Is 1920s decor Art Deco or Art Nouveau?

The decor of the 1920s is Art Deco, not Art Nouveau. Art Nouveau came first and peaked between roughly 1890 and 1910, built on organic, sinuous whiplash curves and motifs drawn from flowers, vines, and insects. By the 1920s that flowing style had given way to Art Deco's cleaner geometry, symmetry, stepped forms, and luxurious materials, a shift made official at the 1925 Paris exposition. The easiest way to keep them straight is direction of line: Art Nouveau grows through a room like a vine, while Art Deco organizes it like a city grid. So a 1925 lacquered cabinet with a sunburst front is Deco, while a 1900 desk with lilies melting down its legs is Nouveau. The two are often confused because both prize craft and ornament, but they sit on opposite sides of the geometry-versus-organic divide.

AURA sits firmly on the geometric side of that line. The art deco furniture we carry is about disciplined shape and polished surface, the 1920s language rather than the curling botanical one that came before it.