Ambiente to preview next year’s key homewares trends

A special display at next year’s Ambiente will set out the four main style and colour trends that will be shaping the homewares market in 2013.

The trends have been distilled from a variety of international influences from the worlds of product design, fashion, architecture and art. For each one, the design team will provide some concrete examples of the new colours, shapes, patterns and materials that will be important next year, using several hundred products from the Ambiente exhibitors’ latest collections.

Overall, the themes reflect what the design consultants believe will be a need to express feelings and individual personality. At the same time, a desire for well-being and peace and quiet is reflected by a yearning for nature.

In the first trend, called Blossom Field, romantic floral patterns in pastel shades, playful shapes and delicate materials go hand in hand with understated modernity. The colour palette ranges from intense rose-red to soft shades, with black and white providing a neutral counterpoint.

With Classic Ground, an elegant urban lifestyle is characterised by the use of traditional, high-quality designs that create a tidy, comfortable ambience. Rich orange and cool blue deliberately disrupt the neutrality of greys and browns, lending a touch of retro. and that certain extra something.

The Eccentric Domain trend is all about extravagance, decadence and glamour: decorative shapes, unusual patterns, antique combining with surreal, extraordinary surface effects and extravagant accents in pink, jade and plum.

Finally, Contrasting Sphere brings together dry, porous textures with brilliant gloss. Colours of the desert range from light sandy colours and golden ochres to dark brown. Natural materials, traditional hand-crafted work and innovative high-tech processes create an effect that is both familiar and futuristic.

The trends display can be seen in Galleria 1 at the exhibition, which takes place in Frankfurt from February 15-19 2013.