How Outdoor Furniture Became ... Cool?

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Plastic patio furniture has been giving way to stylish outdoor living rooms — and the trend isn't going away.

Outdoor furniture has always been more about substance than style. Since it lives outdoors in the elements, outdoor furniture has traditionally been crafted to be more durable than comfortable and more practical than attractive.

As a result, most people's patio furniture tends to be plastic, stackable and ugly — a means to an end and nothing more. But looking around at the outdoor furniture collections unveiled by several of my favorite furniture brands this season — namely Article's '70s Edit, Burrow's Relay Collection, Castlery's Malta Collection and Leanne Ford's outdoor collaboration with Crate & Barrel — I noticed something unexpected: patio furniture is suddenly cool.

My suspicion was that this trend began during the pandemic, when more people began spending time outdoors and wanted to replicate their thoughtfully-designed interior spaces in a safer open-air environment. But since I'm not the one designing this furniture, I wanted to speak to those who are to see what's driving the trend. So to find out, I contacted designers at Article, Burrow, Castlery and Crate & Barrel for some insight into their respective outdoor furniture collections. Here's where I found consensus.

Every designer with whom I spoke agreed on one detail: today's customers want their outdoor spaces to be just as stylish and comfortable as their indoor spaces. "For the past several years, there has been the mindset of people making their outdoor spaces an extension of the home whether it's for curling up with a book, having a video call or entertaining guests," says Declan Ee, co-founder of Castlery.

Paula Cossarini, product design manager at Article, agrees. "It’s possible to have stylish outdoor products," she says. "In fact, your outdoor space should be an extension of your interior style, especially if you’re enjoying time out there regularly."

When it comes to the brands and designers themselves, they've set a new bar for themselves. Just because they're designing furniture for the outdoors, that doesn't mean they should be abandoning the styles and aesthetics their customers have come to expect from them. On the contrary, they're leaning into them.

"We aim to develop products that complement our existing catalog so your patio feels as stylish as your living room," Cossarini says. "Our goal has always been to develop a catalog of products that are timeless with a modern twist. We apply this philosophy to our entire catalog and our approach doesn’t change if it’s an outdoor or indoor product. As a result, our products have a cohesive design narrative across categories and styles where it might be tough to differentiate between an outdoor and indoor product based on aesthetics alone."

Leanne Ford, a star interior designer who's starred in multiple HGTV series and is known for her modern-yet-vaguely-rustic 'white on white' style, recently collaborated with Crate & Barrel on a stylish outdoor collection that feels like a cozy and chic outdoor living room.

"Aesthetically, [designing outdoor and indoor furniture collections] was the same vision: A neutral, clean, classic shape that can live in any style home and garden," Ford says. "Simple lines and overstuffed cushions create a space as comfortable outside as inside. I believe our outdoor spaces can be as thoughtful as our indoor spaces."

Then there's Burrow. Unlike the aforementioned brands, Burrow had never even made any outdoor furniture prior to 2023. But the brand took the same approach it always has when it came to putting together its inaugural collection.

"Though Relay is the first time we've tried our hand at outdoor furniture, it's actually a natural evolution of our design ethos," says Stephen Bowen, Burrow's senior furniture designer. "We tend to find that, regardless of room or use, our customers prefer classic mid-century and contemporary Scandinavian designs, and that's the aesthetic territory we've explored as we've grown from a single modular sofa to a whole-home furniture brand. So we didn't ever really consider 'traditional patio furniture' as a reference point, beyond considering all of the ways it frustrates people and figuring out how to fix those frustrations."

In the not-so-distant past, one of the biggest hindrances to crafting outdoor furniture that looked and felt like indoor furniture was durability. Outdoor furniture, by nature (no pun intended), has to be more durable than indoor furniture because it spends its life surrounded by dirt, grass, wind and rain — challenges that its coddled indoor brethren will never have to face.

But recent improvements and innovations in fabric technologies like high-end, stain-resistant performance fabrics have allowed brands to create the outdoor styles they want without compromising form for function.

