Virtually There - February 2009 |
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Are you trendy? A dedicated follower of fashion? An early adopter? Changing your high-waisted denim flares to gingham capris is easy enough, but bringing your interiors up to the minute involves a whole different level of commitment.
Illustration: Daron Parton
If you’re planning on keeping the house hip, how do you stay far enough ahead of the latest trends to ensure that when they hit the High Street you have already moved on?
The internet of course. Sites such as WhoArtNow and Red Dot Online will do the surfing and collate the trends for you. Red Dot reports that furniture in 2009 will be white, glossy reinterpretations of the classics using surprising combinations of materials: “Harmony and softness of fabrics and upholstery meet austerity of braided leather, lacquered woods and metal. These give furniture a haptic and at the same time visually interesting look.” I don’t even know what that means, other than that trendsetters clearly don’t have sticky toddlers in the house.
German fabric company Heimtextil has its predictions for 2009/10. The future is themed: illusionist, witchcraft, time traveller and so on. Ignore the cutesy nicknames – what they are trying to say is, look out for ethnic, bohemian, vintage, pop art, faux animal, metallic, sculptural forms in fabric this year. That’s covering a few bases…
And I’m going to cover a few more. Here are my personal trend predictions for 2009. First, orange – lots of orange. I like orange. To learn how, immerse yourself in orange style and design at Whorange.net. If it isn’t orange, it’s green. By which I mean recycle, reuse or make it yourself. There’s a great resource for green interior design at ecokinddesign.com. The products are US-based, but the inspiration is universal. And, obviously, high-tech is here to stay. Externalise your connectedness with Jonas Samson light-emitting wallpaper and curtains made from Luminex light-emitting fabric.
I’m also thinking DIY wallpaper – and I don’t mean hanging it yourself. Design your own custom wallpaper at DesignYourWall.com. This can work out very expensive, but frugal is so 2008.
At the intersection of DIY and nostalgia, for all of you who still remember DoodleArt, there is colour-in wallpaper from Jon Burgerman. You can buy it from nineteenseventythree.com but, for anything bigger than the loo, be prepared to dedicate your life to it.
A small price to pay for the trendiest pad in town.
Site-seeing
For me, cooking generally entails running in the door and slinging a jar of sauce at a pot of pasta, so the Slow Food movement has come as something of a revelation. Slow food describes itself as “a non-profit, eco-gastronomic member-supported organisation founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world”. Wow. It’s everywhere from Montreal to Matakana. The Prince of Wales supports it. It sounds great – I’d get into it, if only I had the time…
The great tragedy of the woman with many handbags is that, no matter how careful you are, your favourite lipstick is always in the other bag. But help is at hand. Floozy.co.nz has the perfect solution – a handbag liner. It’s cute, it’s French, it comes in a range of fashion colours and you simply fill it with your keys, phone, sunglasses and makeup and move it from bag to bag as the urge takes you. It won’t fit in that little slimline clutch, but don’t kid yourself – neither will all of your stuff. |
Story: Kim Rutter
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