The 2025 GQ Home Awards

We’ve lounged, kicked our feet up, and raised a few hundred glasses—all in the name of research—because, if you can believe it, the 2025 GQ Home Awards are here, and this year’s class is a colorful, happy-go-lucky bunch of goods that bypass the boring, and insist that your home can (and should be!) fun. With zigzags, waves, rounded edges, and prints galore, this year’s winners take the edge off a decade of too-serious design and inspire you to be bold. Scroll down deep enough and you may very well insist that you never pat dry with a white towel again. We commend you.

To make it easy to navigate this list, we’ve broken things down by room. Maybe you need something specific—say, some non-boring wine glasses for a fête on Friday. We’ve got that! Perhaps you’re looking for some general inspiration for the living room and you just want to see what you see. Scroll on! By chance, if you’re the guy who wants to know what the best vacuum on the planet is, you also won’t be disappointed. The point is, now that you’re here—as your hosts—we’re determined to give you a comfy stay. So, grab a bev, relax in your comfiest chair and let’s get to it.

The Living Room

The Best Sofas: Sixpenny Gabriel Sofa and House of Leon Palazzo Sofa

Waves, wood, and weaves that feel extra earthy, this year’s sofas draw inspiration from nature and make us want to invest in bringing the best of the great outdoors inside. The Sixpenny Gabriel—from the brand that is known for its cloud-like couches—instead brings texture and clean lines into your living room. For something sleeker, the Palazzo has an architectural white oak base paired with jewel-toned velvets that don’t feel too heavy here.

For some time, the ottoman sectional has taken up space in the collective consciousness—and sure, our living rooms too—but with a chubby bubble silhouette, Neve demands justice for the corner sectional. We like it in the boucle and performance fabrics, but it’s magic in velvet.

A far cry from the rickety old pull-out couch that lived in your grandma’s basement, Koala has reimagined the sleeper sofa with a fold-out design that our testers say is as comfy as a regular ol’ bed. It doesn’t have any innersprings or a clunky foundation that make it way too firm; instead, the cushions envelop you and feel cushy and comforting. Bonus points for the hidden storage compartments that are great for midnight munchies.

The Hershey’s Kiss of living room furniture, the Sundays’ Close to You Chair is just seventies enough to move and groove with your other interiors without feeling too contrived. Thanks to modern upgrades like performance velvet, you’ll be able to keep it for another generation to come.

No one does mass furniture that looks bespoke better than Copenhagen design house Ferm Living. Case in point: the Can Lis collection, a collaboration that draws inspiration from Sydney Opera House architect Jørn Utzon’s Mallorca family home. Our favorite in the lot: The Deya Coffee Table, a fiber concrete coffee table with a hunter green glaze that lives comfortably inside and out.

The Citizenry is known for bringing us goods that are sustainably sourced and designed from a network of artisans around the world. The Mayra Marble side table, designed by a team in Jodhur, India, uses mixed materials—a green-gray marble and oak—and because of the differences in each slab of marble, each piece itself is unique.

Despite being some of the biggest pieces of furniture in our homes, many storage and shelving gives off duck-and-hide energy—but as you’ll see with the colorful options from Hay and Montana Furniture ask you to look closer. The Hay Colour Cabinet Floor is an excellent media cabinet, with space to stash old-school DVDs and new consoles alike. Meanwhile, the Panton Wire Shelving calls you to put your best and brightest on display rather than letting it collect dust over in the corner.

Last year, we handed over the award for the best mirror to Ready to Hang for their supremely cool Zipper Mirror. This year, the brand just dropped the Petal Mirror, a tortoise-accented looking glass that has us looking to free up some more wall space.

Sophie Lou Jacobsen’s drinking glasses have been on the tabletops of our coolest friends for the last few years. Now, her Gemma Table Lamp—a collaboration with the design studio In Common With—has us saving our pretty pennies. Utilizing Venetian glassblowing techniques that affixes the dots down the side to the lamp, this vessel feels ever so slightly mycological, as if it was harvested straight from the field already aglow.

Lighting fixtures can often feel a little too ornate for everyday spaces, but the Barnes Linear Chandelier from Schoolhouse takes a different approach, drawing inspo from mid-century office lighting. It’s assembled in Portland and the vibe of the piece mirrors that of Stumptown—easygoing and approachable. Choose from four colorways, each of which houses two long LED bulbs.

If you pick it correctly, the rug in your room can do most of the talking for your space. Go big with Nordic Knots’ current “it rug” Big Buds. It’s designed by Giancarlo Valle to resemble his family’s hand-painted Latin American furniture and made of soft-as-a-dream New Zealand wool so underfoot it never feels too bristly. If you’re looking instead for something slightly more wallet-friendly, you’ll never go wrong with a Revival Rug, like the wool hand loomed rug, which comes in three colorways, each of which wear well over time.

