Say Goodbye to Fast Furniture

Fashion and interior design are more closely linked than people might think. There are the obvious reasons–both involve patterns, colors, textures, etc.–but fashion has historically driven interior design trends.

It’s one thing for fashion to influence materials and pallets, but in the last ten years we’ve seen fast fashion–mass-produced, cheap clothing meant to be worn and discarded–balloon into a marketplace full of fast furniture.

Fast furniture isn’t new, it’s just gotten more popular with the instant trends and flash sales on traffic-driven apps like TikTok and Instagram. Just searching “coffee table” on TikTok brings only a handful of types but an abundance of profiles from which to buy.

What is Fast Furniture?

Fast furniture is a means of standardizing design, even if that isn’t the primary intention. It’s aesthetic, clickable, shareable, and most importantly, cheap enough to tempt impulse buyers online. 

The quality of fast furniture is also concerning. As fast fashion greatly contributes to the 92 million tonnes of discarded garments piled up in landfills every year, fast furniture ends with larger pieces–often made with cheap wood blends like MDF which is often sawdust sometimes blended with formaldehyde–littering sidewalks and heaped into trash-covered piles for years to come.

Image source and header image source: Wayfair 

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Americans discard over 12 million tons of furniture a year, leading to a 450% increase in solid waste since 1960. Due to the materials used in the creation process, much of this furniture doesn’t break down.

According to the New York Times, sellers like Wayfair, Overstock, and Ikea sell  furniture that’s built to break within five years.

Last year, we delved into the way machine made rugs impact the environment. Synthetic materials like nylon can over 40 years to break down in landfills compared to natural, more biodegradable fibers.

If we extrapolate this concept further into the world of fast furniture, we can imagine how long and full our landfills will become should this fast-market behavior continue. 

Plus, things like washable rugs add to the influx of microplastics that are released into the water during washing and ultimately pollute our ecosystem.  

What Can We Do?

Like fast fashion, normal consumers who buy inexpensive furniture are not the ‘bad guys.’ Individuals cannot be held responsible for the damage done by multi-million or multi-billion dollar companies. With the current state of the economy, less costly furniture is often necessary for most people. 

Wayfair vowed to reduce their gas emissions by 63% by 2035. This isn’t a commitment to improving the quality of their furniture, but it’s a step in the right direction. We need to push these companies to make vital changes in the only way they will listen–with our dollars. 

Still, if we can, we should invest in higher quality, sturdier pieces made with better materials or hold on to the cheaper pieces until they break. In our interview with designers at the end of 2024, they predicted that longevity was going to be a major consideration of interior design this year. 

To accomplish that affordably, we can look to companies like Kaiyo and Chairish which allow people to give their furniture another life. There are other options too, like Fernish which lets you rent furniture from their selection of “trusted, credible manufacturers.”