For some very luscious rooms done in pink, head on over to Style Rumors.

It’s hard to say which take on it is my favorite, but I’m loving this soft pink made even softer with the dove grey, and that retro look–very cool.

Great post all about pink!

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Do you love this look or not? This style actually satisfies my clutterphile tendencies and style yearnings at the same time (includes need for color and print)….can we pen the style clutterphilestyle?

Beyond that, I am quite excited overall about Pottery Barn’s latest fall (or should I say earliest fall) catalog. Just got it today. This is the most modern of homey statements I’ve seen yet. Well done. Bravo Pottery Barn! Their prints and colors are spot on, they’ve finally given some pizazz to their dark furniture by adding bold bright and graphic prints (some floral but very sophis).

Tell me they’ve got a new creative director, yes?

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Of course if you are a color, light, and texture junkie like I am, you’ll love the collaboration of Dupont’s Corian (known mostly as a wonderful and seamless kitchen countertop material) and Missoni Home (Rosita Missoni and her husband were the original founders of Missoni Fashion) introducing Corian’s five new translucent colors while the material itself is used for all manner of things around the home. In that respect, it was a brilliant pairing….Missoni known for their vibrant color and their unique patterns was the perfect choice to help introduce Corian’s new colors but to also show just how well rounded and fascinating Corian as a material can be….

To highlight the pairing, the above picture illustrates the many colors of Missoni in a giant spool of yarn, the “Spool” itself made of Corian using the color Nocturne (black and polished). The flooring beneath the “Spool” is also made with DuPont™ Corian® (Cameo White and Nocturne colours) and features a pattern designed by Missoni rythmically inserting in the “background colour” a series of small squares of contrasting colour (glossy background finish and white matt squares). In an adjacent space is a “Ball” of yarn, also made of Dupont Corian. Who knew you could bend it like Beckham?

A familiar theme throughout the exhibit, Rosita Missoni, the designer played with the negative space black and white can create by alternating and juxtaposing one black/white color pattern against another.

The “CORIAN® loves MISSONI” interior design project is a loft-style apartment (extending over the two floors of the “Corian® Design - Milano Store” showroom) with a series of functional “rooms” - an entrance area, reception, hallway, dining room and kitchen on the ground floor and living room, bathroom and bedroom on the lower floor. In the dining room, above, the table is made of Corian using MissoniHome’s Bolt pattern. Echoing the aesthetics of the table, the MissoniHome “Bolt” pattern is stencilled on the wall behind, in a larger scale. The chandelier was designed by Rosita Missoni, is made of Corian’s Glacier White and spells Missoni. The chairs around the dining room table are Moroso’s “Ripple” chair.

A hallway area dedicated to showcasing the five new translucent colours of DuPont™ Corian® - Glacier Ice, Strawberry Ice, Blueberry Ice, Mint Ice and Lime Ice – take on an enhanced luminosity when back-lit. The area features five cubic stools made in each of the five translucent colours of DuPont™ Corian®. Contrasting with tops featuring a smooth surface, the sides of these stools have been carved with “Onda” (Wave) pattern by MissoniHome, which is also repeated, on a larger scale, on the back-wall in pale green DuPont™ Corian® Mint Ice. The cubic stools are lit from within by an LCD system developed by Artemide, run from rechargeable batteries, making them totally wireless and mobile. On the wall, a backlit circular curved fixture made in translucent DuPont™ Corian® Mint Ice is engraved with Missoni’s “Esmeraldas” pattern allowing lights to elegantly diffuse with varying intensity.

So, let’s get to the living room……..

Descending to the lower floor, visitors find themselves in the living room area where they are surrounded by a combination of multi-coloured and monochrome forms. The “Relaxer” chair and “Wengen” rug by MissoniHome are set against a large backlit screen: a wonder in terms of both aesthetics and technology. Made in DuPont™ Corian® Glacier White and carved with the “Esmeraldas” pattern from MissoniHome, the four parts of this screen are slim boxes illuminated using Artemide’s “My White Light” system, integrating RGBs and LCDs, to give different coloured lights and varying shades of white light, from warm to cool.
The two low tables in the living room space feature bases in DuPont™ Corian®, created using a new assembling technique reminiscent of mosaics: small rectangular elements in DuPont™ Corian® in black and white colours (Glacier White and Nocturne) are jointed together with metal rods to create a sort of “flexible surface”.

