Globalization and disruption drive 2017’s style
Interiors will include shine, stronger colours, surfaces that sparkle
Tracking decor trends requires a nose trained for sniffing out new design. And that involves much more than identifying the colours, patterns and finishes now finding favour with design cognoscenti, says Lynda Reeves, founder of House and Home magazine.
“Trends are always a reflection of bigger things, of how you are using your home, what your habits are,” Reeves says. She was speaking just ahead of the recent House and Home Trends breakfast, an annual event at which senior editors offer a sneak peek at the design directions for the coming year.
While a range of influences are at play, demographics and social shifts are key drivers, Reeves says. In 2017, globalization will continue to exert influence through a trend her team has dubbed nomadic modern — a quirky mix of graphic wallpaper, “tribal” carpets, shots of bold colour and “off-kilter” placement of art. It’s a look Reeves predicts will resonate with Canadian readers.
“Our (Canadian) society is so multicultural, so of course it influences how we decorate our homes, our sense of colour and what we eat. We’re already comfortable with that,” she says.
Stronger colours will come into play, Reeves says, who concedes that bringing colour into the home can be “a challenge.”
“We lived with neutrals for so long and they are so easy. I used them forever, too, but I have finally accept- ed (colour),” she adds.
Next year, Reeves expects to see the rise of French blue, which the magazine describes as the love child of lavender and Mediterranean blue.
Overall, she says, colours will be “moody, soulful, with lots of pigment, but will have a dustiness to them.”
Sparkly and shiny surfaces that hearken back to the ’80s will also emerge; but not the brassy, brazen metallics and glasses of that decade.
Pointing to a side table by Patricia Urquiola, available at Avenue Road (avenue-road.com), Reeves describes the new iridescence as “light, pretty, rainbow-like, not that oilslick metallic we saw before.”
Asked which social influence is most reflected in 2017 trends, Reeves answers “disruption.”
“It’s a big word right now. We’re seeing it in everything from the U.S. election to services like Uber.”
In design, it manifests in floor treatments that mix disparate elements, such as those seen in the kitchen of a Parisian apartment in which threedimensional cube tiles line up against traditional strip flooring.
Predictions on a slate of other trends are included in the January 2017 issue of House and Home.
While gaining an inside track on what’s new is fun, Reeves acknowledges that readers also want to know how to incorporate trends into their homes. The trick, she says, is to walk the line between “cool and comfortable.”
“Comfort has to be first, but you want someone to walk in the door and look around and think that it’s interesting and fresh,” she says.
“I think you spend on the basics that you want to last for a long time — sofa, area rugs, the bones of your place, the lighting. Then you play with the less expensive things; maybe you buy a throw in colours you think are kind of crazy but you just want to try.”