The third instalment of our annual trends package, which explores the colours and materials that will take centre stage in the coming year, is dedicated to ornate, bright and even slightly kitschy patterns. (See our first and second instalments, on metallics and eco-materials.)
There is a renewed embrace of rich palettes and decorative surfaces that are almost kitsch. With illustrations turning into rugs, and shoelaces into pouffes, it’s clear that anything goes.
1 Resting Pods
Earlier this year, Nike invited 10 product designers to explore materials normally used to make running shoes. Dutch designer Bertjan Pot’s soft pod prototypes are made of shoelaces woven into a flexible, lightweight textile and wrapped around car and tractor inner tubes. bertjanpot.nl
2 Richard Woods: Work Tables
The British artist is a master of comic versions of trompe l’oeil. His latest pieces were on view at the Friedman Benda gallery in New York this summer and played with such familiar patterns as plaids and ginghams. richardwoodsstudio.com
3 Polar Byzantine Chapter 2
Moooi Carpets has transformed rugs into incredible works of art using a Chromojet800 printer. The most recent collection includes this intensely detailed illustration by Klaus Haapaniemi of Finland, who is best known for his ornate silk scarves and highly decorative wallpaper. moooicarpets.com
4 Post-Vlisco
For her graduating thesis, Simone Post worked with a Netherlands textile company that produces batik, folding and coiling fabric rejects into unique carpets and seat cushions. simonepost.nl
5 Mix&Match
Flavia Del Pra’s copper-plated aluminum trays for Spanish company Gan are topped with handcrafted ceramic patterns inspired by her native country, Brazil. gan-rugs.com
6 Doppler
The door panels of this sideboard and bureau, by Giuseppe Viganò for Bonaldo, follow the same asymmetrical outlines as their quilt-patterned fronts. bonaldo.com
7 Boxblocks
Bertjan Pot’s Jacquard fabric was created especially for the Utrecht chair. Made from eight different colours of thread, the repeat-free fabric follows the shape and contours of the 1935 classic armchair. cassina.com