The fruit decor trend is the run of produce motifs, from cherry-shaped ceiling lights to cabbageware, that spread from the kitchen into the rest of the house in 2024 and 2025. The Associated Press covered it in April 2025 under the label "farmstand chic." The loud version covers a room in cartoon fruit. The quiet version is one well-made, life-size piece set where cut flowers used to go, and it is the one worth knowing how to do.
Here is where the trend came from, what fashion, food and interiors made of it, how to try it without turning the house into a market stall, and where it might go next.
Where the trend came from
The clearest record is a story by Kim Cook, who covers design and decor for the AP. It ran in late April 2025 and was picked up by newspapers into May, including the Jefferson City News Tribune, the Lewistown Sentinel and SRN News, under headlines such as "Farmstand chic? Décor is awash in fruit and vegetable motifs."
It opens in Danbury, Connecticut, in the "fruit room" of the interior designer and stylist Jonny Carmack, where faux produce covers everything from a cherry-shaped ceiling fixture to a strawberry side table. Then it widens, and the people it quotes name several causes:
- A pastoral mood. Rachel Hardage Barrett, editor-in-chief of Country Living, sees "a certain romance to the farmstand," and ties the look to rising interest in gardening, wellness and antiques, and to the "grandmillennial" taste for heirloom pieces.
- Old patterns, new again. Cabbageware and lettuceware were popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, according to the story, and were embraced in the 1960s by a Palm Beach crowd that included Jacqueline Kennedy, Bunny Mellon and Frank Sinatra. Barrett says a cabbageware-inspired collection at Target drew more than 15 million TikTok posts.
- Social media. In 2023, a lemon-shaped ceramic stool at HomeGoods went viral on TikTok and sold out, and demand for citrus-wedge tables kept growing afterward.
- The trade fairs. At Maison et Objet in Paris and Ambiente in Frankfurt, the story describes planters hung with 3D grapes and watermelons, mirrors ringed with peapods or pineapples, and tomato-covered cups and tableware.
- A longing for abundance. The design editor Courtney Porter says the trend is about sustainable materials, youthfulness and being "nostalgic for natural abundance."
It didn't start in 2025. In June 2021, Real Homes was already writing about fruit and vegetable decor, tying citrus-patterned wallpaper and fabric to the cottagecore wave and quoting an Etsy trend expert on shoppers' pull toward nature. In February 2025, Stylist said fruit-inspired homeware had been emerging since 2024.
A caution: this is editorial and trade observation, not sales data. The only number in the AP story is Barrett's TikTok count, so read "trend" as what editors and trade fairs were showing.
Fruit in fashion, food and interiors
The same impulse shows up in three places. Each borrows the look of fruit for something that isn't fruit.
| Where | What the press noted | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Interiors | Cherry lights, lemon stools, cabbageware, tomato tableware; trade fairs full of produce | AP, April 2025 |
| Interiors | Strawberry designs, cherry-red hues and citrus prints on plates, bath mats and more, part of a move away from grey and neutral homes | Stylist, February 2025 |
| Fashion | Fruit jewelry returning every summer for several years, from berry necklaces to lemon earrings | The Zoe Report, July 2023 |
| Food | Pastries made to look like strawberries, lemons and hazelnuts | World's 50 Best, 2018 |
In fashion, the AP's Barrett also cites the viral "Tomato Girl Summer" look, with its red tones and Mediterranean feel. In food, a chef closely associated with the idea is Cédric Grolet, whose first book, Fruits, came out in 2017 and who was named The World's Best Pastry Chef in 2018. The full story of fruit made from something else is in Trompe-l'Œil Fruit: The Art of Fooling the Eye.
None of it is new. Painters have long set fruit on tables as a subject in its own right (see famous fruit still life paintings and why Cézanne painted apples), and eighteenth-century French potters made cabbages for the dinner table. Victorian homes kept wax fruit under glass, and a Boston manual of 1864 teaches wax flowers and the modeling of fruit between the same covers. Our short history of wax fruit covers the rest.
