Apologies to Kelly Clarkson, but Bird Decor Is Having a Moment

Unless you live in a nest in the remote corner of the rainforest, you’ve undoubtedly taken sides in the kerfluffle involving singer Kelly Clarkson and the animatronic bird she tried to buy in Brooklyn. The flap is just the latest flight of fancy bringing the creatures into the design discourse.

Our recent Open Door home tour of Julianne Moore’s New York apartment features the actor cooing over her ceramic egg holder by French ceramics studio Four, which she adorned with a miniature vintage bird figurine, a gift from her mother. “She knows that I love birds,” Moore said, citing the egg holder as an example of how “details really, really matter” in her compact space. It was among the most commented-upon aspects of her home. (Sample comments from viewers: “Haven’t been able to think about anything all day”; “Oh to be cradled by the Julianne Moore egg tower.”)

We haven’t seen so many avian motifs since 2011 and the early days of Etsy, when Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein “put a bird on it” in Portlandia. Earlier this month, Chanel’s Spring 2027 presentation had models walking the runway beneath 95 wood-and paper illuminated bird sculptures, a vision created by scenographer Richard Peduzzi and artistic director Matthieu Blazy. And November will bring the launch of Kelly Wearstler’s Perch collection of glassware, her latest collaboration with Serax. The glass vases, bowls, and dishes feature a sweet little bird perched atop each one. “There’s something poetic about a bird that has just arrived,” Wearstler has said of the collection. “It asks you to slow down, to be present.”

Of course, birds aren’t always harbingers of peace. Even apart from the ruffled feathers in Brooklyn, birds in design can be polarizing. “You learn early on in a project whether clients are pro-bird or anti-bird,” says Allene Little, co-founder of the New York City-based residential design firm Kaufman Little. Her partner, Suze Kaufman Freedman, who is firmly pro-bird, considered avian-inspired wallpapers ranging from de Gournay to Lulu and Georgia when recently decorating her own apartment in Brooklyn Heights. She’d been inspired, she says, by Alberto Giacometti’s plaster albatrosses at the Jean Royere auction at Christie’s. “I wanted something that would bring that sense of whimsy,” she explains.

Freedman did not bid on the Giacomettis, but later discovered some Giacometti-inspired papier-mache birds in a West Elm catalog. “They were designed for a nursery, but the color made them perfect for a more sophisticated space,” she recalls. “And I think they were like $45.” She had her art hanger mount them on silver prongs in a high corner of her living room. Fanciful and whimsical—and considerably more affordable than Giacometti—they're a reminder that while one may set one’s heart on a particular piece of bird decor, there’s no need to get too worked up about it.

As far as the design world is concerned, there are always other birds in the sky.