Welcome to Design Dialogue, The Robert Allen Group’s new blogsite. The word “dialogue” is key as we appreciate the wealth of knowledge among our many customers across the country and around the world. We’d like to know your thoughts and hope you’ll tell us what you’d like to hear from us.
Here at The Robert Allen Group, we feel privileged to have day-to-day dealings with some of the design industry’s most fascinating personalities and intriguing businesses. We want to share observations, trend information and customer feedback that can help you in your own business. And sometimes we’ll just share the things that delight us!
Since the New Year, our fabric design team has visited Europe, the Middle East and South Asia on an unending quest to find the very finest qualities of the fabrics we’ll introduce in upcoming collections. It helps us keep our fingers on the pulse of global design, as so many of the newest innovations and trends begin abroad. We asked for their opinions about the trends they see driving design in 2010. Here are their answers:
Christy Almond, Operating Vice President, Fabric Design, Robert Allen:
Natural simplicity has moved into our home living spaces as an entire room, a lifestyle --- no longer just an influence but now an established trend. Once simply an accent, its voice now speaks to color, texture/finish, and content. We have translated “natural” in many aspects of our fabric collections, inspired by authenticity, simplicity and clarity. Our colors are mid-tones, clear but soft, not sharp and whitened but calm and sophisticated. I keep my camera close at hand as I travel and the following photos remind me of different aspects of “natural” in our newest collections.
Natural Textures
Soft Surfaces
Greenhouse-Inspired
Rustic Treasures
Alexis Audette, Design Director, Beacon Hill Fabrics:
Wallpaper has been making a come back in recent years with an exciting embrace of pattern and historicism in celebrations of color and scale.
Papers are printed (hand and digital), embossed, gilded and handpainted. In palettes both bold and soft, some of my favorite designs are freshly interpreted traditional motifs such as renaissance frames, Japanese florals and Moorish geometrics. Also scenic designs including brilliantly colored bamboo stands and softly monochromatic Palladian landscapes.
Japanese Florals
Moorish Geometric
Jennie Wilde, Vice President, Product Design & Merchandising, The Robert Allen Group:
Global color trends are a particular interest of mine as I travel. Brights have always had more international renown and typically the European markets and other international venues are more aggressive when it comes to the trending of new colors. We see purple "coming" on strong . Grey has become a comfortable companion overseas and at home in the USA. It has held it own in contemporary interiors and rather than “just another hue,” we expect to see it influencing smokier palettes and other midtones in the future. Shown below at the Robert Allen “stand” at Maison et Object last month, we appreciated its sophistication and calming presence when paired with the complementary colors of chartreuse and purple. Expect to see more and more purple on this side of the pond soon!
Robert Allen “Stand” at Maison et Objet)the purple headboard and palette of purple chartreuse and grey overall photo of booth
There has been a strong trend toward ethnic for some time. Ethnic looks are typically energetic in nature due to the imperfect symmetry of the patterning, disproportionate arrangement of design elements and inspirational color combinations. Graphics are bold yet inviting as their inherent strength is softened by the hand-crafted creation of the pattern. See the calligraphy of the sofa fabric, bold combinations of chartreuse and black in the ikat-inspired blocks and over-dyed woven rattan pillows that comment on ethnic in a completely "modern manner."
Destinations Collection, Larry Laslo Designs for Robert Allen
I see all things natural as important and trending now --- from color to texture to fiber selection, even curious motifs. We are seeing "beyond the botanical" (what the world used to call natural) in our contemporized snakeskin print with a lacquer-like accent on the skin pattern. Our jute window layer is woven with leather and unlike any "casement" we have ever seen. This newest natural pairing is rustic yet refined, technically innovative yet approachable. We believe "natural" will be a story with resonance to be defined and redefined over the next decade.
Destinations Collection, Larry Laslo Designs for Robert Allen
Robert Allen’s Intrepid Travelers: (l to r): Alexis Audette, Christy Almond, Jennie Wilde and Anne Lekow, Director, Robert Allen Fabric Design- Window Product
More next week. Between now and then, we hope we’ll hear your thoughts on the key trends driving design this year.