California Finish

Yuichiro Noguchi
5 days ago
3 min read

A long time ago, a dealer dealing with vintage furniture in New York, USA, said, "New York prefers old furniture, while California prefers restored furniture like new. That's why I've read an article called California Finish. I thought it was an interesting story, but even in Japanese vintage furniture stores, many of them are properly restored and sold, but perhaps it is influenced by the culture of the west coast of the United States.

When I first acquired a dining table from Harman Miller in the 1950s, although there were scratches and chips equivalent to the age on the top plate, I used it as it was without restoring it, but it was a table with a very good atmosphere with a vintage look. Many people told me that. Soon after, the top plate was restored and it became as beautiful as new, but it was no longer as it used to be.

In recent years, Pierre Jeannere's furniture has been popular, but the unique atmosphere created by 70 years is the biggest attraction. If this had been restored like new, it might not have attracted so many people. Vintage jeans are also very rare in dead stock, but what is really attractive is that they are faded according to the age. No matter how advanced the processing technology is and the same thing can be made, it is impossible to copy the history of the original.

In the UK, it is common sense to live in a house for as long as possible, and in the UK, a house of more than 100 years is commonplace, and most people buy second-hand houses. It is the British culture to continue to use things that are getting deeper over the years while repairing them.

In the United States, DIY, which repairs and renovates houses with its own hands, is popular, and second-hand is not a negative evaluation. Renovation may maintain or raise the selling price of the house. They like to change to something that suits their lives, and they live while enjoying renovation as a hobby.

French and German cultures also have a culture of carefully using houses while repairing them, and in France, the antique beauty of materials that have naturally deteriorated over time is valued as a value. In Germany, stone apartments built in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries are called "Altbau", and "Altbau" is a German word for "old architecture", and there are people who like to live in such old houses.

Japan is still new supremacy. There are many people who prefer the new to the old, and I think there is more than a little prejudice and discrimination against the old. In Europe, one of the statuses is that a company has its headquarters in a historic building that has been built for more than 100 years.

Even if a new thing looks good at first glance, it is often worth it only at that time. Things that exist, even if they are old or timeless, are equipped with the intrinsic goodness and charm of the object itself. People and things are young and new things are attractive, but what really feels deep depends on the history that that person or thing has followed.

Before the previous table was restored, I think it resonated with many people because the traces of 70 years of history remained on the top plate. It's not that everything is better to be clean, but it made me realize that old things have an old atmosphere, and that's the charm.

If you use it for a long time, it is natural to get scratched, and each of those scratches is the history of that thing itself. In that sense, I think it's a wonderful culture that New Yorkers prefer the state as they are.