At the recent Decoration + Design trade event in Sydney I attended a seminar by global trend forecasting agency WGSN’s Lucy Hayes. Lucy is the Senior Design Editor of WGSN’s Homebuildlife and part of a team that spends their working hours analysing the world around them to predict upcoming trends that will, in turn, affect the world around us.
The WGSN and Homebuildlife teams meet up twice a year to present their findings on social, cultural and market-driven trends. The information is collaborated and macro trends are developed two years in advance.
Lucy’s job is to develop macro trends and create design inspiration and collections on all things interior design. Having worked around the world as a designer for companies such as Zara Home and Italian textile-printing company Mascioni, she’s got a decade’s worth of knowledge to draw on for the job.
She focuses on textiles, patterns, surfaces and colours to present upcoming directions across a range of areas such as accessories, bathrooms, soft furnishings, outdoors, lighting and hard surfaces. Plus, she has a passion for colour and is constantly tracking emerging trends – travelling the world to do so might I add. What a job!
I’ve always found the notion of trends and where they come from interesting, and so naturally I really enjoyed Lucy’s presentation.
So, what are the 2015 spring/summer interior design macro trends?
There are three key directions:
Focus
• Influenced by our image driven world and the increasing importance of photography (have you noticed the increase in photographic prints in soft furnishings?)
• It’s atmospheric and romantic and blurs the line between reality and fantasy (think instagram filters, soft light, tints)
• Water is another key theme; its effect, form and pattern
• Seen through the use of watercolours, dip-dyes, tints and frosted glass
• pastels, greys and neutrals along with metals and warm, fruit colours
• fluid prints and patterns – enlarged water-like dots, slogans on photo scenes, blurred images, tropical prints and also florals
History 2.0
• Blending of real and imagined histories, this theme is all about imagination, stories and nature
• Think dinosaurs, fossils, insect prints wings and natural textures of bone, shell, scales and wood
• Everything bound, woven and knotted. Yes, macramé, rattan and wicker are sticking around
• Cultural, tribal and totemic graphics plus the pattern and motifs reminiscent of the art deco period
• colour is deep, subtle and powerful with deep charcoals and browns, bright pinks and red and metallics of silver, lilac and bronze
Bio-dynamic
• This trend comes from microbial life, gloopy, drippy and gooey forms (clay and plastic) – think fungus forms, abstract compositions, interesting vegetable or life-inspired imprints
• It’s also a bit retro and 70s-era kitsch – think ceramics, bright yellows and oranges, fancy slub and statement pieces
• Bright colours and a sense of fun, with graphic prints, rubberised coatings and shiny plastics
• Prints and patterns have an 80s influence. Neons paired with black and hand-stamped, brushstroke patterns all mixed together – geometric forms as well as blobs
Obviously this is quite a brief summary of it all. In a nutshell though, according to Lucy, the Top 6 Key Directions for 2015 are: textures of nature, photographic imagery (see the Focus theme), flat colour (matt finishes to contemporise a look), craft (exploring ancient crafts and creating new techniques), recycling and upcycling (and new material hybrids), and free-flowing, fluid shapes.
Bonus, 2015 colour insight: according to colour lover and expert Lucy, it’s all about lemon yellow.
Check out a video of Lucy talking interior design macro trends at the Decoration + Design blog.
For more information, visit decorationdesign.com.au or homebuildlife.wgsn.com/
