Twice a year, a group of interior designers called the Style Spotters converge at High Point Market to trawl showrooms identifying trends that will shape home goods for the coming seasons. Their report from the spring market landed this week, giving insight into some of the biggest shifts in the home market.
This market’s Style Spotters included Kelly Collier-Clark of Plot Twist Design, Kelly Finley of Joy Street Design, Jacob Laws of Jacob Laws Interior Design, Jennifer Mabley of Mabley Handler Interior Design, Rachel Mautner of Rachel Mautner Interior Design, Kurt Jacob Miller of Jacob Lukas Design, Monika Nessbach of DesignBar, Lucy Penfield of Lucy Interior Design, Jana Platina Phipps of Home Couture Collective, and Duväl Reynolds of Duväl Design.
Here are a few of the trends the Style Spotters identified in High Point Market showrooms:
Globally Inspired Furniture
Reflecting trends and traditions of cultures from Africa, Asia and other locales, globally inspired pieces are designed to tell a story. Highlights of this trend include colorful textiles, animal patterns, lavish use of texture and color, and pieces crafted by artisans from around the globe.
The Intersection of Art and Technology
With the metaverse, cryptocurrency, and NFTs becoming more popular, the idea of incorporating high-tech ideas with a more artistic slant is influencing furniture design. Perhaps the best example of this was Nathan Anthony’s ÆTHR collection, with physical pieces featuring cryptocurrency-inspired designs, and NFT versions of a chair from the collection available for purchase online.
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“This particular collection caught my attention because, in a recent project, I also experimented with the question, ‘How do we combine the physical and virtual worlds we inhabit?’” said Finley. “This collection signifies that other artists and designers are also exploring the concepts of bridging traditional and non-traditional art and redefining both our ideas of what art is, and how it functions in our lives.”
Evoking Feeling through Design
In a post-pandemic world, simply looking good isn’t enough for home furnishings. Consumers increasingly want pieces that evoke a deeper response—creating a sense of calm, comfort, and familiarity. And those feelings are rooted in a desire for individuality and self-reflection. To that end, antiques, new designs with vintage flair, and nods to nostalgia have become incredibly important in home design.
“Individuality is comprised of a variety of human experiences — memorable travel, family history, favorite color, starting over, reinterpreting where they may be in their lives, the unexpected,” Laws said. “The one singularity, however, is that all of those little things they share with us that happened throughout their lives — those are the inspirations we use (even just small hints in some cases) to devise, design, and articulate the most effective way to evoke a feeling of fulfillment in a safe space that feels good. That’s what clients want — for the home to be a reflection of the self — even if they don’t know it at first.”
Fusion of Sustainability and Art
Sustainability has evolved from simply a buzzword to a way of life for many, and home design trends reflect that. Recycled textiles, found objects and even items such as Hermes and Gucci hard paper boxes are being transformed into new products for the home using artisanal techniques and practices.
Biomorphic Design
Raw, natural elements dominated showrooms throughout High Point Market. Materials like petrified wood, natural wood finishes, stone and even fossilized clam shells connect spaces, and the people living in them, to nature.
“Designers are tactile creatures by nature, and that is why we were so drawn to the raw and naturally finished pieces we saw at this year’s spring market,” Nessbach said. “It is the beauty of the perfectly imperfect natural elements of these pieces that caught our eyes (and hands for that matter).”