When I first saw red paper chains strung up in my friend’s Brooklyn apartment last year, I thought: Cute! What a fun throwback to Christmases of yore, and a way to make the place ten times cozier as we gather to drink wine, gossip, and be merry.
At the time, that was the extent of my thoughts on paper chains. Now, fast forward to 2025, and I can’t seem to escape them. They’re in shop windows, on trees at the local holiday market, and all over my Instagram. Call it holiday-induced craftmania, or kindergarten chic. Paper chains—the classic kind, made by looping strips of colorful construction paper together—are having a moment.
Since Thanksgiving, a seemingly endless stream of TikTok videos explaining how to make paper garlands has taken over my feed—tutorials suggesting the specific papers, materials, and techniques to get the chunkiest chains or the most durable links. They experiment with velvet, felt, and ribbon, and offer advice on how to hang your decorations to create the most whimsical effect.
Paper chains certainly aren’t new—they’re believed to date back to at least the 1800s, when they were first noted as a popular schoolchildren’s activity—but their online resurgence has brought them to a new audience eager to get their craft on. (And post about it.) Retailers seem to have noticed, too: A number of stores, including Toast, Anthropologie, East End Press, and Cambridge Imprint, sell paper chain kits, some of which have sold out online. On Pinterest, searches for “paper chains” have spiked amid the holiday season.
So, what’s behind this paper chain revival? For many, it’s about a return to childlike wonder.
Some call the trend a “recession indicator” (isn’t everything these days?); others call it “Little Women Christmas” (à la the Greta Gerwig version), or the kitschy polar opposite of “Ralph Lauren Christmas.”
It may also be, as others have noted, a response to the “sad beige” trend of minimalist, neutral interiors. Just last week, Pantone announced their color of the year is literally white (or rather, “Cloud Dancer,” as they call it), and there’s already been pushback from those who prefer colorful chaos, texture, and nostalgia over a manicured, catalogue-ready look.
Photographed by Camilla Greenwell
Photographed by Camilla Greenwell
Sean A. Pritchard, the award-winning English garden designer, is a fully paid-up fan of paper chains as Christmas decor—just take his holiday tablescapes in a recent Vogue story as an example. For Pritchard, paper chains are synonymous with the magic of Christmastime as a child, a feeling many of us strive to recreate as adults. Plus, he explains, paper chains are a sure sign that you’re having fun and “surrendering to the chaos” of the holidays.
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