Heritage Home | Trevon Warren Shares Pieces of Black History Through Antique Finds
Until the early 1900s, unless you were wealthy, home design was more about functionality than style. Everything was made well so even if you didn’t make much your basic pieces were still good by today’s standards. I remember going to buy furniture with my grandparents and it was considered a big deal. We weren’t picking out an entire house of furniture from Ikea. We were buying a sofa and armchair, focal pieces of the living room. Then in a few months, we’d buy the next thing. Over time we had a home that was curated and beautiful. Things weren’t mass-produced then and there was a sense of pride in your home.
Watch Trevon Warren’s eclectic Long Island City studio tour in our new series Heritage Home on YouTube!
I met Trevon Warren, co-founder of Portmanteau New York, a vintage + design studio based in Long Island City that offers a sustainable selection of furniture, objects, apparel, and accessories. We talked about how industrialization has changed the way we approach home design. The flip side of accessibility is that everything is accessible. When we realized that we could replicate quality and make things faster, we started to accept it as the new normal. With speed and technology, we just consume more and more. We’re not as thoughtful as our elders once were.
We’ve been taught to be okay with disposing of things that aren’t perfect and 2020 was a huge pivotal move for Millennials and the generations that follow us. We began looking around at our collection of things and wondering what it was all for. We wanted our home to express more of our identities. To enjoy luxury in our home again like the Art Deco period when according to Trevon “Craftsmanship was a huge thing and people cared about the look of their homes.”
I visited Trevon at the Portmanteau studio. Ironically it is a collection of things in the most thoughtful way. He walked me through some of his favorite pieces, a vintage trunk from a Howard University student from the 1940s, family photos from his favorite era, the 70s, mixed with antique photos of Black people simply existing, and a bar cabinet that would make your favorite Aunty swoon. Trevon grew up in a small town in Hartsfield, South Carolina. He fell in love with vintage after receiving a pair of Ferrari sunglasses from his Godfather back in the 90s. He liked that they were interesting and had history. Trevon said his aesthetic is heavily influenced by his childhood and his parent’s connection to the 70s. They played the music, wore the clothes, and felt drawn to it.
The conversation went to the Black presence in art and interior design. There’s been a lot of discussion about early Americana and how we helped shape this country. Trevon says that when it comes to Black art and design a lot of things are being discovered and rediscovered post 2020. “We’ve always been here but never got the credit. Now the credit is being given but there is an issue of accessibility and who can afford it. There is still a lot of gatekeeping in home design. Black interior designers and vendors are less represented and aren’t given as many opportunities. “A lot of what we collect has a deep history and that history belongs to us. I would love for it to stay with us, in our homes and the spaces we curate” Trevon says.
Black people have always created but so much of our art and history is unnamed. There are so many stories of 80-year-old artists particularly in the South (google Bill Traylor) who have been creating forever. Then they die and someone, usually outside the culture, gets their hands on it, and now they’re a rediscovered artist. It’s frustrating because black art can be found in basements across the country but because it’s unnamed it’s not considered valuable. As Trevon walks me through piece after piece of his treasures and talks about the stories like a quilt he found in a hair salon / thrift store hybrid in a predominantly Black neighborhood in South Carolina it’s clear that Trevon like many Black professionals in this space are gatekeepers of a lot of our culture. They are reminding us all to value our things and reposition the way we approach what we’ve created and what our ancestors created. “If all your family has to offer is old photos, keep that — photography is art, hang them up in your home and pass those things down — just because something doesn’t have immediate monetary value doesn’t mean it’s not valuable”.
On the luxury level, you don’t see a lot of Black professionals in the home design space. Mainstream American culture is dominated by white people but with social media and the internet overall, discussions are becoming more broad. We can define our aesthetic outside the context of whiteness. This means that more people like Trevon have a seat at the table. I was curious how Trevon navigates the industry. He says showing up, taking up space, being confident and not settling helps. “I know what I have to offer and what I bring to the table and I don’t allow people to tell me I can’t do things.”
When asked what advice he has for creatives he says “Just do it, you have to be there as much as everyone else. You have to be open to learning from people who are already doing it. Putting yourself out there, keep your eyes open and your interests varied”.
We all have a responsibility to help shape the ones coming behind us and guide conversations towards talks about representation. Trevon agrees saying “ I feel like I need to lean into that more. I want to create an opportunity for someone else to do what I’m doing because I’ve been the only Black face in a lot of white spaces. I want to be conscious about how I move forward in my business and the opportunities I create. Learn more about Portmanteau New York on instagram.
Watch Heritage Home on YouTube, today!
This story was originally published in Doe Creative Brief’s fourteenth issue, Black Swan. Read more Doe Creative Brief Here.
