. You like things that were made sustainably and ethically. The average outfit you wear consists of a cream button down shirt, a neck scarf, loose mom jeans and white sneakers. 

You want your apartment to feel more like a forest than an actual room. A couple things you’ll want are green faux vines, a large indoor fig tree, a faux grass carpet, an inflatable transparent couch chair to imitate a lake inside a forest, a wicker and linen couch and an eco-friendly bathroom storage unit. 

Play occasional bird chirping noises through speakers and it’ll be like you don’t even live in an apartment and instead you live in the wilderness. 

The frat boy 

You’re a fraternity member and you value your brotherhood over anything else. You drink your protein shake through a beer bong in the morning and you wear shorts no matter the weather. You like to dress casually with a hoodie, a baseball cap and sneakers. Sometimes you add a pair of shades if you want to jazz up the look with accessories. 

Since you’re a casual dresser, you want your apartment to be just as laid back. For statement pieces go for a sectional couch so you and all the bros can watch the game on Saturdays, a ‘Saturdays are for the Boys’ banner for the wall, a basic TV stand, a simple wall hat rack for all the baseball caps and a modern pool table. 

Be sure to remind everyone at the next philanthropy event that the afterparty will be at your place. 

The color pop artist 

You’re a fan of art, more specifically comic book style art. You spend your weekends cruising in a convertible or eating ice cream at Ivanna Cone. You are bold with your color choices and would rather stand out than fit in with the crowd. You aren’t too much into patterns and would rather wear neon colored trousers with a contrasting colored top. In the winter, you prefer neon pink turtlenecks with green cropped coats. You wear bell bottom trousers or slacks. You have unruly hair that is never tied back. 

You like your apartment to be an organized mess; naturally you need a lime green side table, a rainbow wicker storage unit to discreetly organize things, customizable neon lights, a giant silver high heel chair because you like to stand out from the crowd, pink bar stools and a round ball chair. 

Whenever you invite people over, make sure to play super loud electronica music and use action words like “pop” and “boom” to describe what you did that day. 

You may be thinking right now, “I never thought I would get into feng shui,” but boy, have the tables turned. All jokes aside, if you can’t figure out what your interior design arrangement should be based on your fashion style, then just go with the flow. Visit an antique store, find things that you like and put them in your new home. Not everything needs to be perfect, just make sure whatever furniture you end up getting is comfortable and something you’ll want to see everyday. 

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