February 2015 / Great Expectations of Simplexity


Located throughout the world, the Trendease Team continues to deliver our subscribers around the globe must-know market information and inspiration straight to their computer screens.

Trade shows galore! Heimtextil, Domotex, IMM Cologne, Maison&Objet, Paris Deco Off, and more. Everything is simultaneously simple and complex. Progressive design promotion involves the titillation of the five senses to bring about a unique and immersive experience. We see this with Heimtextil’s Theme Park and trends. We also explore product developments for the new seasons. Neo-artisans put a new spin on craftsmanship. Artyculturists curate nature’s talents. Technophobes delight in the Robolution of Techno Made. Get inspired with the February edition!

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REPORTING TO INSPIRE,
Jennifer Castoldi,
Chief Creative Director

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Features and Articles

Jennifer's February Fables

Frankfurt — As we have been told time after time, in terms of contemporary consumer trends, it is all about immersing the buyers in emotional, sensory experiences. Not only did the Theme Park keep in line with its predecessor and deliver four trend directions for home textiles, it brought to the table much more by looking at other movements within design. Also in this issue you will find the usual round up of Maison&Objet’s trend trail and highlights from other design happenings we attended.

Theme Park: Color

Frankfurt — As delicate white textiles hang from the rafters lights change the ambiance of the room; next, a giant cube suspended from the ceiling refracts light, angling to the next room where the wallpaper morphs into a different pattern depending upon the hue of the light projected; finally shingles of color cover the walls and reflect on the mirrored floor before you are left to discover what else the Theme Park has in store…

Theme Park: Craft

Frankfurt — The installation by designer Bart Hess, “Work With Me People” plays with the ideas of mass production, elite textiles, and human labor. This interactive workroom allows visitors to experience a taste of pressure from the production line as they are given the opportunity to suit up and aid in the creation of two haute couture textile designs.

Dienke Dekker has created a flexible space for both living and working

Theme Park: Home

Frankfurt — The Trendtable says, “Our new flexible living spaces will be full of consideration and sensitive to provenance. Make yourself at home. Textile designer Dienke Dekker has created a flexible space for both living and working. ‘Wallpaper home’ displays the richness of modern wallcoverings and an appreciation for crafts. ‘Virtual room’ is a showroom that allows people to decorate or dress rooms before purchase.”

Theme Park: Hospitality

Frankfurt — The contract market is something the design industry has been putting a heavy focus on in recent years. Within the contract market lays hospitality. From spa facilities to hotel rooms, textiles - window and wall treatments, floor coverings, bedding, and upholstery - all need to be considered. There are the materials you would expect, and then there are some innovative ones just entering the market here for the first time.

Theme Park: Retail

Frankfurt — In today’s online world, what are retail stores for? Walk this way for a compelling option, a place where the windows show the store as a gallery, where textiles and wallpaper are treated as art. It is a feast for the eyes decoded by a panel detailing all of the vendors. People may still buy from home, but storefronts maintain their positions as marketing masters.

Theme Park: Food

Frankfurt — Experiencing design at Heimtextil is not limited to home textiles. Inspiration comes from many sources, even food. Sweet scents mingle in the air of the Theme Park, beckoning visitors to come explore their origin. Bright colors and friendly artisans greet onlookers who discover that there is a mini candy factory sharing its talents with all who care to tempt their taste buds. Of course there are also fabrics as delicious as the confections!

Theme Park: Technology Lab

Frankfurt — The Technology Lab at Heimtextil's Theme Park shows a vision of the future. Students form TU/e Technical University Eindhoven showcase their research on interactive textile designs including materials that appeal to our heightened interest in tactile and sensorial stimuli and a concept by designer Boree Akkersdijk. Rudi Boiten demonstrates a computer-controlled way of drawing carpets on the floor.

Theme Park: Illusionary

Frankfurt — At the Theme Park the Trendtable extends an invitation, “People are looking for immersive experiences and space or rooms can become a medium. Illusions that deceive the eye, disorient the body and distort space will have visitors to this area questioning reality. Walk inside for an interactive experience where mirrors confuse the mind and make spaces seem infinite.”

Theme Park: Mixology Trend

Frankfurt — The fabrics here are diverse as the world’s cultures: Native American tribal prints, tie-dyes, weaves of ropes, feathers to form a checkered pattern, flower petals pressed on a sheer, cork spliced with textiles, and colors embracing the entire spectrum. Mixology also has a special focus on reuse, upcycling and recycling; it is progressive and eco-sensitive.

Trendspot sun

Theme Park: Discovery Trend

Frankfurt — Metallic splattered velvets, wallpaper that looks like moon rock, zigzag jacquards, sequined decorative pillows, prints of pebbles, crackle effects, and materials that look as if they have been worn by time. In Discovery we feel the need to protect, and as a reflex, be protected from the consequences of our improvidence.

Theme Park: Sensory Trend

Frankfurt — As digital sterility pervades our lives there is bound to be a reaction, so interior designers are creating new environments that appeal to very human stimuli to generate more sensorially satisfying, immersive experiences. There is a fascination with synesthesia, in which the stimulation of one sense leads to a reaction in another.

Trendspot wall

Theme Park: Memory Trend

Frankfurt — Fed up with consumerism and left feeling empty by social media relationships that don’t fulfill, consumers now wish to prioritize personal fulfillment and well-being. The foliage and flowers of botanical art decorate fabrics and wallpapers, sheers, lace, intermingle with classic plaids and stripes; they are materials for which we have an emotional connection.

Ring with plant by Origine Ateliers

Maison&Objet: Nature Made

Paris — Maison&Objet’s “Observatoire de la Maison” or Home Observatory team has chosen the theme MAKE to showcase the influential directions the marketplace is taking. After publishing a preview for you in November outlining the sub-themes of Nature Made, Human Made, and Techno Made, Trendease is happy to present you with coverage hot off of the trade show floor.

From Noam Dover

Maison&Objet: Human Made

Paris — “Reproducible industrial objects have been reduced to the status of banal standardized products which are simply functional and, in the end, lacking in redeeming qualities. Luxury in its search for excellence is making the inherent rarity of the craft spirit its preferred material. Thus we have the sign of a new era which is manufacturing the intelligence of the human hand.”

Maison&Objet: Techno Made

Paris — As more and more items are driven by technology Vincent Grégoire builds this world for Maison&Objet and cites the historian and digital culture specialist Milad Doueihi who calls for a “digital humanism”, in other words, “a convergence between our complex cultural heritage and a technical sphere which has become an unprecedented place of sociability.”

NEWSLETTER #503 - Lane House is Das Haus

Cologne — Another week jam-packed with trade shows has wound down. Intirio in Gent and Creativeworld, Paperworld, and Christmasworld in Frankfurt kept us on our toes. For this week’s newsletter we transport you to a reinterpreted Shanghai lane house envisioned by American educated, Chinese designer architects Neri&Hu, defining the intersections of public and private space, for imm cologne’s Das Haus.

NEWSLETTER #504 - Trending Crafts

Paris — In this newsletter’s gallery subscribers will journey through the workshops of craftsmen and women in France who work with glass, wood, metal, and ceramics. What is trending? Read the tidbits within and virtually explore the vast talents of these ateliers in approximately 100 images.

Borderline

NEWSLETTER #505 - Expanding Home Fashion

Ghent — For this week’s gallery, a selection of 40 images, Trendease takes you through the trend area of Intirio in Ghent, where the three 2015/2016 trends from MoOD Brussels were reinterpreted for the show catering to more than just textiles. Subscribers can journey through the passages and varying styles without leaving their computer screens.