In realising “CORIAN® loves MISSONI” exhibition, Rosita Missoni, Luca Missoni (Rosita’s son & the project supervisor) and their design team have worked in close collaboration with architect Massimo Fucci, consultant of DuPont Surfaces to the architect and design sector, who coordinated the whole project and the creative contents.

For more details and images, visit Corian’s website. For more about MissoniHome, visit missonihome.com.

Art Direction: Rosita Missoni; supervision: Luca Missoni
Organizer/sponsor: DuPont™ Corian®
General project: MISSONI
Project manager: Arch. Massimo Fucci, DuPont™ Corian®
Partners:
Artemide (lighting solutions)
Boffi (kitchen and bathroom)
Listone Giordano (flooring systems)
Moroso (furnishing)
Zehnder Group/Runtal (radiator technology)
Hasenkopf (fabrication of DuPont™ Corian®)
TechLab Italia (fabrication of DuPont™ Corian®)
Esarc Hi-Tech (invisible audio systems)
Antica Gelateria del Corso/Nestlé (decorative ice cream compositions, served throughout the showroom and during the show)

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Midwest Living “Future Thinker” trend room

If you read my post on the Meredith Corporations trend rooms for the National Kitchen and Bath Show, then you also saw images from these rooms corresponding to the stages women go through during the course of their lifetime.

To clarify my own thoughts on the Idea Center, while these may not be the most exotic kitchens or even contemporary kitchens, say for instance like what Trendir features in their online publication, for what is happening in most of America I think Meredith Corporation and their designers and trade publication editors got it right….for the most part this is the way Americans do live and they do experience each one of these stages.

I did like how they (Midwest Living) emphasized the baby boomers choice aging in place and theirs is oddly enough the most modern of the rooms represented (left and above image).

Even if style-wise I may not have agreed with everything they did, there were two overriding trends to take note of and that is the built-in dining table (or even built-ins in general) and the office/mudroom/laundry room additions off the kitchen or in a galleyway. It does make the kitchen a more practical place to function from with all of these extras, built in or easily accessible from the kitchen. It leaves less shelving to purchase from the home centers, but more baskets or accessories to purchase to support the built in. A representative of the Meredith Corporations brand magazines said that customizable storage solutions were one of the most sought after additions to housing these days, particularly in the kitchen and bath.

When it came to sustainable solutions, the Better Homes and Gardens room tended to focus on this aspect more so than the other magazine titles. It wasn’t that other lifestyle stages weren’t interested in sustainable solutions, it is just that it was a particular focus of that title publication and their designer. In fact, Better Homes and Gardens has a completely green home that is traveling throughout the United States….to 15 different cities. More information will be coming about that tour, with the dates and places it can be seen. At the show, this Organizer-In-Chief lifestyle room had many sustainable ideas built into the fabric of everyday life, such as a compostable bin built into the cabinet beneath the counter, and access to it from the countertop as opposed to opening up a cabinet door or putting scraps into the disposal. There were several methods of recycling built in to make it more convenient to recycle as well as flooring by Armstrong that was a lineoleum made up of recycled wood chips, cork and linseed oil. Further, that lovely circle pattern behind the cooktop is actually recycled glass from beer and wine bottles. Bamboo had been worked into the counters at various places for cutting.

In the Kitchen and Bath Trends room, I really liked the cheeriness of the room with the yellow curtains and lighter blue seating mixed with yellow walls along with paring beigey double sinks and lighter cabinets with walnut or espresso cabinets. Looks like we are breaking a few rules here, a kind of anything goes design ethic.

But the real noticeable difference from years past would be how upscale the young savvy professional his and hers bathroom was. They’ve spared no expense here. Close-ups of this room reveals a customized tiled wall, his and her shower stalls, his and her dressing areas, built in shelving in the bathroom…just a flurry of customized touches that speak to how someone thinks this demographic is the one spending the big bucks!

his bathroom/shower

built-in towel warming drawer

As it was explained to me, the magazine responsible for representing this room, Traditional Home, has the most upscale demographic of all their publications represented and in terms of age that could span decades, and isn’t just confined to the late 20’s early 30’s female (who, as was represented as a lifestyle stage Young Savvy Professional, is single and either living with someone or about to be married), and in general luxury was heavily featured throughout the show. This of course follows suit with what many of the international labels are doing….going for the luxury markets, those that still have the expendable income during these difficult economic times.

