Trends, Trends, Trends

I have returned from the High Point Furniture Market recharged, re-inspired, and excited about what I saw on our whirl wind jaunt to North Carolina. I will do many posts from my trip, but I thought it would be fun to do a quick re-cap of the obvious trends I saw.

First of all...French Country is back. It is not the marigold, cornflower blue, and red French Country you may be remembering, but the love of all things french abounds. I heard the term, "European Cottage" which I loved, but the look is full of grey toned, crusty finishes and linen fabrics. We saw the look at all of our major furniture vendors. I snapped the picture above at Gabby Home, who I have blogged about before. We made a nice purchase from them, so we will have product coming in over the next few months in this look.

Everyone, I mean everyone, had a blue and white grouping. Some did it classic like Bernhardt above. Others like Century Furniture paired it with lime and aqua. Cool, crisp, and classic.

Animal prints never go out of fashion in design or clothing, but this market they seemed to have more of a presence. I loved this chair from Chelsea House. It had a cinnabar finish with two different scaled animal prints on velvet. A smaller print on the inside and a larger one on the outside back. Take note of the swirl to the arm of the chair. Perfection.

There is a real nod to the "Ralph Lauren" Thoroughbred look. It seems to be a little cleaner and brighter than Ralph's, but it was everywhere.

Ikat, Ikat, Ikat everywhere. Every color. Every scale. Every way. Love it.

Houndstooth became the fabric of market. We saw it on chairs, sofas, back of chairs, pillows, walls, drapes. We saw it in black, navy, hot pink, red, even multi-colored. We saw it mini all the way to very over scaled. We even saw a dozen or so women wearing houndstooth skirts. It was really all around us.

It was truly hard to pick a "Market Color Scheme" this year. Usually it is very evident, but if I had to pick it would be grey with gold. We saw it at Hickory White (shown above) looking very modern and we saw the combo at Century Furniture in a very traditional nod with a floral chintz and lots of trims.

There is more to come with pictures of what we saw and the fun we had, but now I have to catch up on the stacks of paperwork on my desk. Ahhh, back to reality.

Cheers,

BBS

all images were taken by me on my blackberry, so quality is not the best

Ikat; Trend or Classic?

While I was paging through my May 2010 issue of Elle Decor, I was surprised to stumble on Ikat as their Trend Alert. It seemed to me they had alerted us of this "trend" before...

So, I went to Google (what did we do before search engines???) and sure enough, it was their Trend Alert for April 2008. So I am wondering if Ikat is still a trend, or has it become a classic?

It can be clean and simple as in the above bowl.

Or set the tone of the room as it does in this bedroom.

I love how these walls jump with the Ikat pattern. It takes a tiny bedroom and makes it unbelievably interesting.

I love how these eggplant Ikat tufted chairs set off the other subtle tones in the room.

And how the navy and white of these Ikat patterns have a cooling, calming affect.

This single pillow lifts this classic room.

Or gives this highly formal space some whimsy.

I love this classic Bergere' chair in the Ikat pattern.

Or on this French settee. So unexpected.

Eddie Ross used Ikat pillows to complete his window display for Bloomingdale's this winter. His fantasy client was a working mother who traveled the world. I love the idea that "she" had brought these pillows home from one of her exotic trips.

Look how wonderful these drapery panels are on the set of A Single Man. The character, Charley's Bedroom is as fabulous as she is.(See my post about A Single Man)

I love how this rug looks with the simplicity of the clear chairs and black table. (Available from CB2)

So the question remains, Is Ikat a trend or a staple? I am not sure, but I hope it is here to stay. I love the exotic whimsy it adds to any space.

Cheers,

BBS


images from Google Image and Domino, Elle Decor, Lee Jofa, CB2, Michael W. Smith, A Single Man, Eddie Ross,