“I was brought up thinking pewter was better than gold,” says Madeleine Asplund Klingstedt, the Stockholm-based interior designer behind the Swedish Grace-inspired Ställe Studios, a design-led aesthetics clinic in Soho beloved by it-girls and celebrities alike. Asplund Klingstedt’s childhood home was filled with pewter plates, bowls, and egg stands painstakingly collected by her mother.
She isn’t the only one who sees pewter as precious these days. The metal alloy with medieval roots is experiencing a surge of interest, as people look to history for cues on how to decorate for the present. Data from antiques marketplace 1stDibs shows that interest in pewter have increased significantly in the last year, with searches up 500% in the last quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025 compared to the previous year.
“There’s been a real resurgence of pewter,” says Nick Ozemba, co-founder of Quarters, a design and craft-led concept store in Tribeca that sells a variety of pewter objects including vases, trays, and coasters. Svenskt Tenn, a Swedish homewares company whose name literally translates to ’Swedish Pewter,’ reports that the brand has seen a strong response in recent years to their centenary launches (the company was founded by Estrid Ericson in 1924) and a renewed excitement around their archival designs, which remain top sellers.
But the metal’s popularity hasn’t always been the case. “Pewter is one of those materials that was overlooked for a while,” says Alistair Byars, Edinburgh-based designer and curator for The Gathering Hand, who notes that metal casters have long favored bronze, silver, and aluminum. “Pewter used to be the MDF of the metal world.”
Esteemed art historian and curator Charles F. Montgomery’s seminal book on the subject, A History of American Pewter, details how the metal has fallen in and out of favor. “From the time of first settlement through the Revolutionary War, all Americans aspired to eat and drink from pewter,” wrote Montgomery, who died in 1978. “There is much evidence to indicate that most people in America until about 1820 ate with pewter spoons off pewter plates filled from pewter dishes.” But in the 1870s, the metal was usurped by ceramics. “Fashionable people turned increasingly to the new pottery wares, China-trade porcelains, and—for drinking vessels—glass.”
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Pewter would become a metal en vogue once again during the Art Deco and Swedish Grace period, notes Anthony Barzilay Freund, 1stDibs’s editorial director and director of fine art. Pewter, alongside chrome and aluminum, was one of the metals favored by designers in the period for modern, affordable designs. “Long a hallmark of traditional craft, pewter was embraced by Scandinavian designers from the 1920s as a welcome alternative to silver, with weight and warmth and a malleability that still lent itself to exquisitely crafted, decorative metalwork,” he says. “Pewter’s popularity today is likely a reflection of the continued popularity of Art Deco furniture and objects, which frequently featured the metal, and the increased interest in the Swedish Grace movement.”
The metal alloy is composed largely of tin with varying amounts of copper, antimony, bismuth, and previously, lead. “The alloy was changed to be lead-free in the 1970s, so contemporary pewter items are generally considered to be food safe,” adds Freund, who cautions that antique pewter objects are often not suitable for dining purposes.
Pewter has also become an attractive material for contemporary artists because of its ancient past and its convenient capacity for recasting. Byars recently made a line of hand-cast pewter bowls using a sand mold. Calling upon the metal’s medieval history, Byars says: “What I’ve always loved about pewter is that it’s a very utilitarian metal, but is also sacred at the same time.”
Sibling duo Naiomi and Tyler Glasses, seventh-generation Diné (Navajo) textile artists and weavers, collaborated on designs for a series of pewter decorative objects and entertaining pieces for Ralph Lauren Home’s 2025 Canyon Road Collection. “We chose to use pewter because we were drawn to its faded-like quality that reminds us of the patina found on old silver, Navajo jewelry—there’s something deeply storied about it,” says Naiomi Glasses, whose collaboration used pewter from the English Pewter Company stamped with traditional Navajo motifs. These artisanal pieces sit in concert with the rustic oak and hand-burnished saddle leather of the collection s furniture that, like pewter, shows age over time.
Patina is one of pewter’s perks. “As opposed to bronze or steel, which will oxidize into blues and browns, pewter will darken to a deep graphite tone over time when it comes into contact with moisture in the air,” says Byars. “Once it s aged, it takes on this incredible dark luster.”
One might hypothesize that objects that reflect the passing of time are resonating today because they provide a sense of grounding in a world where anything can be bought on-demand. “There is something about pewter’s quiet elegance and ability to age beautifully that makes it just as relevant today as it was a century ago,” says Svenskt Tenn’s head of marketing, Tora Grape. “We think pewter is having a resurgence because people are gravitating towards materials that feel authentic, tactile, and long-lasting.”
Interior designers are also finding pewter to be a powerful addition to a space. Christine Gachot, principal at Gachot, observes that she has been increasingly drawn to the metal in her projects and own life. “Pewter brings a lived-in warmth and balance with sophistication—an elevated craft feel,” she says. This feeling works well in commercial spaces as well as residential. “I absolutely love pewter,” said Ashley Coiffard, co-owner of beloved New York City bakery, L’Appartement 4F, who is constantly sourcing antiques for her bakeries and home.
Elizabeth Grace Hand, esthetician and founder of Ställe Studios, says that pewter is the most used metal in her studio. “Compared to stainless steel, which has been so popular in recent years, you don’t have to worry about pewter getting a scratch or getting dirty, so it’s great for a commercial space where people are coming in and out all day.”
In fact, the pewter antiques at Ställe Studios were so popular with Hand’s clients that she joined forces with Asplund Klingstedt to launch a storefront for Swedish antiques and pewter objects sourced by the pair. After the success of the first drop that launched in September, the duo will launch their second drop at the beginning of next year.
“We wanted people to come and make themselves at home,” says Hand, who loves when her clients interact with the antique objects she’s sourced for the studio, like the pewter trays she encourages them to put jewelry on pre-facial. “That’s what’s so special about pewter. You can touch it all you like—and doing so almost makes it better.”