I am not a furniture historian, so I am going to explain this term in layman’s language. If you want to know more about the history of campaign furniture, you can check out the Wikipedia page here.
From a furniture manufacturer’s and a furniture painter’s perspective, classic “campaign furniture” comprises two important design elements – boxy, square lines and inset hardware that sits flush with the drawer fronts. Both elements are essential for it to be called true “campaign” furniture.
So, let’s look at a few pictures to clarify my word salad above.
Campaign Furniture Has Boxy, Square Lines
Look at these various pieces of vintage campaign dressers, nightstands, and etageres. The lines are very simple, clean, and boxy. There are no details like carvings, turned legs, or multiple layers of trim. It’s a simple, minimal cube. The lack of details is the design.
Campaign Furniture Has Routed Hardware
Campaign-style pulls are installed inside a routed area into the drawer front so they sit completely flush. The pulls are specially designed with two different elements. The box and the pull itself. The “pulling” part is hanging inside the box and is there when you want to open the drawer. This is yet another element that adds to the minimal aesthetic of the overall design.
Campaign pulls can’t be used on other furniture unless you plan to route out the drawer front. Conversely, it’s nearly impossible to use anything other than campaign hardware on campaign dressers. It’s challenging to fill the holes of campaign pulls as they are not just simple screw holes.
What is Not a Classic Campaign?
The pieces below have campaign-style inset hardware, but they are not boxy, or they have other strong design elements like faux bamboo or a Chinoiserie-style base to be called a classic campaign.
The pieces below are boxy and simple, but they don’t meet the 2nd qualifier of inset pulls, so this is not campaign furniture.
Vintage Campaign Furniture
This is a classic vintage Henredon Artefacts campaign dresser with distinctly shaped hardware. These are slightly different from the classic square campaign style but still inset and boxy.
Similarly, vintage Drexel campaign dressers have distinctly shaped hardware. The corner pieces are rounded to fit the rounded edges of their dressers.
Final Thoughts
Less is more aesthetic is the defining feature of campaign furniture. It’s classic, will never go out of style, and it works well with many other styles of furniture and overall decor.