Fashion Trends 2011 Brought To You By Interior Connection

NOT YOUR GRANDMOTHER’S PINK

This is not the shy pink of dawn, the sleepy pink of summer lemonade, or the tidy pink of gingham curtains. This is pink with attitude. A bold, intense, don’t-ignore-me colour.

Honeysuckle 18-2120, the PANTONE Colour of the Year for 2011, is a confidant, assertive shade of lusciously saturated pink that fuels our desire for change and ignites our spirit, to help us meet the challenges of everyday life. It commands our attention and rewards us with a good dose of confidence and energy. Showing up just about everywhere from men’s and women’s apparel and accessories to footwear, cosmetics and furnishings for the home, Honeysuckle has become a global call for positive thinking and concerted action. Courageous, Confident, Vital. A brave new colour, for a brave new world. Let the bold spirit of Honeysuckle infuse you, lift you and carry you through the year. It’s a colour for every day – with nothing “everyday” about it

GYPSY HERITAGE

As we learn from David Shah in the most recent issue of Viewpoint, a renewed interest in vanishing cultures is aiming to reconnect consumers to heritage and tradition through the objects they live with. Inspired by the gypsy folk culture of Hungary and Transylvania, Hungarian design duo A+Z set out to create an emotional connection to the stories and customs of their past, present and future through contemporary interior design.

Their collection, called “Gypsy”, celebrates the survival instinct, vividness and community cohesion of the Gypsy people of Hungary and Transylvania. It includes the Tuzhely low table containing a built-in camping gas stove for communal tea drinking; the Puli lounge chair with a perforated metal frame upholstered with recycled fabric strips, inspired by the Hungarian sheepdog; and the Tekno seat which is made from a natural aspen wooden shell, hand carved by Transylvanian Gypsy tribes and upholstered with black sheep’s wool. The duo, whose Budapest studio is located in an old weapon factory, says of the collection, the products of the Gypsy people and folk culture of our region have become overlooked or rendered unnecessary, but all have stories, souls and extinct crafts behind them. We wanted to give them new lives in a contemporary design context, keeping the narratives and souls but translating them with a modernist vocabulary.

FOCAL POINTS: CREATING THAT PALPABLE PRESENCE IN THE HOME

Converging colours create a pathway invariably leading the eye to a given spot. When the hues are bold and uniquely combined, the effect is even more intense. Ideal for the dining room or family room, Focal Points is a palette of the warm, advancing shades of muskmelon, clay and burnt coral, ultimately introduced to the drama of aurora red, rosebloom, honeysuckle pink, dahlia purple and the winey cordovan, making for theatrical, intriguing colour combinations.