What will the next big lighting trend be? What influences, inspires and captivates us?
With a host of exhibitions and events cancelled this year many designers are bereft of the elixir that fuels inspiration. Often exhibitions are used to form concepts, to validate burgeoning idea’s and to identified shifts in the zeitgeist. To that end we’ve created a forecast of interior and lighting trends, entailing near and far reaching potential macro trends.
Lavish refinements
Inspired by the late seventies and eighties were some key themes that are sure to become popular once more. Rich velvets in blues and moss green have already hit the radar of high-street shops. Where furnishing and tiles go the rest of the interior industry is sure to follow and we’ve gone back to the eighties what other gems are waiting to be unearthed?
Onyx agates and marble will be competing to grab of attention, however the pale colours will need to step aside to make way for lavish rich materials. We expect rich jewel colours and unexpectedly teamed with polished gold, crushed crystal.
The story is one of enrichment opulence used in unexpected ways. Whilst the materials are lavish the styling is modern and refined. Masculine shapes feminised with luxury detailing used with restraint. Blurring gender bias.
Delineate
Grid patterns are big, as seen in critical window panels used liberally in bath rooms or room divides. Grids inspire both order and rebellion. Expectation is the familiar form will be interrupted or flipped by non conformist burgeoning uprisings. There were social and economic ramifications from being captive during COVID-19. We want clarity from politics, we want fairness and equity for all regimentation must step aside and we interpret this by random acts of non conformity. Interiors will move away fro symmetry, we’ll embrace offset structures. Sketchy half made structures delicate space, enticing the viewer to metal complete the shape or rejoice at the balance of the unexpected. Black fines lines will be seen in artwork abstract faces, repeated linear patterns.
Rejection of Abundance
Our lives have become to big and again following on from the world pandemic we look to enjoy the smaller social connections. We place more value on relationships, more value on the eroded. Antiques, stressed and tarnished finishes mixed with simple pale unfinished wood. Think escape to the chateaux meets scandi. Faded luxury pale colours blended and bleached effects.
Modern Bohemian
A rhapsody of styles. The juxtapose has always been a fascination in design and this is set to go on steroids. Humble materials like jute, clay, ply and wicker are mixed with pattern. Metals will be mixed within the same room brass, chrome and bronze playing nicely – though copper is slowly ebbing out of fashion. Having said that it has a last hurrah when teamed with black. Nothing matching -revive and retrieve old mismatched styles rewriting most of the rules we all thought we knew. The only commonality is that it’s a symphony of textures and colours.
Mixology
A word normally associated with bartenders who blend and mix drinks for taste and colours to delight all the senses. Mixology in design is the allowance of artistic freedom to design and style up your own space to your own taste. To satisfy the need to personalise expectation are being placed back with the client. To maintain the essence of the design the choices are nuanced yet restricted. Mix and match, customise, switch it up. The personalisation and mixology certainly empowers us to live the highlife where choice and possibilities seem endless. Adding the cherry onto the cocktail stick.
Within hospitality sectors we expect the mix to encapsulate elements of the diversity of the venue itself but wider and more importantly mixing ethnicity and cultural influences of the local area to better reflect society.
Reflected Glory
Glass remains a sustainable material and as such we can all feel good about utilising this in abundance. Transparent tinted and textured glass may be used in lighting, screens and room divides. Do you know glass bricks may even make a comeback?
Crystal chandeliers will become less fussy. Modern refined luxury touches slightly glimpses of decadent crystal but re-appraised perhaps smuggled into more simply styled objects. Surface finishes in general will be shimmy gold, satin and gloss teamed with matt as contrast.
Hitting the Sweet Spot
Colour is back, pastel or bold. Rounded motifs, graphic playfulness. Giving credence to this “the new London fabulous” an art movement which rebels against the bland.
Having said that it’s not that new, we have seen colours softly creeping back into interiors for a while now. The difference as we move forward is the variety within the one pallet. Painterly pops of bright colours with graphic geometric application. To soften and unify an overlay of softness rounded globe lights, round shapes offset rather than uniformed. Finishing with rounded edges. Softness brought into the mix unexpectedly maybe felt, maybe velvet but most certainly something that brings a visual softness.
In Tiers
Not sad tiers – happy tiers! We’ll see this look mirrored in highstreet fashion too, stacked cascades of materials. Swathes of layers; some symmetrical with unfussy adornments and others with staggered height angular shapes. The overall look will be far less fussy than traditional chandeliers, a structured look with a hint of the disco collar of 80’s fame fused with a modern Art Deco vibe. Different height floors are back, a luxe look but in an unpretentious manner; multidimensional rather than multifaceted. Playing with shapes and styles, an amalgamation to create an eclectic look. Painting wall features in dark colours, making interesting features pop out. Interiors that don’t make you feel on-edge, but edgy; living in the moment.
So which themes do we see making the most impact?
Little luxuries, grids and gradients of pattern, softer yet rich colours. The unexpected, less predictable, a rejection of what we’ve seen before.