That is why we call it the new floral, though the framing is ours and the AP doesn't use it. Fruit now does a job cut flowers once did: a seasonal, living-looking focal point for a table, shelf or mantel.
How to do it quietly
The loud version is a decision to commit to a theme. The quiet version is a decision to commit to one object. These are our suggestions, not rules.
- Start with one. A single life-size apple on a plate, or a ceramic lemon on a shelf, reads as a choice. A room of them reads as a market stall.
- Choose realism over cartoon. Porter saw supersaturated colors and exaggerated shapes at Ambiente. The quiet version goes the other way: true-to-life size, natural color and a surface that rewards a second look. Barrett draws a related line. Playful looks can take a little kitsch, she says, while fruit-patterned wallcovering or fabric gives a more polished result.
- Pick one fruit and one palette. An apple, say, with the whites, greens and wood tones already in the room. One fruit repeated looks composed. Five kinds look collected.
- Give it a stage. A plate, a cake stand, a ledge, a console. Painters have long done this: a few pieces of fruit on a table, with space around them. A glass dome does the same job for an unlit piece, and Cloche Decor Ideas and How to Use a Candle Cloche cover how.
- Mix real and made. Set one ceramic or wax apple in a bowl of real ones. Apple Decor Ideas for the Kitchen, Table and Mantel covers which real apples last on a counter.
- Let scent do the work. The quietest version has no motif at all. The fruit is something you smell rather than something you see.
- Swap, don't stack. Keep the stage and change the fruit with the season, rather than adding a new piece every month.
On that sixth point, Le Bonne Pomme is our version. It is an apple hand-poured from soy and beeswax, hand-painted one by one and presented under a handblown glass cloche, and it is designed in France. Displayed under its cloche, it scents a room without being lit, opening on crisp apple skin, melon and peach, with rose and red berries at its heart and caramel, musk and wood beneath. It can be lit, but isn't meant to be: the painted finish will melt and the wax may drip, which is not a defect. Keep it out of direct sunlight and away from heat sources.
For the scent itself, see what an apple candle smells like and apple candles without the cinnamon. For wax fruit in general, old and new, start with our guide to fruit-shaped candles.
What's next
This section is opinion, not reporting.
- Quieter. The loudest versions of a trend usually date fastest, so we'd expect cartoon cherries and novelty stools to fade first. The interests the AP's sources name, gardening, antiques and nostalgia, are not seasonal enthusiasms, which is a reason to think the restrained end will last longer.
- Closer to still life. We expect fruit to be treated less as a pattern and more as a subject: one piece, set out the way a painter arranges a table, with room around it.
- Scent. Once a room has a fruit object, the next question is what it smells like. We are a candle maker and we have a stake in this, but we think objects made to be smelled as well as looked at will interest more people.
Whatever the next fruit is, the test stays the same. Would the piece still look right alone on a plate, in a plain room?
Frequently asked questions
What is the fruit decor trend?
It is the spread of produce motifs through home decor: cherry-shaped lights, lemon stools, cabbageware, tomato tableware and fruit-patterned fabrics. The Associated Press covered it under the label "farmstand chic" in April 2025, and noted produce-themed pieces at the Maison et Objet and Ambiente trade fairs.
Where did the fruit decor trend start?
There is no single origin. The AP links it to the cabbageware of the 18th and 19th centuries and that pattern's 1960s revival, and says social media pushed it along, notably a lemon-shaped stool that went viral at HomeGoods in 2023. Real Homes wrote about fruit and vegetable decor in 2021, and Stylist said the trend had been emerging since 2024.
How do you decorate with fruit without it looking kitsch?
Use one piece rather than a theme. Choose realistic size and color, stay with one fruit and a palette the room already has, and give the piece a plate, ledge or cloche to sit on. Barrett says fruit-patterned wallcovering or fabric gives a more polished result than kitsch.
Is fruit decor going out of style?
We can't say. Fruit has been a decorative subject for centuries, so we'd expect it to stay. The novelty versions are the likeliest to date, and a single well-made piece is the safest bet.
