Have you read part one on the Botanics interior trend and part three on the Watercolour trend?
I love hearing about upcoming trends…
… especially when it’s the start of a new year and everyone seems eager to re-work their spaces. Everything I’ve been hearing from both overseas forecasters and local ones is that dark and moody interiors are working their way to the forefront and that the bright, minimalistic and Scandi-inspired designs are wearing thin. Personally, I don’t entirely buy that, not locally anyway. In Australia, we’re far too coastal to totally banish brights and whites completely, but it will be interesting to see how the trend in today’s post plays out in 2015.
Baroque Reloaded is the name I’ve given this trend, because it taps into the Rococo revival that was prominent a few years back (think ornate frames and chairs), but this new interpretation is taking the look in a far darker direction, so I’d expect some of us might finally get the guts to embrace a black feature wall or do something similarly daring with damask wallpaper.
UK-based forecaster Victoria Redshaw touched on this aesthetic when she spoke at Decor+Design last year, noting that in 2015 we’ll be looking toward history – particularly medieval times – for inspiration when it comes to our decor choices. She cited rich reds as one of the colours to dominate the landscape, and Pantone’s colour of the year, Marsala, certainly seems to back that up. I don’t believe this colour story (deep red, blacks, purples and dark blues) is going to be huge locally, but I do foresee maroon and deep purple soft furnishings rising in popularity, especially when Autumn decorating hits – against shades like charcoal grey and chocolate brown.
US designer Genevieve Gorder held a talk late last year on trends and mentioned that she believed we’d be taking some style cues from the Viking era, so there seems to be a fair bit of merit to the notion that we’ll be looking toward finishes like weathered wood, dark beaten brass and embracing materials like velvet and tapestries. There’s definitely a sense of romance, cosiness and nostalgia in this trend that’ll allow lovers of layering to go wild with making their spaces feel homely.
The ornate shapes that are evident in furniture from the late Baroque and Rococo era will be present too, with clean lines moving aside to pave way for more curves and embellishments. This will probably mean salvage store refurbs are going to become big again, but the colourful transformations we’ve seen in the past (even I got in on those), will no longer take place. Instead, we’ll embrace the originality and darkness of these pieces and find ways to make them work with organic materials and soft textures (I hear fringe is making a comeback, too).
Aged mirrors and reflective surfaces will definitely play out in this trend but they’ll less shiny and more battered and bruised. Heavy drapes and curtains may make a comeback and furniture with studs and buttoning are definitely staying put for now.
>>> What are your thoughts on the Baroque Reloaded trend? I’d love to know if you love or loathe it in the comments below.
