Trend guru forecasts future home looks during seminar

Where there is trend, there is counter-trend, and the 2008 home design forecast features both, said popular trend analyst Michelle Lamb, Color Marketing Group, during a seminar at the Winter Las Vegas Market, sponsored by Furniture Style and Accessory Merchandising.

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 decor 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 while 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 aspenhome 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 satin, graphic patterns and unexpected materials or textures. Designers are “giving tradition an update,” and “formality minus stuffiness works.”

Rococo vision, 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 concrete, 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 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 about which Lamb spoke. Reclaimed and recycled wood is hot. Companies are using soy-based cushions and water-based fabrics. Despite the outgrowth of the enviornmental trend, synthetics 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 by their parents, sales in the youth market will reach $5.7 billion by 2010, which is a 24.5-percent increase over 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 childlike, and leather is crossing over from the adult market to the children’s market. Skulls and crossbones are showing up on items for all ages, including infant furnishings, and parents are opting for more sophisticated and unexpected styles, with black cribs becoming hot sellers.