This holiday season, if you want to outdo your neighbors with Christmas decorations, you can’t just go with the outdoor lights anymore. You have to think outside the box and take a special cue from the movies. But there’s no need to be clever. You can avoid our guide to decorating your home for the holidays (according to the movies) this year. Instead, the decor has been produced for you, so you just have to write a big check in order to make the inside of your house resemble one from a favorite holiday classic. Well, not just any one. Specifically, the McCallister residence from Home Alone can now be somewhat recreated thanks to the home goods retailer Joss & Main. From now through the end of December, they’re selling furniture and other items inspired by the interior design seen in the 1990 Christmas comedy.
Is there anyone who loves Home Alone that much? I imagine that whoever bought the actual house located in Winnetka, Illinois, when it was for sale back in 2011 is that obsessed. These couches and pillows and chandeliers and bird statues are perfect for that special homeowner, no matter if these aren’t authentic or even, to be quite honest, similar pieces. The company worked with 20th Century Fox on the designs, and I’ll admit they fit a certain aesthetic that feels like the set decoration in Home Alone, but it is nevertheless a very strange idea to produce and market such a specific and dated aesthetic in the first place.
Looking through images of the house as it appears in the movie, it’s clear the art department went for an appropriately red and green tone so that every room fits the Christmastime setting and theme. Fortunately, aside from supplying an actual Christmas tree, not too many of Joss & Main’s items in this collection are considerably holiday or seasonally oriented. But for the sake of hosting your neighborhood holiday party, filling your living and dining room with these pieces should impress your guests that are familiar enough with the movie to get it. That would be the primary game of the evening, after all, letting everyone make a guess as to why you’ve eschewed a lot of traditional disposable decorations for a decades-old atmosphere.
Could this sort of thing work for a movie that’s more movie geek friendly? Or at least more fun? There’s a great yet brief Pinterest page devoted to movie set design that provides an answer of “yes” with its wonderful selection of stills. A lot of the more interesting choices, obviously so, include rooms from the Harry Potter movies, Amelie and James Bond. Others show that dated can be quite stylish if you go back far enough, to the settings of Sherlock Holmes and Midnight in Paris. But more contemporary design is on display too, as in the case of The Ghost Writer. I might be more interested in making my office look like Ewan McGregors there. For some other ideas for inspiration, check out this blog highlighting views of The Royal Tenenbaums, American Psycho, Down With Love, A Clockwork Orange and more.
Joss & Main isn’t incapable of doing something a little more fun, either. Another collection that ends sale this weekend is inspired by Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. They’re focused more on the book and its illustrations rather than the design seen in Ron Howard’s live-action movie version, though again these aren’t meant to be authentically replicated items mimicking anything from the pages. Still, they’ve got some Seussian spirit with their curvatures and wonky patterns. What should they do next? I’d love to see them tackle something sci-fi. And older. How about the ’40s meets future aesthetics of movies like Brazil and Blade Runner? I’d be willing to throw down a ton of money if they did a good job of it.
What movie-inspired interior design would you most like to own?
