Trend Guru Forecasts Future Home Looks During Seminar

Furniture World Magazine

Where there is trend, there is counter-trend and the 2008 home design forecast features both, said popular trend analyst Michelle Lamb, CMG, during a seminar at the Winter 2007 Las Vegas Market. Lamb clued attending retailers and designers in to some trends to watch for in the coming years and shared her home fashion insights regarding how colors, motifs and moods will impact tomorrow’s décor styles. Lamb travels to trade shows throughout the world and recently returned from European trade fairs. The popular speaker and columnist writes the Trendwatch column in Accessory Merchandising magazine and is founder and chairman of the Minneapolis-based Marketing Directions, Inc. Changing lifestyles and multi-tasking will have a big influence on home designs, Lamb said. Couples may be in the same room working on two separate laptops and children may be sitting together with one playing a game and another reading a magazine while listening to an MP3 player. Furniture designers are taking notice and adapting. Lamb showed examples of Aspen Home and other companies designing furniture with built-in features for technology, such as pull-out laptop desks on the edges of sofas and an entertainment center with a corner flip-down designed to contain and hide connections. Watch for modern traditionalism to emerge as a trend through 2010, Lamb said. Modern traditionalism is tradition with a twist that feels new again, such as a sofa with classic legs, but no arms. Tradition is redefined with luxurious fabrics like silk and stain, graphic patterns and unexpected materials or textures. Designers are “giving tradition an update” and “formality minus stuffiness works.” Rococo vision, which is a modern way to blend modern and traditionalism, is another interesting aspect to note. Dressed up glamour and new contrasts to classics are adding interest to home fashions. Wallpaper is making a big comeback and fabrics are sumptuous and rich. Flocking is hot and is shown by companies like Four Hands. Writing in metallic ink, collages, stickers and embellishments with detailing remain on trend. Stickers, used alone or layered over wallpapers to personalize walls in a home, are in vogue, and watch for tulips to emerge in home fashions for 2008. Industrial zeal is all the rage in certain markets, including dressed-up concerete, bare bulbs, stamped sheet metallics, tables with industrial overtones, laboratory glass with pyrex beakers and porcelain flowers. Contemporary, angular surfaces are a trend to watch from 2008 through 2010. The sustainable trend is the biggest trend to hit design in years. Lamb said designers are building and consumers are buying with a conscience. Copeland Furniture, Eastern Breeze, Enviornment, Aaron Foster Designs, Four Hands and Lee Industries are among the leaders Lamb spoke about. Reclaimed and recycled wood is hot. Companies are using soy-based cushions and water-based fabrics. Despite the outgrowth of the enviornmental trend, synthetcis are a strong counter-trend. “A sizable group of consumers want the look but can’t afford it,” Lamb said. Laminates with the look of wood are growing in popularity along with other man-made materials, such as metallic plastics and vinyls. Hot colors to watch include desert neutrals, which range from nearly white to soft shades of browns and grays, breezy blues (including the return of periwinkles), light lemons, purples on the edge of pink, and a return to deeper hues, like indigo that is almost black. Another color that’s on trend is a smudged gray that works with every other color, yet is softer and more sophisticated than black. Not to be outdone but their parents, sales in the youth market will reach $5.7 billion by 2010, which is a 24.5 percent increase from where we are now, Lamb said. From newborns to teens, children are following the lead of adults in home trends. Colors are more subtle and less child-like and leather is crossing over from the adult market to the children’s market. Skulls and crossbones are shwoing up on items from all ages, including infant furnishings, and parents are opting for more sophisticated and unexpected styles, with black cribs becoming hot sellers. The Winter 2007 Market runs through Februray 2, 2007. The Summer 2007 Market is scheduled for July 30-August 3, 2007 at World Market Center Buildings A and B and Pavilions and July 31-August 2 at Sands Expo Center. World Market Center is an integrated home and hospitality contract furnishings showroom and convention complex in Las Vegas . When fully built, at 12 million square feet in 8 buildings, World Market Center will be the largest trade show complex in the world. The 12 million-square-foot campus will be completed by 2013 and will showcase furniture, decorative accessories, lighting, area rugs, home textile and related segments, as well as the Las Vegas Design Center (LVDC) open year-round to the trade. The second building opened this week; officials are now leasing the third building to a broad cross-section of the home furnishings industry. For more information on Las Vegas Market, and to find out about leasing or exhibiting opportunities, visit the website or call 888-WMC-SHOW (962-7469).