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Everyone Is Buying Mirrors Right Now

2020 was the year our appearances mattered the least. There were no parties to go to, no fancy dinners, no 500-person weddings. Yet, ironically, wall mirror interest skyrocketed. CB2 reported that mirrors were their most-searched home product, with over 4 million inquiries. 1stDibs saw a double digit increase in mirror searches overall, and a triple digit increase for one in particular: the “Ultrafragola” designed by Ettore Sottsass for Poltronova. (Celebrity owners include Lena Dunham and Bella Hadid.) Meanwhile, New York Design Center says they, too, have “seen an uptick in mirror sales” at their brick-and-mortar outpost, The Gallery at 200 Lex.

The question is, why? Are we masochists who like to gaze upon our unkempt, sweatpant-clad reflection? Are we so vain that we needed “selfie mirrors” to keep our Instagram content flowing? Turns out, we were buying mirrors not because we wanted to look at something—we bought them because we wanted to look away.

For so many of us, life was once spent in several other locations besides our residences: the office, the car, a neighborhood restaurant, a family or friend’s place. But the pandemic shut everything down, rendering us homebound. Suddenly, we were, quite literally and constantly, staring at our walls for months on end. And their blankness began to bug us.