9 Very Specific Trends We're Calling Now, Fall '26 Edition
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Time to read 6 min
We've been paying attention. Every time I walk the fields I carry the same question around with me, which is what's catching my eye and, more importantly, what's about to catch yours, and lately the answers have gotten very specific, down to a silver bowl full of matches or a stranger's portrait hanging over the dining table like she's been in the family for years.
Some of these have been quietly showing up in the tents for a while, some have been reimagined, and some we think are about to be everywhere. If you read our Spring 2026 Trend Report, you'll recognize a few cousins in here, because the collected, storied home is still the whole point. It's just gotten pickier about the details.
The fall show is right around the corner, so here are the nine we're calling now. Take this list with you, keep your eyes open, and you'll know exactly what to hunt.
1. Storage With a Past
The Boot Room Is Back
Move over, mudroom. The boot room is here, and it comes with riding room energy: boot racks, benches, baskets and the kind of practical storage that's intentional and decorative at the same time, because we need somewhere to put our cowboy boots!
The room that sold us on this one is by designer Sims Hilditch, and what makes it work is that nothing in it looks like it came from a storage aisle. At Round Top, that means hunting old wooden boot racks, tack trunks, iron hooks and a long worn bench you can pull on your boots from. A wall of pegs with a few good pairs lined up underneath reads more like a collection than a closet, which is exactly the point.
2. The Kitchen Is Going Apothecary
Think large antique apothecary, pharmacy and chemist cabinets with banks of tiny drawers, moving out of the old shop and into kitchens and pantries.
The most interesting kitchen storage may be the kind that was never designed for a kitchen.
There's something so satisfying about pulling open a little labeled drawer and finding your cinnamon sticks, or the good napkins, or the birthday candles nobody can ever find. An antique apothecary cabinet gives you dozens of those drawers, and the older ones carry wear on the pulls and faded labels that a new cabinet will never have. A shallow one tucks into a pantry, while a tall one can anchor a whole kitchen wall and hold everything from spices to the good silver. Bring your wall measurements to the show, because the big ones are hard to walk away from and even harder to fit in the car.
3. On the Walls and the Table
Portraits of Strangers
This is the trend we can't stop talking about. Vintage portraits, where the whole idea is essentially "strangers are friends," adopting someone else's ancestors into your house.
The room we shared, from Britt Deyan, is wall to wall with faces, and Britt calls them her roommates, which might be the best way anyone has ever described a gallery wall. Vintage oil portraits are the heart of this look, and the fun is that none of them match, so a cowboy in a straw hat can hang right beside a woman in her Sunday best. Look for good frames, faces with a little personality and whatever makes you stop walking, then hang them close together so they feel like a crowd.
4. The Match Bowl Strikes Again
Oversized bowls and jars filled with matches are back as an actual tabletop accessory. Keep an eye out for silver and crystal pieces to make the perfect match.
A trophy cup or footed silver bowl piled high with vintage matchbooks on a coffee table or bar cart says you entertain, even if you mostly light one candle on a Tuesday. It's also one of the easiest trends on this list to shop, because the vessel is the find and the matches are the fun part. Collect boxes from restaurants, hotels and places you love, and let the bowl fill up over time, so every matchbook in it comes with a little memory attached.
5. Rooms Made for Living In Instruments as Décor
Guitars, violins, horns and other old instruments displayed almost like sculpture. Even broken instruments are getting new life, like the broken piano our Round Top neighbors at Junk Gypsy reimagined into a table for Miranda Lambert's Big Loud Texas label.
An old instrument on the wall brings a whole story into the room with it, and it doesn't matter whether anyone in the house can play a note. A fiddle on a hook, a brass horn on a bookshelf or a guitar leaning in the corner of a den all read as a life lived loudly, which is very Round Top of them. Hang a few at different heights so they read like a single piece, and let the wear show, because the scratches are where the stories live.
6. School Spirit, Circa 1900s
Vintage pennants, trophies, varsity memorabilia, leather medicine balls and old gym equipment are turning up in the most polished rooms.
If Country Club Revival from our spring report was your thing, this is its scrappier little sibling. Old school sports decor has the patina and the worn leather that make a room feel collected, and a basket of leather medicine balls by the fireplace is the most charming thing you'll never actually use. Look for felt pennants with faded letters, small trophies you can group on a shelf and anything with a team name from a school that may not exist anymore.
7. The Return of the Game Table
Dedicated card and game tables are becoming part of the room again, rather than something you pull out of a closet when friends come over.
We loved this one so much it got its own story. Read The Rise of the Game Table for the designers weighing in on why the game table may be the new kitchen island. The short version is that a game table gives a room a reason to gather, and once it has a permanent spot, people actually sit down and play. At the show, keep an eye out for inlaid chessboard tops, felt card tables and little drawers built in for the deck and the score pad, then go find yourself one with a worn top and good legs.
8. Small Art Is Having a Big Moment
Tiny paintings, mini portraits and small-scale original art, grouped together or sitting right at home in a kitchen or guest bath.
We love this one because small art fits the places big art can't: the ledge above the sink, the shelf by the coffee maker, the powder room wall that's barely wide enough for a towel hook. The gilded little piece we shared is by Jordan Geibel Creative, and judging by our comments, the artists making small work are ready for you. Mix oils with little etchings, let the frames be different shades of gold, and don't worry about a theme, because the size is what ties them together. Buy three, lean them on a shelf, and swap them out whenever you get bored.
9. The Analog Revival
Radios. Record players. Typewriters. Phones with a cord.
Everything in our lives has a screen now, which is exactly why these pieces feel so good to live with. A vintage typewriter on a desk, a record player with a stack of albums beside it or a rotary phone on a side table gives a room something to do with your hands, and at Round Top you'll find them in every shape and color the last hundred years could dream up. Bonus points if it still works. A stack of old records or a radio playing the ball game on a Saturday afternoon is the kind of background noise a house never gets tired of.
The coolest things in the room don't need a charger.
Save This for the Fall Show
These are the nine we're watching, and we'll be keeping score in the fields to see which ones show up everywhere. At least one vendor in our comments has already hinted they know a booth that'll have quite a few of them, so the hunt is officially on. Save this post now and come back after the fall show to see how many you spotted.
Which one are you shopping? Come tell us on Instagram at @roundtopfinds.