The Dining Room

California-cool Sun at Six catches our eye with every new launch, but this year, we’re here to celebrate the Zafal Dining Table. Made of white oak in three distinct finishes, it features zigzag table legs that are unique and interesting without ever needing to try too hard—kinda like the brand itself.

A color-blocked chair that’s equal parts artistic and industrial, this Billiani 1911 piece matches varying materials and hues to deliver a sense of individuality in a world of lookalike, mass-produced seats.

There’s something about the Jolley Trolley Bar Cart that feels a little like it was engineered for Wonka. Maybe it’s the oversized wheel or the puffy dome light up top, but we’re pretty sure that whether this thing is loaded up with chocolate or cocktails, you’re going to have a good time.

The Best Salad Bowl: Holcomb Dot Salad Bar

The Tupperware parties of yore would shutter if they saw this handsome, walnut salad bowl from Holcomb. Every detail from the magnetic salad servers to the lid that nests below the bowl when in use make it a show-stopping piece. Just remember to put your name on the bottom, so no one else gets to go home with it.

The Best Pepper Mills: Sam Stewart Ritz Mill

Your pepper mill doesn’t have to be extra…peppy, but if you buy the Ritz Mill from North Carolina artist Sam Stewart, you might get just that. The swervy design in both translucent and opaque colored resins allows you to mix and match for a duo that put’s your mom’s boring S and P shakers to shame.

You don’t really know that your flatware is falling flat until you see Sabre Paris’s Bistrot collection. With colorful acrylic handles and French design, these sets feel ornamental and festive, making every meal a cause to celebrate.

The glass you hand a guest in your home says something about you. Basic barware will always do, but for those looking for something with more personality, you’ll never go wrong with the set of Fazeek’s colorful coups or glasses. This set of four spans the brand’s best-selling colors, but you can also buy individual colors if you can settle on which one you like the most. Meanwhile, Prada’s red wine glasses are a divine hostess gift and they look just as darling perched on your own coffee table if you decide to cancel your plans and stay at home.

The glass you hand a man in your home says something about you. Basic barware will always do, but for those looking for something with more personality, you’ll never go wrong with the set of Fazeek’s colorful coups or glasses. This set of four spans the brand’s best-selling colors, but you can also buy individual colors if you can settle on which one you like the most. Meanwhile, Prada’s red wine glasses are a divine hostess gift and they look just as darling perched on your own coffee table if you decide to cancel your plans and stay at home.

The Kitchen

With the dizzying number of DTC cookware brands on the scene these days, it’s hard to know where to start shopping for new pans. Usually, your kitchen aptitude is a good place to start. For beginners, the design-y cookware brand Made In recently launched a nonstick rendition of its buzzy five-ply stainless clad frying pan. For the slightly more accomplished, try Misen’s stainless-steel cookware set, which doesn’t break the bank and will hold up for years.

I’m not going to say that the editors of GQ are coffee snobs, but I’m also not going to say that. These guys love their pour overs, lap down cortados from the best-of-the-best machines, and can tell when a cup just isn’t up to snuff—so it’s with great gusto that we award the Fellow Aiden the best coffee pot the second year running (the brand’s got an espresso machine on the horizon we’re dying to get our hands on, BTW). The idea behind the machine is that it makes pour-over quality coffee in a machine, all controlled by an app that allows you to tweak the intricacies of the brew so that it stands up to GQ’s high standards.

Scandi-inspired Bodum has been making electric kettles for eons but this happy-go-lucky color-blocked one from the MoMA Store has us gushing. It has a whopping 34-ounce capacity, and its rapid boil function means that you can have a full pot of pour-over coffee on the table mere minutes after the caffeine calls you.

No matter how good your cleansers and creams are, if you have water that has loads of contaminants and chlorine, you could be disrupting your skin barrier and irritating your complexion. Canopy (the brand that made humidifiers for cool again) set out to solve this problem with its new faucet filter that’s designed to remove odors and contaminants from your water supply.

The Bathroom

2025 is the year of the striped towel, and our favorite happen to be these organic cotton ribbed bath sheets from Parachute, which absorb water without too much fuss while looking great on a hook (cough cough: or the floor).

Brooklyn-based Quiet Town’s End Bits linen shower curtain has gone Bode in the bathroom, making its patchwork feel charming and inviting. The brand’s bathroom rugs and shower caddies always top our list for gifts, but you should do yourself a solid and stock up on the shower curtain pronto.

