It's Time to Level Up Your Maximalist Bathroom with a Swan Faucet

Swapping in this fixture will give your bathroom the touch of Hollywood glam it needs.

Sharon is a writer and contributor at Better Homes & Gardens, where she writes, edits, and updates content on the website, refreshing recipes and articles about home design, holiday planning, gardening, and other topics. Before joining Better Homes & Gardens, Sharon began her career as a blogger, then became a freelance writer, focusing on home design and organization, midlife and empty nesting, and seniors and eldercare. Her work has been published on a range of websites, including Angi, Purple Clover, HuffPost, Grown and Flown, Seniors Matter, AARP’s the Girlfriend and the Ethel, and many other outlets.

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When actor David Harbour and his wife, actress Lilly Allen redecorated their New York City apartment, as featured in Architectural Digest, Harbour insisted on installing swan faucets in their wildly opulent (and infamously carpeted) bathroom. With their maximalist spouts and handles, swan faucets may be the epitome of trending, over-the-top bathroom fixtures.

While other designs are perhaps more elegant (and certainly more understated), swans harken back to the golden age of Hollywood Regency decor, when over-the-top elements were considered ultra glamorous.

With the avalanche of Barbiecore design on social media, swan faucets have found a new, young, and kitsch-loving fanbase gravitating toward bright pink bathrooms with the curved and feathered spigots. TikTok creator @thehouseofadora shared her version of this trend (including a rotary-dial pink phone), receiving 489,000 views and 104,000 likes on her video. Referring to the world-famous hotel on California’s Central Coast, one commenter replied, “This is so Madonna Inn core.”

Swan faucets are the specialty of Sherle Wagner International, a high-end bathroom fixture company. They began manufacturing the long-necked faucets in 1945, using intricate detailing to create lifelike creatures that found their way into homes worldwide. Each faucet is made one by one—water-spewing pieces of art meant to impress guests visiting the powder rooms of high-end residences. Sherle Wagner has seen their sales of swan faucets double in the past three years over the 10 years before, creative director Marissa Geoffrey (and Sherle Wagner’s granddaughter) told Insider.

Along with Hollywood-era homes, these faucets can be found in some of the most famous, elegant spots worldwide. There are swan faucets in the public bathrooms at the Ritz in Paris and Annabelle’s nightclub in London (complete with fluffy ceilings). Swan faucets also hold a small place in pop culture history: For Adam Sandler fans, swan faucets will forever be remembered during his bathtub scene in Billy Madison.

If custom-made plumbing fixtures are beyond your budget, you can find swan faucets at more affordable places like Amazon and Home Depot. For those looking to add a touch of maximalism, whimsy, or Hollywood Regency to a space, chances are you’re going to want a swan faucet—whether you want a Barbie-pink bathroom to go with it is up to you.