What's inside this year's most stylish bachelor pads?
Is your home overdue a redux? Designer Daniel Hopwood looks ahead to the top interior design trends of 2017 to find out what this year's most stylish homes will look like. danielhopwood.com
1/23At this year's London Design Festival in September, I noticed that many makers and brands are creating a space where technology meets organic, natural beauty. Charming Dutch partners Nancy Torreele and Martijn van Rijn blew me away with their brand, Barn In The City. They’ve taken wood from old dutch barns and repurposed it into wall panels, furniture and art. This perfectly coincides with the increasing move away from gallery walls to walls focused on a single statement piece. Barn In The City have created two eye-catching wall discs made of rough wood with a resin finish. It's beautiful design-led art that combines technology and craftsmanship. Just perfect. barninthecity.com
2/23Blackbody is a fabulous French manufacturer and supplier that creates stunning lighting pieces with OLED technology. One highlight I am particularly enamoured with is their convex mirror framed by petals of flat, glowing light. New technologies are increasingly allowing us to play with lighting to create beautiful things — it's Hollywood glamour for the new century. blackbody.fr
3/23Amy Somerville’s indulgent Rabelais sofa is every inch the Seventies refined glamour revival we first spotted in Milan back in April. A definite movement away from the austere confines of midcentury interiors, Amy Somerville’s latest offering is a step into a lush world of velvet and gold. This year’s influx of sumptuous velvets and rich upholstery appears to be the design industry’s way of saying it’s over for minimalist calm and ready for heady cocktail-party chic. amysomerville.com
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5/23This emerging and somewhat understated manufacturer was a real find at this year's London Design Festival. Aside from being a showcase of my favourite type of mirror – the convex kind – the supplier’s incredible moon-like heavy antique silver mirror was a showstopping example of the design industry placing its bets on the intersection of craft, technology and organic beauty to form products that challenge the boundaries of art and design. I’ll definitely be including a moon mirror in my new studio. bandsglass.co.uk
6/23Using centuries-old Japanese firing techniques, Karak has revived tiles with organic pattern, but using modern shapes and design. Their latest offering takes the fashion for encaustic tiles another gold step forward. It's the perfect choice if you’re doing a country house and want to create something modern and a great example of craft and modern design colliding with elegant results. karak.at
7/23One of the most visited exhibitions at Milan's Salone Del Mobile this year was Louis Vuitton’s Objet Nomades. Embracing the spirit of the world’s design community that descended on the city in April, the luxury brand’s stunning showcase celebrates a borderless world. Designers from around the world, including Britain’s own acclaimed design duo Barber & Osgerby, have created pieces in leather that are easily transported. louisvuitton.com
8/23Another exhibition at Salone, Local Milan, showcased the incredible design talent we should be welcoming from around the world. Eleven Australian designers and studios came together to exhibit their stunning pieces in Piazza Sant’Ambrogio. New furniture pieces from Dowel Jones and beautifully minimal vases in opulent materials from ACV Studio, speak volumes of the refined glamour and retro forms that were seen throughout Salone and across the city. localdesign.com.au
9/23The latest offering from Gallotti & Radice is classic design with Sixties roots, but there is an edge that some of the larger brands often dare not attempt. I like their play with black and white, especially in the two coffee tables which are connected by pattern – a concept not seen before and fitting with emerging trends. gallottiradice.it
10/23Widely regarded this year as one of Milan design week’s must-see shows, Everything Is Connected exhibited contemporary Norwegian craft and design. Curated by Katrin Greiling, it demonstrated the importance of seeing beautifully designed pieces alongside each other in a more audience relatable context. As they say, “A designer or craftsperson is not an island, separate from their society, but a part of a cultural narrative in which everything is connected.” norwegiancrafts.no
11/23Dimore Studio is certainly maximalist, mixing deco and Seventies re-colouring to create works of art that are almost for looking at rather than being used. Dimore is the designer’s designer, breaking taboos, such as swirling patterned carpets, and placing disparate pieces together. It’s breaking ground for other designers to follow. dimorestudio.eu
12/23This Boffi kitchen, by Zaha Hadid, is a show-off piece to demonstrate how able the brand is able to “make” rather than simply mass produce. As usual from Zaha, the kitchen has wonderful sculptural shape but with bevels and curves. I doubt it would be affordable or practical but a stunning home feature and a treasured piece. boffi.com