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FIVE LEADING MAGAZINE BRANDS SHOWCASE NEW PRODUCTS AND DESIGN TRENDS AT the 2008 Kitchen and Bath Industry Show in Chicago, Fri., 4/11-Sunday 4/13.

The 10,000 square-foot Design Idea Center features kitchen and bath designs from five of Meredith Corporations most popular consumer brands —Kitchen and Bath Ideas®, Better Homes and Gardens®, Traditional Home ®, Country Home® and Midwest Living®.

Titled “Your Kitchen. Your Bath. Your Way. Designs for Every Lifestyle and Life Stage,” each brand has created a fresh and unique look that addresses the needs of women as they progress through life. Whether she’s a young professional, a new mother, mom-on-the-go or an active empty-nester, this year’s Design Idea Center provides effective and useful spaces for her life, her way. Other trends include eco-friendly design, spaces to entertain, aging-in-place, indoor/outdoor living, technology, organization and storage.

Hostess Extraordinaire

The kitchen is often the hub of a busy household with teenage kids, and Kitchen and Bath Ideas has designed a space to fit this center of activity. Recognizing that a mother of teenagers is part chauffeur, part chef, part counselor, and yet, someone who also loves to entertain friends in her “spare” time, Kitchen and Bath Ideas’ teen-friendly kitchen has the ability to morph into an ideal entertainment space where adults enjoy gathering. With a functional mudroom/laundry room, butler’s pantry for serving, and banquette for ample seating near the prominent flat screen television, this kitchen can handle “teen central” and more.

Organizer-in-Chief

Better Homes and Gardens’ “Everyday Easy” kitchen is designed to help make life easier for busy families. This super-organized and eco-friendly kitchen helps make it easier to get dinner on the table, keep everyday tasks and clutter under control, and spend time together in a space that’s as much family room as it is kitchen. Innovations include a recycling center, recycled-content countertops and flooring, and a mudroom with customizable pullout cabinets for everyone’s stuff.

Savvy Young Professional

Traditional Home presents the ultimate bath suite designed for young professionals—a new generation of educated, affluent, and brand-savvy consumers who embrace a modern interpretation of traditional design and are confident investing in the creation of a home environment uniquely suited to their personal lifestyles. The floor plan, consisting of a central spa-like shared space flanked by two private baths, allows a couple to comfortably and efficiently meet their daily needs—both physically and psychologically—without conflict. Sumptuous appointments, such as a freestanding whirlpool/soaking tub and Murano glass chandelier, express this couple’s distinctive idea of luxury, while equal emphasis is also given to cutting-edge technology. A “fully loaded” steam shower in “His” bath and a “to the nines” dressing table in “Her” bath further underscore the theme of customization and personalization.

Mother Starting Out

Country Home’s kitchen, mudroom and laundry/multi-task room work hard for the young family without sacrificing style. Easy-living Corian counters take on the feel of marble and soapstone, laminate floors look like reclaimed wood, and glass front cabinets featuring a new “lace-look” pattern, make for easy organization. A technology station, flexible built-in seating, and an island with a second tier of countertops that doubles the work space, offer solutions for the woman balancing her growing family and her taste for beautiful surroundings.

Future Thinker

As 78 million baby boomers head toward new phases in their life journey, many are looking to stay in their homes for years of cooking, entertaining, and active living; and Midwest Living has created the ideal space. This kitchen and bath offers thoughtful conveniences for future needs through a design aesthetic that combines both comfort and style. Integrated wider traffic patterns, accommodating cabinet design, sit-down workspaces, and lever controls, along with other amenities, are all ideal design choices for the smart woman planning this new exciting chapter of her life.

Meredith Video Solutions will produce a half-hour syndicated television special, “Cool Kitchens and Baths,” featuring the 2008 Design Idea Center and related kitchen and bath trends from the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show to air nationwide in the summer 2008.
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From REGREEN’s Remodeling Guidelines to Re-Green Your Interior Design via TreeHugger.

