Every January Heimtextil, the expansive trade fair devoted to home and contract textiles, unfolds in Frankfurt. This year’s four-day event attracted 70,000 attendees from around the world, who navigated 20 different halls at Messe Frankfurt and scoped out products from nearly 3,000 exhibitors.
Among this overwhelming display, many of the designs in the spotlight stood out with bold colors and organic materials, underscoring a priority on quality as much as aesthetics. During a tour of the enlightening, look-to-the-future Theme Park, the hands-on pavilion devoted to trends, the knowledgeable guide warned that today’s customers are buying less than an earlier years. What they are seeking out, however, reveals an appreciation for high standards instead of mere quantity. As the rise in travel heightens international curiosities and spawns new inspirations, today’s buyers are coveting more soulful selections, handmade designs that embrace rich textures and, as the presence of digital labs at Heimtexil attested, increasingly integrate clever technologies like 3D printing.
While perusing the sheer variety of products on offer is of course Heimtextil’s annual grand attraction, connecting each of them to the larger world and seeing how they interplay with human values and predilections is even more compelling. This year’s Trendtable, a collaborative brainstorming session between industry forecasters, was helmed by Paris-based Carlin Creative Trend Bureau. Carlin’s Flavie Bénard discussed a quartet of exploratory categories currently permeating design: Cultural, Natural, Planetary, and Virtual. Likewise, Lisa White of WGSN’s London-based head office looked to spring/summer 2018 through the lens of catchy named themes including Psychotropical, Youth Tonic, Kinship, and Slow Futures.
One of the most insightful highlights of Heimtextil was listening to Anne Marie Commandeur speak. The owner and director of Stijlinstituut Amsterdam assembled a cerebral presentation transcending the surface tropes of color and pattern to answer the question of why we design. Here, she explains what a holistic approach means for hospitality.
As your talk reinforced, design encompasses so much more than creating spaces that look good. What points in your presentation especially resonate with you?
My personal favorites are in a way contrasting: ‘to save us from oblivion’ and ‘to come to newness.’ So on one hand, I strongly believe that we should cherish heritage and need to keep looking back to learn for the future. In a way I think that the needs for constantly new and more are our greatest enemies. I recently watched an old documentary on the Eames House in the Pacific Palisades, the home of Charles and Ray Eames, constructed in 1949. Several current themes were covered here. They built it trying to minimize impact and using existing construction modules, which allowed for efficiency and a versatility of living. They found a way to be as close to nature as possible without harming it, gathering all kinds of iconic craft design items from various regions. It’s amazing to see how modern they were and how timeless as well. Yet if they lived now they would have been one hundred steps ahead of everyone since current, so-called modern design is still copying them. I do believe in the promise of technology used in responsible ways. I love the experiments. That is why ‘to come to newness’ is another favorite.
Of the reasons you mentioned in your presentation, which translates directly to the hospitality sphere?
‘To design for comfortable living.” There I showed Room Mate Hotel Giulia, designed by Patricia Urquiola, in the heart of Milan. She stages the local taste, art and, design of the city in its interiors. The goal is to create essential and very familiar Italian domestic spaces with vintage touches where guests find everything they need to live temporarily in the rooms as if they were at home. ‘To dress up life’ is enhancement and embellishment for more intense experiences, like intricate designs in textiles.
What does this mean for the shifting future of hospitality, then?
I think this wraps up the essence of where hospitality is moving: engaging as well as homely environments that reflect the spirit of its location, moving away from anonymous environments and cut and pasted hospitality templates that are placed all over the globe. Competition is pushing standards and diversification and clarity of concept is key. More and more urban professionals are booking their own hotels and work and personal holidays are merging. Guests are becoming demanding and savvy, expecting more than just a bed and a table.
What is the most organic way for a hospitality brand to define a powerful image?
Is there a social aspect to connecting with the local community around health or wellbeing, which is reflected in the interiors, services, body care products, and food concepts, or in-house yoga sessions, meditation, or sports facilities going far beyond the usual hotel gym? It is crucial to show what and who you are, a holistic approach even in the smallest details.
Which other realms, say fashion or the arts, do you think have the biggest impact on hospitality trends?
An interesting development is the marriage between retail and the hospitality business, fashion brands using hotel rooms as showrooms and placing garments in cupboards that can be tried on and purchased at reception.
The changing relationship between design and sustainability is one of the most important. How do you see it affecting the hospitality business?
Where other concepts opt for minimalism, to us ‘minimize impact’ means dynamic, tailor-made spaces that are efficient yet well-designed and intelligent using smart, tasteful, rational materials. Slowly, the hospitality business is taking responsibility for its impact on the environment. This goes beyond keeping the used towels separate. It is about the carpets, linens, and wood and natural materials. It’s about the use of water and energy and also health food.