Most of us were absorbed in four-poster-bed fantasies as children, musing what sort of magic might unfold beneath that grand, storybook architecture. Now, designers are returning to the form with a more fashion-minded sensibility, indulging the nostalgia while pushing the fantasy further than our six-year-old selves could have conceived.
At the fore of this fairyale bedroom furniture trend is fashion stylist–turned–interior designer Nicole Fisher, who transformed the master of a pattern-rich New Rochelle bungalow into a total jewel box – the crowning accessory being an airy antique metal frame delicately laced with nautically nodding ropes through its looped posts, grounded by a Sanderson-striped custom headboard.
Interior design duo Nicole Salvesen and Mary Graham take the idea somewhere softer inside a Chelsea townhouse, where stately wooden posts are given the storybook treatment in 19th-century–inspired slub linen curtains with trailing florals, deepening the project’s already curious, narrative feel.
One of the most iconic four-poster styles, the canopy bed can be left bare or dressed. Here, Nicole Salvesen and Mary Graham opt for the latter, draping a tall, imposing wooden frame in a cascade of Guy Goodfellow floral fabric.
Even without bespoke commissions or antique sourcing, the look is finding new footing. Designers like Sarah Sherman Samuel are offering an offbeat ode to enchantment with waved headboard edges for Lulu and Georgia, while brands like Anthropologie and Pottery Barn are taking cues from the classics, with carved detailing and sculpturally stacked ball posts.
Be it air-and-bare or fully dressed, no bed frame is restoring romance in the bedroom quite like the four-poster. Ahead, 16 styles we’re currently dreaming about.
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