He says he's bought a few pieces just for fun, but he's not sure why other people would want them. He's been visiting a site called 1stdibs because it sometimes lists his designs. It turns out, MacDougall has also been shopping. I was curious to know what they think of today's midcentury modern craze.

They're both well into their 80s and living in California.

I tracked down Stewart MacDougall and Kipp Stewart, who designed my dining set. Similarly, back in the '50s, no one was talking about 'midcentury modern' - not even the people who were there creating it. 'And the term was actually coined in the '60s it was not a term used in the 1920s.' 'In the late 1960s, art deco became very popular,' Tigerman says. That same thing happened with art deco a generation earlier. The End Of The Space Shuttle Era Out Of This World: Designs Of The Space Age They wouldn't just throw it away and go to Wal-Mart and buy a new one.' And if something were to break, like the drawer of a dresser were to break, they would fix it. 'They worked hard and they bought things with cash. 'My grandparents were very frugal,' Alhbrandt says. (She even keeps a blog called My Mid-Century Modern Life.) She describes the style as 'clean and functional' and says it reminds her of the values of her grandparents' generation. She's drawn to the simplicity of midcentury design. Martina Alhbrandt loves finding and fixing up vintage pieces, things her parents would call dated or tacky.

'People Tend To Like What Their Grandparents Liked' It's definitely more of a younger, urban look.' They grew up with it and their parents had bought it, so they want anything but that. According to Stacey Greer, Whitely's business partner, 'They just don't want to look at it anymore, they want something different. So who are those people? Let's start with who they aren't: baby boomers. It really is,' says Eddy Whitely, a midcentury modern furniture dealer in Baltimore.

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