Kinspire logo
Kinspire™Where Culture Meets Creativity
Back to Stories
Home & Style

It’s October. Is fall decor a white thing?

Mums? The color orange? Pumpkins? Why is that perceived as a white thing? Interior designer Jazmyn Miller-Gibbs weighs in.

4 min read

Two burlap scarecrow dolls on a hay bale in a front yard, framed by pots of orange and burgundy mums in front of a red-brick house

Back in the late ’90s, a twentysomething woman welcomed the guy she was dating into her townhouse for the first time. He took one look at the scattered Halloween decorations and accused her of worshiping the devil.

The relationship went nowhere.

Five years later, she was a newlywed (different, better guy) living in a cute bungalow they’d bought. She was relaxing on the porch one October when a neighbor stopped by. The neighbor (yes, she was Black) walked up the porch steps slowly, looked at the fall decorations and declared: “I’ve never seen a Black house decorated for fall. We usually don’t do that.”

A cozy neutral autumn flat-lay of cream and white pumpkins, white candles with one lit amber flame, a golden maple leaf, and stacked books on a wood surface
A vivid windowsill display of orange fall decor: a red ceramic pumpkin jar, dried orange pampas grass in a bottle, small gourds, and pinecones, with golden autumn trees through the window

Is that true? And why not?

Granted, we probably stay away from pale scarecrows and haystacks. And anything resembling horror and hell (get thee behind me!). But mums? The color orange? Pumpkins?

Why is that perceived as a white thing?

The key word here is “perceived,” according to interior designer Jazmyn Miller-Gibbs, principal designer and owner of Abode Above Interiors in Greater Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware.

Typically when you look at design magazines, you’re seeing white homes of white folks, right? They may have been more visible with it because you’re seeing their decorating style. We didn’t have that, but maybe now we do with Kinspire. I decorate for fall because, as it gets cold and we get in the house and we’re in the house more, I need my house to feel really cozy, so I do. But I don’t think that that’s a white thing.
Jazmyn Miller-Gibbs, Abode Above Interiors

Social media would agree with Miller-Gibbs. On Threads, Instagram and Facebook, you see Black women and men showing off their fall décor in all its splendor:

Social post by josie_little_nest: a fall dining table styled with a white ceramic vase of burnt-orange and burgundy autumn foliage on a woven runner, beneath a black candelabra chandelier, captioned “A little fall finding its way into the...”
Threads post by derikadashay: “My lil fall decor is coming together” with two photos — a white vase of fall blooms with brass and burgundy taper candles, and a bed styled with velvet pumpkins and a “Sweater Weather” pillow
Threads post by deeplymadlymodern: “If you love fall but don’t want to regurgitate cookie cutter fall decor ideas, this series might be for you! WE love color, whimsey and chic autumnal vibes that aren’t boring - hang with us” with a “Your Fall Aesthetic” video thumbnail

To echo @deeplymadlymodern, “not boring” is the key.

I love pumpkins and orange, but I won’t necessarily be bringing hay bales into the house. For me, fall can be satin pumpkins, candelabras, deep textures and burgundy taper candles. Maybe there is a rejection of the farm aesthetic for some Black people, and we lean more luxe: velvet, deep texture and moody vibes.
Jazmyn Miller-Gibbs

So to answer our earlier question, no. Fall décor is not a white thing. Whatever we embrace becomes OURS.

0 Comments

Join the conversation

Loading comments…