Decorations with fake food, colors and textures are back on trend

The New York Times

While a minimalist interior may have represented a decorative aspiration a few years ago, it seems that intermittent lockdowns and the scarcity of many products caused by problems in the supply chain have led people to re-evaluate the aesthetics of an empty house.

The result is the resurgence of maximalism in interior decoration, embracing patterns, textures and colors. Built-in cabinets and shelves, once plain and simple, are now faceted; clean-line furniture was replaced by curvy, upholstered products; trends with pretentious names like “cottagecore” and “grandmillenial” aspire to elevate handcrafted, second-hand, and old-fashioned items.

So it’s no surprise that fake food is also back. Candles in the shape of cold cuts and cheeses, croissants made of resin, and jelly-shaped lamps are in demand. Retro-style fake cakes have taken over Instagram.

Jewelry brand Mociun created fake glasses of spilled wine and melted ice cream to accompany its $10,000 engagement rings. And the Pampshade lamps, by Yukiko Morita, made with preserved real bakery products, cost up to US$ 80, approximately R$ 450.

For John Derian, founder of the home decor line that bears his name, the resurgence of fake food is a great sign. He’s had a fake cake on his kitchen counter for 14 years, he said, and estimates he’s been selling food-themed products in his store for 20 years, starting with a stewed doll created by Nathalie Lete that had sausage arms and a fillet on the head.

“I love funny things,” he stated. These days, Derian also offers more upscale fake food products to his customers who aren’t so fond of kitsch, including bananas and stone cherries carved in Tuscany, Italy, using marble from Michelangelo’s favorite quarry.

For about 10 years, Derian has also been selling food-shaped candles produced by Cereria Introna, an Italian company founded around 1840. This year, Cereria Introna, whose candles are all handcrafted and which supplies products to many food stores. design, has seen such a surge in demand for its candles in the United States that it has not been able to fill all orders.

Derian often displays these wax and paraffin beauties – which include cake-shaped candles, donuts and pies – in his shop window. “Everyone responds to them with joy,” he says.

A MATTER OF TASTE​

Fake food has been used as a decorative object for centuries. Trompe l’oeil porcelain, made in 18th-century Europe, often took the form of fruits and vegetables, including melons and peas in their pods. There are examples of fruits made from jade and alabaster in Qing dynasty China.

Over the past few centuries, fake food has continued to be popular in more utilitarian environments. In Japan, objects that simulate food, known as “sampuru”, are displayed in restaurant windows, and their production by artisans can cost hundreds of dollars.

In the United States, fake wedding cakes can help preserve the visual tradition of a layered cake while helping to reduce the cost of the real cake. But when it comes to fake food used as an art object in American homes, designer Sarah Archer, author of “The Midcentury Kitchen,” a book released in 2019, suggests looking back at the 1950s and 1960s, when fake food was the trend.

“Glass fruits were very popular in the 1950s and 1960s, especially after World War II, when they became more affordable and interesting, and even attracted Americans to travel to Italy,” Archer said recently.

American tourists returned from their journeys carrying glass apples or pears as souvenirs. Fake berries made from wax were also very popular, although products made from these materials could be seen as kitsch depending on the audience.

“It more or less represents domesticity, and a certain middle-class effort to beautify their surroundings, but at the same time it has a tacky side,” says Archer. For some of the artisans and brands that sell fake food today, the question of taste — or questionable taste — is what attracted them to the trend in the first place.

Leanne Rodriguez, an artist from Oakland, California who goes by the stage name Elrod, began making fake gelatin lamps during the pandemic. In a recent interview, she said she wanted the effect to be “slightly repulsive”.

Using mixed jelly ideas from mid-century cookbooks as inspiration, she suspends hot dogs, chopped vegetables and fruits made of clay in a gleaming resin.

Her creations, which carry the Mexakitchen brand and are sold as part of her Mexakitsch artwork line, produce a ghostly glow from the LED lights installed inside. Rodriguez said that her fascination with kitsch was what attracted her to producing the lamps in the first place, and that the more she produces them, the more opulent they become.

“A lot of people don’t understand,” said the artist, whose creations cost between $100 and $3,500, which equates to around R$562 to R$19.6 thousand. “But people who understand, love.”

CAKE RACE​

The joy of fake food is something that Jazmine Rogers, a content creator in San Diego, remembers from her childhood. Her grandmother had a collection of fake fruit, and when Rogers was decorating her house, she made sure to include fake fruit.

“There’s something about this custom that feels very homey to me,” said Rogers, 25. “It’s kind of playing with the food, like the food is in places it shouldn’t be. There’s something fun about that.”

The fake cake that decorates Rogers’ house was made by Jasmine Archie, an artist from Austin, Texas, who was surprised and delighted to discover that there is a market for her whimsical, colorful and candy-inspired creations.

“People got high,” said Archie, 25, of the first cakes he made. “They already existed in the market, but it was something very little explored by my generation, in my opinion. And I thought I could put that up for sale and see what would happen.”

Archie believes that part of the reason for the popularity of his pieces is what the cakes, especially the most colorful and decorated ones, represent. “When I see a cake, I always think there’s a celebration going on,” she said. “I think when people look at a cake, it makes them happy. It’s like that with me.”

It’s this happiness and fun that inspired Mociun, a fine jewelry fashion house, to start selling fake food in its store in 2018. Caitlin Mociun, designer and founder of the Brooklyn-based company, has a personal collection of fake food whose items the brand used them as props in photo shoots of products and for decoration of shop windows in the store.

So many customers asked if the products were for sale that Mociun began offering them along with his ceramics and glass products. “I think the fun aspect of it attracts a lot of people, for sure,” said Marney Zaslav, director of purchasing and operations at Mociun.

Especially in recent years, fake food has become a distinct product category at Mociun, and items in the collection range in price from US$15 to US$400, from around R$84 to R$2,250. “A lot of these things, even if we only use them for window dressing, make people stop and look when they’re passing by the store,” said Zaslav.

And recently, consumers aren’t just devouring fake foods with their eyes. They are also looking for them online. According to the Etsy market, there was a 36% increase in searches for fake cakes on the site, in the last three months, compared to the period in 2020.

There was also a 32% increase in searches for fruit-shaped candles, and a 16% increase in searches for fruit- or food-inspired ornaments, over the same period. Additionally, there was a 1,113% increase in searches for breakfast cereal candles – perhaps the hottest trend in the fake food business, thanks to TikTok.

Dayna Isom Johnson, an expert on trends at Etsy, attributed the rise in searches to two factors. “The first is that consumers are looking for creative and playful ways to create sparkle and energy in their spaces,” she wrote in an email. “Fake food is an easy way to inject a sense of freshness into any space, and it lasts longer than the real version.”

“The other is the influence of social media,” she added. “Etsy’s sellers react quickly to emerging trends, faster than the big stores, and so we see a constant renewal of products that reflects something emerging in the ‘zeitgeist’ — in this case, cereal-inspired candles.”

Archer, the designer and journalist, said she believes consumers are looking for comforting and fanciful decor choices. Fake food “is a relatively inexpensive, simple and creative way to make a home more cheerful and eccentric,” she said. “I believe that there is definitely a desire and a desire to play.”