I love every period in design history. Even the ugly ones.

“I love every period in design history. Even the ugly ones.” — Catherine Martin

In these words, Catherine Martin, the visionary designer behind the worlds of Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby, speaks with the soul of a creator who has looked upon the centuries and seen not fragments, but a grand tapestry. Her declaration is not mere affection for beauty—it is reverence for imperfection, for the raw pulse that beats through every age of human imagination. When she says she loves every period, she honors the courage of those who dared to create, even when their works were deemed ungraceful or strange. This is not the shallow love of a collector admiring polished gems, but the deep love of an elder who cherishes even the flawed children of history.

There is wisdom in the phrase “Even the ugly ones.” For ugliness, as time has shown, is a mirror turned upon our own limits of understanding. What one age condemns as hideous, another venerates as sublime. Consider the Gothic cathedrals of medieval Europe—once dismissed by classical minds as barbaric monstrosities. Their spires were called chaotic, their carvings grotesque. And yet, centuries later, they rise as monuments of divine aspiration, piercing the heavens in frozen prayer. From the ugly, we have drawn awe. From the disordered, we have learned grandeur.

So too in the story of Impressionism. When Claude Monet and his peers first revealed their shimmering visions, critics mocked them as unfinished, crude, even offensive to the senses. Yet those “ugly” paintings—those rebellions against precision—became the birth of a new way of seeing. They taught humanity that art is not only the surface of things, but the breath beneath them. Thus, Catherine Martin’s words echo this eternal truth: every epoch of design, every misstep of taste, is but a necessary voice in the symphony of creation. Without the discord, there can be no harmony.

Martin’s insight reminds us that design history is not a ladder of improvement, but a circle of expression. Each age, whether adorned in the austerity of Bauhaus or the lavish excess of Rococo, speaks of what it feared, what it desired, what it dreamed. The so-called “ugly” eras—those of kitsch, brutalism, or postmodern confusion—are not stains on the timeline but vital records of the human condition. They reveal the restless experimentation of a species that refuses to stand still. To love them all is to love humanity itself: imperfect, ever-changing, and yet always reaching toward beauty.

This love demands humility. To honor every style, we must silence the arrogance that crowns one taste supreme. The ancients knew this truth well. The philosopher Heraclitus wrote that “the most beautiful harmony comes from things that differ.” Just as day needs night, and strength needs weakness, so too must design embrace both grace and awkwardness. The ugly teaches us empathy—the power to see through time’s eyes, not our own. The beautiful teaches us aspiration—the power to seek higher forms of truth.

From this quote, let there arise a lesson for all creators: judge not by your era’s standards alone. Seek beauty not only in the polished and the praised, but in the rough and the ridiculed. Walk through the corridors of design history with open eyes. Learn from every style, even those that jar the senses. For the artist who honors all ages becomes timeless, and the designer who scorns the past blinds the future.

In your own life, practice this reverence. When you encounter something you dislike—a song, a building, a garment—pause before rejecting it. Ask, “What spirit lived in the hands that made this?” Listen for the longing beneath its form. Perhaps you will find, as Catherine Martin did, that every age has its sacred purpose, and every so-called ugly thing carries within it the seed of future beauty. Let this be your craft, your creed, your art: to love the whole of creation, not only the parts that please the eye.