Citing dealer stats that business is off 50-75% in the English and American furniture market or broader market data that suggests brown furniture is down 40%, Marketplace puts the blame on millennials.

Why? Well, they supposedly don’t like formal entertaining and the internet makes it too easy to ‘find’ rare pieces that aren’t really that rare.

Marketplace goes even further:

According to U.S. census data, only 34% of millennials are homeowners. Millennials also entered the workforce during the Great Recession. They’ve experienced high unemployment.   They also live with their parents, longer than previous generations. Student debt has also changed spending patterns in the millennial generation. All of these factors point to lower disposable income. Millennials are more conservative than the previous generation in their spending and are less likely to buy luxury goods, according to Goldman Sachs.

What doesn’t really make sense here is blaming the youngest cohort for the failure of older generations to find brown furniture appealing. If there’s a market disconnect, it less about emerging buyers’ tastes than it is about established buyers like Baby Boomers.

The one vintage thing that doesn’t appeal to millennials: Furniture  (Marketplace)