Disclaimer: we’ve got THREE Hapa, Asian/European, ladies on staff here at Afternoon Light, plus mixed race offspring a plenty, so clearly we are all for the strength and beauty of cross breeding. We’ve also got deeeeeep love for both Japanese and Scandinavian design sensibilities, so we’re not really mad about the Japandi trend popping up all over our socials and in design rags even if it is somehow - like all design trends - a bit cringe. Japandi is the mash-up of nature-informed Japanese minimalism and a heaping of Zen calm with a modern, utilitarian, clean yet cozy (hygge!) Scandinavian design influence. We can just smell the Hiba wood and feel the cuddly cashmere from here.

For a happy hapa home, bring nature indoors with wood elements and strategically placed, well curated plants, simplify your color palette with an anti-rainbow of whites and stark darks, and get rid of all. the. clutter! Think of Japandi as your Grandmillenial’s chic, kimono-and-sculptural-sterling-silver jewelry-wearing Great Aunt who honed her good taste at art school in the middle of the last century, spent lots of time abroad in her youth, went Macrobiotic in 1979, dabbles in ceramics and bonsai, made a ton of money in advertising, then bought a modernist masterpiece in Connecticut where she lives now with her Persian cats and minimalist modern art collection. YKTV.