5 Wrong Shoe Theory Ideas for Home Design
You’re stuck looking out at your living room with your perfect wall, perfect art, nice carpet, lovely couch, and you hate it. You feel you’ve got perfection, but you’re a long way from style.
Style is excitement.
If you’re not excited, you’re not stylish, because you’re not feeling truly you.
If you haven’t seen fashion stylist Allison Bornstein’s TikTok videos on “Wrong Shoe Theory”, they’re a great way to refresh your design thinking.
So what’s the “Wrong Shoe Theory”?
Basically, if you’ve got an outfit, pick the most surprising shoes to finish it off. It makes your look distinct and feels exciting.
Stylish.
So how to take this and give a spark to your home?
Of course we can’t put a pair of tennis shoes on a house—but we can mess things up and make them original to bring out our own natural, exciting styles.
Here are the “5 Wrong Shoe Rules” I’ve used for my own home design.
1. Classic Loves Post-Modern
Sometimes you just have to mix enemies and make them friends, right?
In my office, I love having a comfortable, stylish couch for breaks and relaxation when I need a productivity recharge. Though my office has a decidedly classical vibe to it with the French-inspired tapestry and Regency Era pastel blush colored walls—the couch and side table are completely post modern pieces.
The post modern twisted plaster side table holding the vintage brass potted plant next to it also carries that vibe—but the rest of it? Classical. When I work from my 1930s French desk, I can look at Post Modern and Classical styles hanging out and having a good time.
2. Redefine What Is Wall Art
Putting things where they belong is very nice and proper, but art has no business with that. Art is meant to stun, challenge, and entertain—so let that happen in your home.
Juxtaposing an 80s urban cityscape painting with the vintage brass Moroccan tray balances the shape and size of the wall and creates interesting conversations. Hanging up sculptural art, modern art, textiles . . .all of it creates a new playground for our eyes to dream on.
And I get excited that a piece that used to be for serving drinks is now one of the top showstoppers of my home. Wall art is whatever you choose to put on the walls.
3. Pop It With Unexpected Color
I’m not gonna lie, I think this pop of green in my kitchen looks fantastic and as delicious as anything I’m going to be cooking.
But one of the best, most obvious wrong shoes to score with is to add an unexpected splash of color in a room. In my white accented kitchen, I’ve contrasted the emerald green tile in order to provide a completely different focus for the eyes.
You may have seen lots of posts about Unexpected Reds on TikTok and Instagram, which I’ll have plenty to talk all about—in the meantime, feel free to pop your more modestly shaded walls with a splash of color.
4. Asian With Anything
If there’s one thing that goes with anything in Western Design, it’s Eastern furniture. Throughout Western history, East Asian design styles are often prized or imitated, either as exotic or elegant (for example, Ming Dynasty work hugely influenced Scandinavian Mid Century Modern designers). Throughout my design life, I’ve found in my home and in clients’ houses that East Asian designs can go with essentially anything since they appear timeless.
In my front patio, I have mostly metal and glass style works, especially my Arthur Umanoff glass table and chairs set. Adding this Chinese antiquity piece from the early 19th Century Qing Dynasty, gives the room warmth (especially during these Chicago winters!).
Simply put, I’ve never had a problem fusing Asian furniture into a room to change it up—always for the better.
5. Clash Patterns & Art
Here’s where putting the wrong shoe of an artwork can really upend the identity of a room.
Mix cultures—when you clash the art and furniture aesthetic of a room it creates a new identity. I call my bedroom “The William Morris Room” because the design is greatly inspired by the work of William Morris, the great designer, writer, and polymath. The wallpaper and all the design choices I made are supposed to reflect his iconic patterns.
So what makes the room my own?
Since the guest bedroom has that very English William Morris aesthetic (also mixed with the Chinoiserie dresser & Czech pottery), to change it I added one of Marian Nielsen’s Mexican-influenced works. Part of the same artist collective as Diego Rivera, the dynamic colors of Marian’s painting shatter the stateliness and infuse the room with its own character.
The wallpaper is William Morris. The bed is Room & Board. But Marian Nielsen’s wrong shoe painting makes the room completely its own. Mexican, British, and Czech—that’s a new one!
If you mix time periods, cultures, and elements, it layers a room to give it true depth and character. Don’t be monochromatic like a gravestone. Wear the wrong shoe. Love where you live for good.
Looking to bring the “Wrong Shoe Theory” into your own home but don’t know how to get started?
Click here to book a 15 minute consultation with Kat.