I have no crystal ball here although from my one 2:00 a.m. viewing of Meet the Press (when I couldn’t sleep thinking about the economy) with Maria Bartiromo and someone from The Street, they, these people who watch this stuff all the time, think that what the government is doing will help the economy, eventually.

Aside from that I found the American Institute of Architects Home Design Trend Survey (done quarterly) to be pretty fascinating. While residential architects have reported the weakest business conditions in the three year history of this survey, the remodeling of existing kitchens and baths are on the upswing with increased interest in sustainable materials for both and a greater interest on accessibility and adaptability throughout the house.

Most notably in the kitchen there’s a significant increase in popularity of renewable flooring and countertop materials from 2006 to 2007 such as bamboo and cork for flooring and bamboo and concrete for countertops; drinking water filtration systems were also high on the list while high end appliances have fallen significantly.

Water saving toilets and LED lighting options have become more popular in bathrooms, along with continued strong demand for radiant heated flooring and to promote greater accessibility there is a much greater emphasis on features like doorless and handheld showers. Interesting.

With most specific construction segments showing deep decreases, such as first time buyers or the affordable home market, down by 64%, and the second/vacation home market down by 41%, kitchen and bath remodeling is up by 25% and additions and alterations are up by 22%.

And a recent poll of registered voters revealed that 90% of respondents said they would be willing to pay $5,000.00 more for a house that used less energy and protects the Earth.

So, let’s just keep those green innovations coming; it appears to be where the growth is, as well as people staying in place and investing their money where they know they will get it back when the housing market does improve, kitchens and bathrooms.

That means Economy 0, Earth 1.

You can click here to see the full report.

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Smeg’s Fab Retro Model refrigerator has to date been offered in solid colors only; but now we have the option of stripe….then we can mix & match from any color of the rainbow in the kitchen. So I came across some other favorites that will brighten up my life every day of the week while I am having my coffee….

The “So Happy” chair by Max Design (those Italians!) marries function with emotions…besides a design element, those gaps in the back of the chair are like smiling faces. And as long as I am going this far, I’m going to add a little number for baby, the Brio Grow high chair (comes with a safety strap, suitable for 6 mos. to 7 years with a removable soft padded cushion). From Brio.

So, now all I need is a table and rug….I think I’ll just go for the round white lacquered pedestal table (also available in walnut w/nickel plated iron base) from cb2.com and some Flor rug tiles….what a cool retro look I can get with all of this. Oh, and in case you don’t like my color scheme, all of the above come in at least (white and black but also red and green (just in case you decide to go for the So Happy chair in a floral design and want a black frig!).

Think this rug would be too much? I am envisioning yellow cabinets by the way and hardwood flooring in a bleached or birch wood look. If not, Flor carpet tiles has a lot more to choose from.

And somewhere in this virtual kitchen I would have storage….some for my magazines and some for all of those odds and ends things that find their way into a kitchen…from Kartell and found at DesignShopUK.com

And then, just so my walls didn’t feel neglected, I am sure I could nail a good retro clock out there somewhere but also this handsome “Flotsam and Jetsam” sculpture by artist Tony Cragg (see Inhabitat for more from this prolific reclaimed refuse artist). Let’s see, is there anything I’ve forgotten?

Check out the Retro to Go blog and their sister site, SwitchedOnSet, for more retro inspirations if you are in that kind of mood.

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After grappling with how to say Happy New Year to Everyone, this is what I decided on: a sneak peek to my 2009-2010 top trends, as I see it, and as a way to help wrap up 08 depending on where you are in your buying, your product launches, your presentations, or your strategy planning.

1. Color Cornucopia: Eye Candy for the Color Maven’s Soul. Image from John Galliano for Dior Haute Couture Spring 08 Collection. Seattlepi.com.

2. Mother Earth Beats Her Chest: Science Popular.

“An armada of robot submarines and marine sensors are to be deployed across the Atlantic, from Florida to the Canary Islands, to provide early warning that the Gulf Stream might be failing, an event that would trigger cataclysmic freezing in Britain for decades.” Meric Srokosz of the Southampton Oceanographic Centre, explaining the purpose of the $31 million Rapid Watch system he is heading up, does just that, citing the plotline of “The Day After Tomorrow” - specifically the collapse of the Gulf Stream - as a potential occurrence that warrants further investigation. From Treehugger.com and The Observer.

