There’s definitely been a backlash to the maximalist trend of a few years back, but luxury is creeping back into fashion, making leather a hot favourite again as an upholstery choice. Now you can’t beat a nice Bute fabric, but it is now possible to have a leather sofa without the Stringfellow connotations.
The trick is to combine it with cool, retro-styling, just like the fantastic German company Autoban does with its gorgeous Box sofa, a fab mix of leather, oak and walnut.
British furniture brand Modus also gets it right with its Flex armchair and footstool by Sam Johnson. If you still can’t bear the sight of too much leather you can always accessorise instead. Turnstyle Designs does some lovely hand-stitched leather cabinet handles that have a nice Scandinavian feel to them and they’re beautifully made.
Eco A Go-Go
The Eco trend looks set to continue through 2008 and beyond and it’s not so much about materials as attitude, as British designer, Matthew Hilton points out, ‘Designers must take responsibility and this means using ethical manufacturers to produce their products wherever possible on top of using sustainable or recyclable materials’.
In fairness, you’d be hard pushed to find a designer that doesn’t at least think about the green agenda, besides it’s become a massive selling point – it’s cool to play the eco card. But that shouldn’t take the integrity away from companies who really are trying to make a difference and there were lots of them about at 100% Design 2007. Otto Furniture encourages customers to return its products when they no longer need them. They can then be refurbished for resale – a sustainable approach that more manufacturers could follow.
And just as we see Fairtrade clothing flooding into our favourite fashion stores the design world is following suit. Expect an increasing number of Fairtrade products from furniture through to textiles. Judging by the Fairtrade fabrics shown by Sofar/Sonear there’s no compromise on style, which means there’s no excuse not to buy.
