Georgina Wilson Reveals Five Instagram Design Myths That Could Be Ruining Your Home

Instagram may be full of dreamy interiors, but architect Georgina Wilson says what works on social media doesn’t always translate to real life.

As one of Australia’s most-followed architects, Wilson has seen first-hand how influencer-led design shapes—and sometimes sabotages—our homes.

From impractical layouts to fast-fashion finishes, here are five biggest myths she’s busting.

1. Form Over Function

That statement pendant light might rake in likes, but can you actually open your kitchen drawers?

Many influencer-inspired designs prioritise visual drama over practicality, sacrificing comfort, efficiency and long-term usability in the process.

2. Set Design, Not Home Design

Fluted cabinetry, curved walls, oversized arches—they look great in a styled shot but aren’t always built to last.

Wilson warns that these trends are often “set pieces,” designed for impact rather than daily living.

3. The DIY Myth

With time-lapses and tutorials galore, influencers make renovations look deceptively easy.

But Wilson says DIY often results in costly missteps: “Designing a great space requires experience, technical skill and planning—there are no shortcuts.”

4. Trends Over Timelessness

What’s hot today will feel tired tomorrow. Chasing viral aesthetics can lead to expensive regrets, especially if it means compromising on layout, materials, or functionality.

“Good design should outlast any algorithm,” says Wilson.

5. Influencer Projects Are Often Free – Yours Won’t Be

Wilson points out a crucial reality: most influencer renovations are heavily subsidised by brand partnerships.

Homeowners, meanwhile, foot the full bill—sometimes for design choices that don’t serve them long-term.

Social media is a powerful source of inspiration, but Wilson urges homeowners to think beyond the grid.

“A truly great home isn’t built for the ‘after’ photo,” she says. “It’s built to be lived in—comfortably, beautifully, every day.”

Even in Hollywood, pre-eminent in the field of chutzpah, greatness can be intimidating. Rarely does one hear producers discuss their plans to remake “Casablanca” or “Lawrence of Arabia.” It took Disney many years of creating live-action remakes of its classic animated features before it worked up the nerve to take another whack at its first, and perhaps most venerated, work, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” which in 1937 set the template for richly evocative animation that could appeal to all ages. It is still, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the 10th-highest-grossing movie ever released in North America.

Disney’s first “Snow White” isn’t perfect—the prince is badly underwritten and doesn’t even get a name—but it is, by turns, enchanting, scary and moving. Version 2.0, starring Rachel Zegler in the title role and Gal Gadot as her nefarious stepmother, has been in the works since 2016 and already feels like it’s from a bygone era. After fans seemed grumpy about the rumored storyline and the casting of Ms. Zegler, Disney became bashful about releasing it last March and ordered reshoots to make everyone happy. Unfortunately, the story is so dopey it made me sleepy.

Directed by Marc Webb (“The Amazing Spider-Man” with Andrew Garfield ), the remake is neither a clever reimagining (like “The Jungle Book” and “Pete’s Dragon,” both from 2016) nor a faithful retelling (like 2017’s “Beauty and the Beast”), but rather an ungainly attempt at modernization. The songs “I’m Wishing” and “Someday My Prince Will Come” have been cut; the big what-she-wants number near the outset is called “Waiting on a Wish.” Instead of longing for true love (=fairy tale), Snow White hopes to sharpen her leadership skills (=M.B.A. program). And she keeps talking about a more equitable distribution of wealth in the kingdom she is destined to rule after her mother, the queen, dies and her father, having made a questionable choice for his second spouse, goes missing.

Ms. Gadot, giving it her all, is serviceable as the wicked stepmother. But she doesn’t bring a lot of wit to the role, and the script, by Erin Cressida Wilson , does very little to help. Her hello-I’m-evil number, “All Is Fair,” is meant to be the film’s comic showstopper but it’s barely a showslower, a wan imitation of “Gaston” from “Beauty and the Beast” or “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from “The Little Mermaid.” The original songs, from the songwriting team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (“La La Land”), also stack up poorly against the three tunes carried over from the original “Snow White,” each of which has been changed from a sweet bonbon into high-energy, low-impact cruise-ship entertainment. So unimaginative is the staging of the numbers that it suggests such straight-to-Disney+ features as 2019’s “Lady and the Tramp.”

After escaping a plot to kill her, Snow White becomes friends with a digital panoply of woodland animals and with the Seven Dwarfs, who instead of being played by actors are also digital creations. The warmth of the original animation is totally absent here; the tiny miners look like slightly creepy garden gnomes, except for Dopey, who looks like Alfred E. Neuman . As for the prince, there isn’t one; the love interest, Jonathan (a forgettable Andrew Burnap ), is a direct lift of the rogue-thief Flynn Rider , from 2010’s “Tangled,” plus some Robin Hood stylings. His sour, sarcastic tribute to the heroine, “Princess Problems,” is the worst Snow White number since the one with Rob Lowe at the 1989 Oscars.

Ms. Zegler isn’t the chief problem with the movie, but as in her debut role, Maria in Steven Spielberg’s remake of “West Side Story,” she has a tendency to seem bland and blank, leaving the emotional depths of her character unexplored even as she nearly dies twice. Gloss prevails over heart in nearly every scene, and plot beats feel contrived. She and Jonathan seem to have no interest in one another until, suddenly, they do; and when he and his band of thieves escape from a dungeon, they do so simply by yanking their iron chains out of the walls. Everything comes too easily and nothing generates much feeling. When interrogated by the evil queen, who wants to know what happened to her stepdaughter, Jonathan replies, “Snow who?” Which would be an understandable reaction to the movie. “Snow White” is the fairest of them all, in the sense that fair can mean mediocre.