3. Finishing Touches Birth Special Effects. Photo Yohji Yamamoto, Mens FW 08, Style.com.

4. High Tech High Touch in Living Breathing Action. Image from Nau.com’s trademark “webfronts,” which is their idea of recognizing how the internet has changed consumer’s buying behavior.

5. Cross Marketing/Collaborations in Unlikely Places/Partners Creating Phenomenal Hybrids. From Designspotter and Globus by Michiel Van der Kley.

These are but a few of the macro trends I allude to during my strategy sessions or across the year in trend newsletters, reports and product development/programming strategy sessions.

Let me know if you have questions about how the above references might effect your planning for 08-2010, any initiatives that Trendbites publisher, the kimbro agency, may help you support in ‘08 and/or if you’d like to subscribe to any number of Trendbites’ sister, Trendcites (rhymes with bites!), publications.

We do trend newsletters, customized trend reports, product development strategizing and implementation, marketing consulting,
color palettes and by request only, show reports.

You can reach me by email at kim@trendcites.com.

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The new restaurant, Marco, in London’s Chelsea Football Club is sporting the same design on its floors and ceilings as I saw featured in a retro room setting in House and Garden’s October 2007 issue (above right) . Personally I could see this graphic all day long everywhere, it’s such a classic design. Originally used as a 50’s chair cane pattern, this retro graphic put in a black and white color palette and used on curtains or, as in the restaurant, Marco, on floor tiles, becomes luxe and modern.

P.S. Click on the left hand image of the Marco restaurant to see all the images from the New York Times Currents Slide Show in Sunday’s October 7th 2007 Style Magazine….it’s a treat.

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While strolling through a Williams Sonoma Home the other day, I came across their fretwork desk and thought it was lovely. Their version is simple enough for people to be able to incorporate it into their modern or traditional decorating styles. While it struck me as being unique, I wondered about incorporating it, the fretwork style or piece, within a traditional setting or if that was just my taste. Then while perusing the NY Times, I came across their piece on fretwork in rugs. They seem to think this style will work along side modern as well as traditional too.

Williams Sonoma Home to me was like walking into an upscale version of my parents home, only in today’s time. It was some really interesting mixture of 50’s, traditional, and 21st century. So the final takeaway was….drum roll please….Modern.

It’s a breath of fresh air from their Pottery Barn stores; and I imagine that sounds blasphemous for all of you Pottery Barn fans, (of which I am one), but still this isn’t Ethan Allen because it’s a little more casual than that but it’s a far cry from Pottery Barn. It’s upscale for sure, but I could put more than one of their room settings in my (fantasy) house by the shore. They have a very wide range of fabrications which I think helps, and colors…but they then pair it with the odd piece, such as a fretwork desk, or a dining room set that in design is very traditional but with the chairs upholstered in tweed, which is very clever. If you put it in leather, then yes, that’s my parents’ house, but tweed, that’s an altogether different style story.

In fact their description of their fretwork desk on their website reads “In homage to the Asian-inspired designs of Thomas Chippendale, this desk is aproned with intricate, hand carved fretwork.” Kudos to William Sonoma Home for walking this fine line and being able to carry it off. There are only eight of these stores in the nation at this point, one of which is in the St. Louis Plaza Frontenac area. Turns out that area is a marketing test site for a number of new luxury outlets….(Nieman Marcus puts all of their Christmas Decorations out in August at the St. Louis location and depending upon what happens there in early August and September sales, so goes the rest of the nation’s merchandise mix).

You may have found this sofa and these chairs in my parent’s house, but not that rug, not that bust on the coffee table (probably not that exact coffee table–in fact WS Home’s description says it’s a sophisticated take on early 20th century architecture ) and certainly not that glass top desk in the background. It’s a delight. You can view more room settings on their website, WSHome, but a visit to their stores is a much better way to understand the abundance of choice within. The stores are strategically positioned around the country, two in CA., one in Fla. (Coral Gables), Indianapolis, Ind., Cincinnati, Ohio, King Of Prussia, PA, and one in Portland, Oregon.

So, no need to fret yourself any longer, not when you have others who can do it for you, and so well at that….

P.S. I can at some point see Williams Sonoma Home going into a Casablanca type decorating style, but that is for another time and another report.

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