More is more when you’re making the bed—layer up different textures, colors, and plenty of pillows to make a bed that’s as comfy as it is your own. Start with a crisp percale duvet from Copenhagen-based Tekla that feels like you’re curling up with a perfectly worn T-shirt (be daring and spring for the signature stripes). Then, layer on Hawkins’ supremely soft simple linen quilt which comes in a veritable rainbow of color options. Finish with a Lindquist wool blanket for the coldest nights, which will have your guests Googling where you got it.

Many outdoor sofas heavy up on materials like teak to stay dry, but the Room and Board Drift sofa is made from quick-drying foam and has a design that looks like it belongs in the family den. The extra-loungey sofa comes in upwards of 50 fabrics that wear well in the elements, and you can choose from four different lengths depending on your space.

Mosquitos and flys can’t get you down when you own the Neighbor XY Dining Set, which takes the edge off alfresco dining. This table set for four is made from powder-coated aluminum, with four chairs that are covered in Sunbrella fabric so you don’t fry your legs come July. You can buy it in three flashy colors, black, or white depending on what kind of a vibe you’re wanting to create. (We say go bold).

In the past few years, outdoor furniture has gotten exceedingly serious with sofas, loveseats, and armchairs that look like they’re built for the most pristine palaces. This year, though, we’re untangling that notions with colorful, charming spaghetti chairs like this one from Italian designer Francesco Favagrossa and Dusen Dusen’s poolside-ready Outdoor Bean Bag Chair.

We can’t say that we would’ve expected Peloton founder John Foley’s next act to be a made-to-order rug company, but we’re glad it is. With affordable-ish prices, every element of Ernesta rugs is made to be customizable from the color to the size (down to the inch!) to the shape. This indoor-outdoor option is made with polyester, and feels like it could work as a kitchen runner just as well as on the patio.

Most of us buy our planters with the planting season (a.k.a. now) in mind, but our testers say these sturdy planters from Rejuvenation hold up in the depths of January, too. Made of ficonstone and configured with a drainage hole to remove excess moisture, they’re made to flash off heat and cold so that your plants keep on doing their thing.

Sometimes, you can’t go wrong with IKEA. This simple workhorse of a wardrobe might not be the most overbuilt, chic piece in your house, but it will get the job done—for far less than most other options of the same quality currently on the market.

Outer’s fire pit pulls triple duty as a coffee table, outdoor grill, and (of course) a fire pit. It’s customizable with propane or natural gas, and you can buy it to fit whatever size space you have. Made from a proprietary material that the brand has dubbed “Outerstone,” it is both antimicrobial and scorch resistant so it’s easy to clean and protect from damage.

Most humidifiers work by spouting mist into the air, and if you don’t clean ‘em, that mist can get moldy. We like the Blue Air two-in-one purifier not only because it’s mist-free, but also because it helps to purify the air with a HEPA filter to rid your air of dust, odor, and smoke. It acts fast, too, purifying 360 square feet in 12.5 minutes, according to the brand. Control it with Alexa or from a companion app.

When you don’t need the oomph of the air conditioner in the summer, the Snooz Breez Smart Bedroom Fan will keep you cool when you need it. It has a companion app that allows you to schedule it to turn on and off when you’re en route home. Plus, with temperature sensing and a shut-off timer, you can avoid overly cooling a room to feel like an icebox in the way some ACs do.

Usually, it’s in the middle of an air crisis—a wildfire, an allergy-heavy forecast, etc.—that most of us think about our air quality, but the Mila Air 3 gives us cause to think about it on the daily. The reimagined large-room purifier is whisper-quiet (16% quieter than the previous model, in fact) while giving a speedier CADR, or clean air delivery rate. We like it because of the customizable filters that you can buy with it specifically tailored for pregnancy, pets, or newborns.

The Best Stick Vacuum: Dyson Outsize HEPA Gen 5

James Dyson revolutionized the vacuum decades ago by ditching dirt bags and cutting the cord with battery-operated machines. Over time, his models got sleeker and smaller, but with the Outsize HEPA Gen 5, you get a vacuum that’s designed for large spaces that doesn’t take up loads of room. Using laser technology, it can spot invisible dust on the floor and suck it right up with 250 Airwatt suction. The vacuum runs for 140 minutes without needing to be plugged back in, so if you have a big house but don’t want a mega vacuum, the Dyson is the move.

The Best Robot Vacuum: Roborock Saros Z70

In a giant leap closer to Rosie from the Jetsons becoming a reality, Roborock released the Saros Z70 at CES this year. The robovac has a mechanical arm that helps to pick up big items—shoes, toys, and last night’s Taco Bell bag—to move them out of the way so that it can do a daily cleaning of your floors. With the same top-tier features that Roborock is known for like picking up pet hair and mopping floors, you can’t do better than this vacuum if you’re looking for a robot vac.

