Everything Old is New Again

My mother-in-law saves everything. As our kids have grown through the ages, each visit to Illinois brings another of my husband's toys, out of the attic, cleaned (preserved, really), and ready for this next generation. Most everything in her kitchen was a wedding gift--40 years ago. I find this remarkable in an age of planned obsolescence, inspirational in our throwaway culture. When we visited over the holidays, Barb pulled out this set of wedding sheets for the pull-out couch.


I thought: I've seen those before.

Sure enough, Dwell Studio's Dorothy Draper bedding has stripes in the same weight, and with the same yellow, but modernized in of-the-moment gray.


But really: same thing, right? (By the way, the Draper sheets can be found on the bed of uber-mom-blogger Heather Armstrong over at dooce.com).

West Elm then knocked off Dwell with last season's yellow and grey striped sheets, which have been reinvented this season in green or blue.

Barb reports that her sheets were a gift in 1969 (incidentally, the year Dorothy Draper died), that she believes that they are Fieldcrest brand (available these days at Target), and that they have held up so well only because their heavier weight made them slow to dry, so she didn't use them that often. I think she is being modest.

What do you have in your home that is destined for a comeback? I'm thinking our Ghost chairs will be to tomorrow what the Eames shell chairs are today.