When watching Downton Abbey or another period drama, do you find yourself wishing that your bedroom evokes the romantic overtones of the women’s bedrooms on the show? If roses, rose petals, angels, hearts, and lace appeal to you, your vintage vibe makes you the ideal candidate for a bedroom décor using the coquette aesthetic.
How do you create the coquette aesthetic decor? This décor theme mixes pink and beige hues with antique white and gold or brass. Let’s explore a few ideas.
In This Article
What Does Coquette Mean?
The term coquette comes from the French language, and it means a flirt. Coquette aesthetic, therefore, creates a flirty ambiance that evokes romanticism. Some decorating sources refer to this as dollette aesthetic.
Decorating in Coquette Aesthetic
Color Palate
Unless you already have bedroom walls painted either a beige or pink hue, start there. Move everything out of your bedroom, toss down some tarps to protect the flooring, and paint the walls.
First, cover them with a coat of primer. Let that dry and follow it with at least two coats of the paint color, regardless of what the paint can says. After the paint dries, finish your paint job with a sealant coat or protective coat. This clear coat protects the paint.
Furniture
Into your rosy room, place your Victorian-style furniture. Four-poster beds offer a natural addition to the coquette décor. Hang airy, sheers from each connecting rod to enclose the bed space.
Flirty women require a space set aside for getting ready to face the world, so include a makeup table and a cozy chair to sit in. Typically, these cushioned chairs look as if they came from Victorian England or provincial France.
Rooms without a closet need an old-fashioned, free-standing wardrobe. Hang your clothes and store your shoes in this furnishing. A dresser offers another clothing storage option. You can buy these second-hand for a true vintage feel. Strip the old paint off and repaint it in sand or pale pink.
Bedding
Place a nightstand on either side of your bed. This practice of feng shui offers more than good chi, also spelled qi, the natural balance of things. It balances the focal point of the bedroom décor. Use one bedside table for setting down your latest read and your table lamp. Use the other for your alarm clock and tissue box.
If you have other bedroom furnishings, place them according to feng shui or modern decorating techniques. Allow for movement in the room and a clear path from the door to the bed and the chair.
Accessories
These rooms should use lace heartily but judiciously. Lace curtains over sheers offer privacy from the outside world while affording you a chic look in your bedroom.
Because coquette aesthetic mixes Victorian influences with the décor of the 1950s and 1960s, the knickknacks used to round out the décor come from various eras.
Mirrors, clocks, and bookends should use the curly-q designs of the Victorian era with either white painted trims or brass or gold housing. While silver and nickel-plated brass create a modern vibe, the brass and gold metallic colors evoke Romanticism.
You don’t have to fork out the money for gold or gold-plated items. Simply buy a can of paint from a hobbyist store in gold color. Tape over any clock face or mirror, then spray paint the item to the desired color.
On the floor, use area rugs to define spaces. Small round rugs can create a walkway from the bed to the bathroom or the closet. A large Oriental or Persian rug can define the space of the bed and create a cozy atmosphere around it.
Wall Décor for the Coquette Look
While a framed Monet print fits the coquette room look if fine art doesn’t appeal to you, decorate with a more modern option. Create a collection of pink-toned photos or postcards and hang them on the wall above the makeup table or both nightstands.
Use tape dots in red or pink to adhere them to the wall. A photo strand or string with white or colored lights can also hold these postcards or photos. If you don’t have a wall socket above your bed, but want to add such a photo display, pick up a battery-powered set of string lights and add clips to them. Five Below and Dollar Tree both carry these battery-powered strand lights.
A room with four walls of the same color can seem roomy or claustrophobic, depending on which color you choose. The nature of the coquette look tends toward many knickknacks, furnishings, and room accents, so it can tend toward the claustrophobic sense it may seem overcrowded.
Wallpaper one wall with floral or fruit-themed wallpaper. Roses offer one popular theme. Toile prints in red work nicely, too. This accent wall furthers the coquette ambiance and creates a secondary room focal point. Placing it on the wall behind the bed reinforces the bed as the focal point of the room. This placement immediately draws the eyes to the bed.
Finishing Out the Coquette’s Room
The coquette-themed room offers a place for everything and everything in its place. Rooms done in this aesthetic corral items and store them out of sight. As knickknack oriented as this aesthetic seems with its lace and strands of pearls, it avoids a junky look.
Clean up any mess you make because clothes on the floor or a mess on the desk ruin the coquette vibe. The room always remains ready for a romantic visitor, so it always stays clean.
Frequently Asked Questions
Additional Sources & Resources
– “The Coquette Aesthetic: Gender, Style, and Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century British Fiction” by Meghan J. Smith (2016): https://muse.jhu.edu/book/37139
– “The Coquette: A Study of Female Power and Desire in Eighteenth-Century British Literature” by Robert Dudley (2006): https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24391438M/The_coquette
– “The Coquettish Feminine Aesthetic in Eighteenth Century English Literature and Art” by Delilah Wakefield (2007): https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/index.php/etd/article/view/1165
– “The Coquette, The Libertine, and the Misogynistic Imagination in Eighteenth-Century British Literature” by Jessica L. Hull (2011): https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/93399/jhull_1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
– “The Coquette and the Libertine: Femininity, Masculinity and Gender Dynamics in Eighteenth-Century British Literature” by Alice Jones (2009): https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/13474/1/U635083.pdf
– “Coquette Aesthetics and the Eighteenth-Century British Novel” by Emily Davis (2017): https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1086&context=english_honors
– “The Coquette Aesthetic in Eighteenth-Century British Literature” by Rebecca Martin (2018): https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/24060/Martin_indiana_0093A_15747.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
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