The concept of trends is a complex one, especially in the context of how we decorate our homes. In the world of fast-moving fashion, the popular styles move at a bewildering rate, fuelled by fast production processes and digital retail. Trends sweep by and one season looks very different from another. We attended Altagamma summit in Italy this month: ‘The Most Innovative Trends: Next Design Perspectives’ where the mood of the moment is powerful and positive. It’s about calm homes, the luxe of less, emotion, touch and the casualisation of our interiors. Also, silence. Here’s what’s trending and ending for the coming year.
Altagamma takes a long hard look at what’s out there on the luxury scene, and puts together the design concepts that it feels will be big news over the next year.
Here’s our take of everything you need to know to be completely up to date!
1. CALM HOMES
We want our homes to take on more resonance; be a personal sanctuary, and reprieve from the outside world. There is a sense of interiors emerging with a new design languge – offering a renewed sense of calm, serenity and simplicity that is extremely important for our happiness; especially given the chaos that most of our daily lives entail. We are seeking pared-back aesthetics, with style and personality. Soothing palettes and curated collections.
Calm Homes: Image courtesy of UK Elle Decoration.
2. ALL EMOTIONAL
We’re building our interiors around feelings; turning away from many of the values previous generations used to define their homes. Opting for pieces with emotional meaning that bring comfort. We want authentic homes where we can enjoy the simplest and grandest gestures of life. We want style over money, personality over hired-expertise, idiosyncrasy over polish; it’s a welcome development.
Calm Home: natural textures of wood, chalk finished-walls and sheepskin bring modernity and warmth to this 500 year old Tyrolean farmhouse. Image via UK Elle Decoration.
3. THE LUXE OF LESS
We will be shopping more mindfully in 2019. The average house has 300,000 objects in it, but only a few of those add genuine value to our lives. In the future we will only buy things that will last, (think: quality, function and sustainability). We predict people will be more thoughtful about acquiring long-lasting pieces to create interiors that celebrate individuality.
Emotional: Concrete floors contrast with old timber walls for an authentic look in a Tyrolean farmhouse. Image courtesy of UK Elle Decoration.
4. TOUCH, STILL A THING
This is important. How something feels is as important as how it looks. Brands are covering seating in chunky cableknit weaves that can even give you a back rub – meaning you will never want to get up. 2019’s materials will be a lot more subdued and rooted in tradition. The forms and shapes of our interiors will remain modern, but the materials will showcase a nod to traditional methods and practices: tactile boucles, honed marble, natural wood, plastered walls, and polished concrete.
Touch: Ancient and modern surfaces mix beautifully in this pine-panelled Italian farmhouse bedroom where tactile materials abound from wood to leather, linen, wool, wicker and cotton. Image via Elle Decoration
5. THE CASUALISATION OF INTERIORS
Your house will be looking more relaxed than ever. Styles and fabrics are taking a sharp turn towards comfort. Expect less separation between formal and informal areas, with an increased blurring of boundaries. Rooms are tonal, everything feels harmonious and a genuine reflection of the person who lives there. It is as far away from weekend makeovers as it is possible to get.
The Casualisation of Interiors: Houses are looking more relaxed than ever. Image via Elle Decoration
6. THE JOY OF QUIET
We want peace and ‘alone time’. The path to inner peace may lie right in own homes, as we increasingly seek out design for our interiors to reduce stress, promote mental clarity, and cultivate mindfulness in the coming year. Things like stone floors, plaster or chalk-finished walls, and vaulted ceilings that absorb noise are big news – creating quiet havens that allow us be alone with our thoughts. It’s about the need to make time to make space. Protection. Healing.
The Joy of Quiet: It’s all about creating quiet havens that allow us to be alone with our thoughts. Image of Piet Asserti’s apartment in Holland via UK Elle Decoration.
7. BIO-FACTURING
Yep, furniture, fabrics and homewares made entirely from plant-based leathers using algae, fungi, even leaves. The latest bio-leathers can be brewed in a lab, without harming animals, to feel and smell like hides made from animal skins, in virtually any thickness, texture or colour, in just two weeks. Even the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York is keen on Modern Meadow’s futuristic leathers. Expect to see them in our homes, soon.
The Luxe of Less: This kitchen belonging to Dutch interior designer Piet Asserti uses a luxurious palette to create a minimal kitchen with heart. Image via Elle Decoration
8. BACK TO THE FUTURE
Design’s enduring obsession with the past isn’t going anywhere. We want to feel connected to the past, but in a contemporary way that surprises us. So designers and brands will be digging into their archives to produce pieces – with a context that has enough to distance from its original history.
Living room in a Tyrolean farmhouse, Hof Mut, in Northern Italy uses a natural emotional approach to design with warm, earthy tones and tactile materials including locally sourced wooden floorboards. Courtesy UK Elle Decoration.
9. CURATED COLLECTIONS
In a backlash against fast-fashion, 2019 interiors will start feeling more collected. We’re predicting a rise in glass-paneled shelving, curated bookcases, and homes filled with highly personal items like vintage rugs, artwork, stoneware, pottery, and other collectables that reflect the owner. Handmade, authentic one-off tables, trunks, baskets, chests, ceramics and textiles made using trad methods are more desirable than ever before.
10. STYLISH SUSTAINABILITY
Sustainability is chic. And modern. Major furniture brands from high-end to chainstores now do green versions of almost everything.
We want our homes to take on more resonance; be a personal sanctuary, and reprieve from the outside world. Image via UK Elle Decoration.
Lead image: Meridiani Uben Wall Unit and Nani small armchair available at Studio Cavit.
