As always, a trip to the spring fair in Milan gets your creative juices flowing and infuses you with enthusiasm and excitement. As expected, the desire to completely redo the showroom comes with this dose of spring fever!
Color trends stayed with the soft neutrals like grey, grey/taupe, soft mauve, lilac, mocha, coffee with cream. Accent colors were orange, purple and turquoise.
White remains the predominant “color” and the neutrals mentioned above are layered onto the white in varying shades. Texture in wood, rugs and fabrics continues this theme of layering.
In wood, walnut remains number one—matched with high gloss or matte white finishes, the look is fresh and clean. Outdoor furniture seems to have become a bigger category—people are using their homes to entertain and relax and they want to be able to use the outside space as elegantly as they use the inside area.
The market in High Point overlapped with Milan and this year, we saw more similarities than in the past. Sometimes North America is 6-12 months behind the European trends and/or acceptance of new woods and fabrics.
The showrooms were filled with soft neutrals and pastels in the same mineral hues of grey, taupe and soft browns. Apple green was a nice accent color for the blacks and whites that are still evident everywhere. Accent colors are also tied to semi-precious stones like turquoise, citrine, camelian and pink tourmaline.
Earthly organic shapes and textures were everywhere ---the original Vladimir Kagan kidney sofa was widely copied and the soft rounded shape was on back pillows as well as on the actual frame.
1950’s retro was prominent in a lot of the showrooms—modern Danish design in both teak and walnut. Walnut stayed constant at about 30% of the wood choice echoing North America’s hesitancy with walnut. The progressive vendors are sticking with it knowing that the European love for it will lead to eventual acceptance in North American. Many vendors had a soft grey finish as well which obviously paired well with all the fabrics in the grey and taupe grey family.
Fabrics were multi-textured—we saw a crushed velour and linen stripe that is gorgeous—carpets have texture or are dyed to appear that way.
Toile is back as are vibrant black and white patterned fabrics a’la Marimekko.
The rough hewn environmental recycled wood is certainly front and center. Thanks to the very powerful Sustainable Furnishings Council, green is still very trendy—bamboo is common and has been used many different ways.
We ordered all kinds of exciting new products—in a new trend much of it is in production and will ship as soon as our orders are filled. Since some of our vendors have a release time frame 4-6 months down the road we will have a steady stream of new furniture, accessories, rugs and wall art coming through our doors until the next market. Come see us –we look forward to showing you all the new product!