"Consumers expect the outside to be equally stylish and comfortable as the rest of the home without compromising aesthetics for durability. Innovations in materials make that possible." Ee says. "For example, improvements in outdoor fabric such as the weather-resistant Olefin we use in our cushion covers provide protection against the elements."

Another piece of the puzzle is utilizing familiar materials but in interesting and unexpected ways. Materials like wicker and teak have long been used in outdoor furniture for their natural resistance to the element, but their use in traditional patio furniture had become boring and stale. There's nothing inherently wrong with these materials, and in the hands of motivated and capable designers, they're capable of creating highly fashionable outdoor spaces.

"The difference [in our use of] teak — which ages beautifully outdoors — [is we utilized it] in more modern and simple shapes so it feels fresh," Ford says. "The lines of the chairs and sofas are inspired by what we are doing and seeing with our indoor furniture. We overstuffed the cushions, especially on the lounger so it feels as comfortable as your indoor fabric. We also used white all-weather fabric. People are often scared to use white outside, but I find it’s easier to clean than other colors. It’s also worth noting that we made sure to widen the armrest on all of the pieces; we made it wide enough to rest your drink on there. Anything I can do to support that lazy outdoor living life!"

For Castlery's Malta collection, the brand went with wicker — a decidedly traditional patio furniture material — but implemented it in decidedly untraditional forms.

"We take our design inspiration from everywhere and we know that our customers have been loving the organic, freeform shapes we’ve been using in our furniture for the interiors," Ee says. "For the Malta collection, we decided to stray from the boxy shapes typically seen in outdoor furniture and go for bold curved edges on a round frame."

Brands also see outdoor spaces as an arena in which to take risks with both design and material; a concept seen in Article's ceramic-tiled coffee table that brings poolside vibes to your outdoor space whether you have a pool or not.

"We pay attention to shape, texture and material for all our products to achieve that wow factor," Cossarini says. "A great example is our Kera coffee table, a new outdoor coffee table completely constructed of ceramic tiles which give it an eye-catching texture. It has a chunky rectangular top that is balanced with half-moon-shaped legs which can be adjusted with the round side facing in and out. It’s a piece that will elevate any outdoor space, yet could work indoors too"

So where is all this going? Is this heightened take on outdoor furniture just a flash in the pan? Will we all be going back to our plastic-fantastic patio furniture sets by summer 2025? Don't count on it. Brands are all-in when it comes to making your outdoor living space just as stylish as your living room.

"I foresee a continued interest in people wanting to elevate their patios and terraces," Ee says. "We plan to keep releasing new outdoor collections every summer to provide people with access to luxury furnishing within their reach so that every outdoor space can be a space to thrive."

"We’re also exploring small space solutions for urban outdoor spaces, such as apartment patios and rooftops."

We can also expect to see outdoor furniture follow the trends set by interior design while becoming even more experimental. And we'll also see patio furniture made for every outdoor space, not just traditional decks, patios and backyards. Apartment dwellers, get excited.

"Organic shapes, curves, and oversized pieces are going to be silhouettes you’ll continue to see in upcoming collections, as people look to evoke a sense of relaxation in their outdoor spaces," says Cossarini." We’re also exploring small space solutions for urban outdoor spaces, such as apartment patios and rooftops. This arena offers so much room to show off one’s design chops since pieces need to balance function and style within the space constraints."

Finally, there's the ultimate deciding factor in determining what direction outdoor furniture goes in the future: You, the consumer. Furniture brands, particularly the DTC brands featured in this article, are listening to what their customers want and putting those products to market. So as long as you want stylish outdoor furniture (and why wouldn't you?) designers are going to keep making it.

"Burrow bets on growth in every way possible, including on outdoor," says Bowen. "We’re constantly collecting customer feedback to help improve and expand existing products, whether that means adding new colors or materials to the collection or iterating on the designs themselves to improve quality, which we’ve done multiple times in ways both visible to customers and not ... Let’s just say outdoor has been successful so far, and we’re already collecting customer requests and recommendations. We have big things planned for outdoor furniture in 2024."