Ultimate Ears’ Wonderboom 3 speaker has impressively good audio for such a small speaker, with an outdoor setting that’s specifically tuned to get up to 87 dBC in the wide-open air. That’s good, but the ease of use—a quick pair feature, one smartphone connecting to two Wonderbooms at once, and 14-hour battery life—makes it a cinch to use, and we keep reaching for it over other (often pricey) portable speakers.

For years, The Frame TV has been challenging the notion that all your furniture needs to be pointed at the tube, but for some, the TV didn’t have a crisp enough picture for sports or gaming. This year, Samsung has taken those notes and released the 4K Neo QLED Frame Pro, which has a 144Hz refresh rate, up from last year’s 120Hz. The Neo QLED panel means the TV uses quantum dots for expanded color and mini LEDs behind the screen with local dimming for better contrast and brightness. The jump up gives it an edge for those watching fast-paced shows, and for the rest of us, it still looks damn good in the room.

For people looking to make their sound set-up plug and play, the Sonos Arc Ultra (which launched late last year) has Dolby Atmos, making it sound like the next best thing to being in a movie theater. You can connect it to your TV, control it with your voice, and use it to play music when you’re entertaining. Sure, you could probably have something custom that’s slightly more custom to your wants and needs, but for a one-and-done solution, look no further.

Working from home in 2025 comes with great responsibility to give your home office some character. Skip the boring white-top desks that you’d find in corporate America for something with personality. The well-worn, powder-coated steel Haller desk—a favorite for generations—comes in bold colorways with practical details like a lockable storage space and shelves for your valuables.

If you’re sick of using rolls and rolls of Bounty, these Swedish dish cloths are a godsend. They’re reusable, of course, but the best part is that they actually work—like really, really well.

It may seem like you can get away with a cheap old desk chair that you snagged as a hand-me-down, but trust us: If you work a desk job, this is a place you want to invest. The Inside’s Modern Desk chair gives you reason to. With 36 fabric patterns—solids! prints! linens! velvets!—and adjustable height and ample cushioning, it looks good and will keep you from getting a crick in your neck.

Conway Electric’s rainbow-colored power strips have become something of a “thing” in the lobbies of posh hotels in London and New York. Newer from the line, the JAX lamp, a USBC-enhanced table lamp works as a dedicated light source for detail work or a good-looking place to keep your iPhone charged.

Forgive us if we think the 9-to-5 needs a vibe check these days. One that’s for sale: The 5-Drawer Pivot Cabinet from the MoMA Store, which comes in three bold colorways. It’ll keep you organized, or at the very least inspired, when the paper pushing gets to be too much.

As Gen Z parents come of age, the minimal furnishings of millennial design give way to bolder silhouettes that feel like they’ll spark imagination from day one. Enter Oeuf, the Brooklyn-based brainchild of Sophie Demenge and Michael Ryan, who make whimsical, sustainable kids’ furniture like the swervy, Moss crib. It’s dreamy in natural wood, but for a little somethin’ somethin’, go bold for the tomato or peapod.

Is this going to win any design awards? Certainly not—but what it will do is give you an easy, affordable way to make your space look and feel bigger, and (hopefully) reflect some natural light into your dark, railroad apartment.

Leanne Ford’s Crate and Kids collaboration has been kicking for a few years, so you may have caught a glimpse of it by now; however, we think that it’s worth a closer look. The curved lines and mixed materials make it feel soft and the thoughtful details—an optional changing table and drawers made for little sizes—make it hyper-functional.

West Elm is known for its reliable, stylish home goods, and we love ‘em for it—but if you look deep enough into the catalog, you’ll always find something slightly unexpected that goes above and beyond. Take this reading nook from former Lucky magazine editor-in-chief and Instagram darling Eva Chen. Its arched design makes it a dedicated space that your kid will want to curl up with a book (or if they insist…a tablet).

There’s often a push-pull between form and function when buying baby goods. For starters, you don’t expect to need the furniture forever, so you may not want to shell out for a pricey chair that you’ll only need for five years tops. On the other hand, you’ll likely be spending a whole lotta time in that chair in the wee hours. The bottom line—You want it to be comfortable without costing a million dollars. Enter the Kai Rocker from Babyletto, a chair you’ll want to sink into on sleepless nights but that you won’t sink a fortune into.

2025 GQ HOME AWARDS CONTRIBUTORS:

Ali Finney, Tyler Chin

EDITOR:

Ian Burke