13/23Marble is back big time, and Salvatori is giving it to us in new way. Not just big lumps of the stuff, but something sculptural and elegant with metal insertions and even artistically placed knobs from which to hang towels. It became pretty clear at this year’s Salone that the home is no longer a place we fill with only the most practical solutions, but almost a trophy cabinet for unique design and luxurious materials. salvatori.it
14/23Curves are in and boxy lines are out. Past Salone del Mobile trends have been led by Italian architectural prowess. This year there was a decidedly French influence. Leader of luxury furniture design Minotti, a brand whose creative direction and collection design has been steered by Italian architect Rodolfo Dordoni since 1997, introduced a new look. French designer Christophe Delcourt has brought a touch of intimacy to Minotti’s 2017 sofas with deeper curves and gently inflated forms that beg those seated upon them to embrace closeness, perfect for compact but style-conscious living. minotti.com
15/23Retro, Memphis-inspired colours and forms have been around for a couple of years now, but this year renowned luxury design brand Giorgetti has taken vintage style down a different path. Doused in bright yellows and greens, their latest showcase references vintage French style with a backdrop focused on a mural that is a re-creation of a 1947 original by French artist Zina de Plagny. Try looking to the colours used by French artists such as Matisse for inspiration next time you’re planning home improvements. giorgetti.eu
16/23Iconic British furniture brand Ercol has long been known for its gentle steam-bent curves. In keeping with the emerging presence of asymmetry derived from retro styles, its offering at Salone Del Mobile included this stunning sofa, in which the supporting vertical dowels are not parallel. Aside from being decidedly minimal in their elegance and therefore perfect for more spatially challenged abodes, Ercol’s ranges tend to be more reasonably priced that some of their continental counterparts. ercol.com
17/23Channelling more refined Sixties and Seventies glamour, brands such as Laura Meroni have positioned deliciously round, heavily ruched metallic sofas (also seen in recent collections from designers such as Kelly Wearstler and Baxter) against architecturally minimal walls pierced by sharp, single metal sheet shelves. This look is easily re-created in your own home at a fairly low cost. laurameroni.com
18/23In terms of colour, more traditionally masculine greys are being replaced with earthy terracottas – some might even dare call it orange. These versatile hues are perfect for those who like to play with colour and are another subtle reference to shades synonymous with the glamour of the Sixties and Seventies. These earthy tones can be seen in almost every major collection (both indoors and outdoors), but are used particularly well by Laura Meroni and Minotti (pictured).
19/23Brixton-based creative power duo Eley Kishimoto are the latest creatives to collaborate with Kirkby Design. The fabric and wall covering brand is known for its convention-challenging collaborations and graphic collections. Reinforcing the momentum of the emerging Seventies-inspired refined glamour trend, the collection includes a vast but cohesive offering of beautifully textural tactile fabrics and wall coverings, including fresh incarnations of Eley Kishimoto’s signature graphic designs. In another clear nod to the demand for customisation and versatility, the designs come in a range of colourways and can be layered to cater to those looking for a maximalist look or showcased individually as a bold feature. kirkbydesign.com
20/23British design superstar Tom Dixon is widely regarded as one of the most exciting and forward-thinking designers in the world, and at this year's Salone, following in the footsteps of contemporaries such as Ilse Crawford, he launched his first collaboration with Ikea. The aesthetic is a clear departure from his more luxe signature style, with the sofas focusing on versatility, modularity and customisation — major emerging trends in interior design. tomdixon.net
21/23In recent years, Diesel Living has cemented its position as a brand at the forefront of bringing contemporary interiors to life by combining bold fashion influences and luxury materials. Joining forces with Italian brand Foscarini – an authority on lighting design – Diesel Living’s latest offerings channel a pure Seventies throwback to cocktail-party chic. Perfect for those looking to embrace the retro look with a refined luxury edge. diesel.com
22/23Euroluce is arguably the world’s most important showcase of lighting design. Running alongside Salone, it’s a destination for trend-spotting in style, colour and architectural lighting concepts. At This year’s Euroluce showcase, industry-leader Louis Poulsen included a series of their most popular pendant lights in some of the year’s up-and-coming colours – these include lilac and clover, two hues proving popular with colour-lovers right now and another reference to refined retro style. louispoulsen.com
23/23Continuing the customisation and modularity trends, Tom Dixon unveiled a new concept for chandeliers at Salone. Chandeliers are no longer ornate single pieces, but collections of similar lighting, grouped to create an arrangement that can be formatted for any space. Many of the chandeliers seen at this year's show were an obvious and elegant throwback to the playful but striking forms of Seventies glamour — another trend emerging from this year’s show. tomdixon.net
