Metallics add an edge of festive sparkle
Trend has softened with paler, less brassy tones that will endure through the winter
Adding cheer and sparkle to the holidays got a lot easier with the rise in popularity of all things metallic. The sheen of metallic furnishings, fabrics and decorative pieces can lend some of the brightness and warmth many of us seek during winter’s short of daylight hours.
“We love metallics because of the glamour they lend to our lives by catching and refracting light,” New York-based interior designer Young Huh says.
The trick, she says, is not going overboard with too much glittery goodness. “A little sparkle goes a long way. If everything is high-octane shine, your home will look a little sad in daylight.”
Huh and interior design experts — Massachusetts-based Kristina Crestin, and Sarah Fishburne, director of trend and design for The Home Depot — offer their advice on using metallics during the holidays that will also look great all winter. Hard metals, soft look Fishburne has seen a trend to softer metal shades, which look sophisticated. “A little more white going into them is the best way to describe it,” she says. The golds are paler and less brassy, the silvers appear a bit whiter, and even shades of rose gold and coppers are a bit less orange.
Another way of getting metallic shine in a subtler way: Use mercury glass, which shows a range of soft colours in a metallic sheen when it catches the light.
Huh says mercury glass is her favourite metallic “especially in vintage or retro feeling ornaments. It’s not too garish and looks well day or night. Buy some boxwood topiaries and pair with mercury glass, and you’ll have a wonderful winter look that isn’t confined to Christmas.”
Crestin agrees. Last year, she mixed in mercury glass candle holders of different sizes with greenery along her mantel, and loved the look enough to do it again this year. They gave off a warm glow even when the candles weren’t lit, she says. Casual copper Last year, after Crestin found a pretty “Merry Christmas” sign made of punched copper, she added more copper items including planters covered with copper foil (similar to gold leaf ), copper serving bowls, and LED lights on copper wire woven into holiday greenery.
She took the same approach for a client who wanted to freshen up her holiday decorating: Crestin brought in a selection of copper ornaments for the client’s tree and mixed other copper items in throughout the room. “We used half of what she already had and then supplemented coppery tones,” she says. Easy additions Sparkly metals also look great alongside organic and natural textures. “What’s prettier than silver with burlap?” Huh says.
Buy a selection of simple terracotta planters or flower pots in different heights, and spray paint some of them in metallic shades, says Fishburne. “There are so many fantastic metallic spray paints,” she says.
Fill them with poinsettias, artificial or real. If the plants begin to wilt, or you get tired or them after the holidays, switch them out for succulents. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency