Flavie Benard from Exalis for Carlin International, presented this year’s trend table in Frankfurt and noted that changing ways in which people travelled was having a profound impact on the way we live. “69% of global travellers try something new and that the top travel motivation for 2017 was to explore new destinations,” Benard said. “People don’t want to travel for rest, they want to travel to explore.” “They also want to explore new materials – exploring the future and to go further and develop new ways of interacting.”

Virtual Explorations
The first sub-trend presented at the trend table was Virtual Explorations. “Today, the digital world unleashes the imagination, offering a new language of ostentation,” Bernard said.

“In interiors, our imaginary paradises become reality with ostentatiously uninhibited décor. Thanks to an interplay of shimmering pearly effects inspired by underwater world, transparency is revisited through digital processing and materials are brought alive with sensations.”

“Extravagant floral motifs proliferate provoking uneasy fascination and revealing the emergence of a new digital exoticism. The geometric flexibility of cellular organisms provides the inspiration for a renewed encounter with 3D.”

Bernard said that Virtual Explorations is a very bright trend, with pink as the main colour. Materials include transparent silks, while key themes include blurred perspectives, technoorganic floral, jacquards, techno-organic animal prints and layered artificial leathers.

Cultural Explorations
The second sub-trend of this year’s forum is Cultural Explorations, the “city breaker” phenomenon that is spreading worldwide as we travel from capital to capital, enriched by a new urban multiculturalism. “Cultural codes are merging into a sophisticated international style. Interiors are moving away from a very expressive affirmation of the ethnic to a more subtle and urban hybridisation of traditional influences.” “A graphic approach is being applied to traditional craftsmanship, adding a valuable ultra-contemporary design element.”

The ethnic trend has never really taken in the Australian market, but Cultural Explorations is a bit darker and moodier than previous ethnic driven trends.

Benard told WFA that this trend comes from mixing together all the know-hows in the world and it becomes darker because in the global way we think a lot of trends are becoming darker.

“Woods become darker, we look to less and less bright wood in Scandinavian.”

“It’s an overall thing, that’s what we have observed. Scandinavian designs have been the best for 10 years and it’s starting to evolve and to become more intense, so the woods are becoming darker, the patterns are becoming less geometrical and the best style is used in another way.”

“So the colours are becoming a little bit brighter or more intense - wood and leather also become very chic.”
“This includes the resurgence of Parquetry, there is a new way of making it, and having fun with it and composing with different types of wood and so on.”

Patterns for this trend include lines and stripes, red with blue petrol, with shiny copper/gold whilst in the colour chart, pigmented shades mixed with urban colours are key.

Planetary Explorations
The discovery theme continues in the next sub-trend, Planetary Explorations, which is a reaction to climate change and the more unpredictable forces of nature.

“Space is back and we are turning to the exploration of the interplanetary unknown, a universe rich in potential discoveries.”

“With raw materials in the spotlight, interiors are becoming mineral. A new mesmerising brilliance is extracted from materials imbued with protective qualities.”

“Faced with the immensity of the unknown, they act as flexible shells within which we gain a sensation of being immune.”

Bernard said Planetary Exploration is the antithesis of soft cocooning, and is about being confronted with the unknown feeling you have when you discover a material for the first time.

Colours and material reflect minerals such as petrol effects, dark ashy tones with bright whites and patterns consist of minimal geometrics with 3D effects.

“The whites are brilliant whites that are shiny. Tones are from leather, volcanic colours, dark ashy tones to make an enchanting effect. Greens, luna whites, and minimal geometric patterning.”

Natural Explorations
No trend table at Heimtextil would be complete without a nature sub-trend and this year it was Natural Explorations which focuses on the use of natural materials in industrial processes representing a respectful approach towards the planet.

“Interiors will become life-infused entities, forming a symbiosis with nature,” Bernard said.

“The development of plant life will transform creation with materials incorporating the germination process.”

“Even the sense of touch will be called into question: by a natural wired effect; by authentically shaped wooden contours.” “Materials showing a geometric appearance imitate animals, while those with a textured appearance imitate animals.”

This concept of becoming one with nature to reinvent urban trends throws up the term neocamouflage, which Berard says is the idea of nature being stronger than us.

“Natural exploration is really about letting nature do something and the neo-camouflage is how I become invisible. For example we are imagining a fur that we camouflage or patterns that you can find on skin coming from animals and it can be all natural.

She also noted a reimagining of minerals and rocks whose texture might be borrowed, allowing the user to “blur into nature.” Colours include mossy greens and intense woody browns with materials expressed in a raw way.

Colours for Natural Exploration include mossy greens and intense woody browns.