It’s finished! Last night I passed off my trend report and selected images (over 150 of them) from the Heimtextil trade fair for layout. Heimtextil is the world’s largest event for home textiles, which took place last week in Frankfurt, Germany. It is the first of a series of European trade fairs I attend in rapid succession at the beginning of every year. Seeing so much, and in so many different categories of home décor (other fairs focus on furniture, decorative accessories, gifts, lighting and more), is a perfect way to set my trend sensibilities for the year.
There were new trends for colors and neutrals, including a shift to tinted, chameleon Grays. We saw this coming at The Trend Curve about a year ago, which is why we created a forecast of 20 neutrals with just this type of personality. Our Chameleon Neutrals forecast can be found under Color Forecasts if you pull down the Trend Store tab—just scroll down the page to find that product. You can see a Purple-cast Gray in a picture I took at the fair in the Gold Crest stand. This is just one example of the types of tinted neutrals found throughout the show.
There were also style trends of note. Bohemian, for example, was emerging as the new ethnic direction, eclipsing both Asian and African styles. I loved the riot of pattern and color, the decorative details and the handcrafted textures that came right along with this trend. Below is a picture of Amalfi from Granfoulard, part of the Zucchi group. They showed this pattern in their stand at Heimtextil.
Subscribers to The Trend Curve can contact Janice for special pre-order pricing on Trend Album™ Heimtextil 2009, which lasts until the 27th. Then pricing goes to the regular subscriber rate of $345 after that. Non-subscribers can order, too, but the discounted price is reserved for our subscriber family. Non-subscribers pay $445.
Today I leave for Paris and the Maison & Objet trade fair. Watch for blog posts from Maison starting on Friday. I will also send out tweets. Follow me at twitter.com/trendcurve. From Paris I will return to Frankfurt, this time for the Christmas World fair, a personal favorite. I will be traveling with Editorial Correspondent John Currie, who always brings an interesting perspective to color and product trends.