A Great Start to a Challenging Year

The Event: Heimtextil
When: 7 - 10 January
Where: Frankfurt, Germany
Why: The first major international trend fair every year, with a focus on sustainable solutions for fashion and interiors

‘Where I Belong’ - Heimtextil’s Trend Theme for 2020/2021

Today, the process of identification seems more complicated than ever. Identities are formed through experiences that take place simultaneously, on different levels. Locally, nationally, globally, both online and offline. Identity, therefore, can consist of many different layers. In fact, we all have multi-layered identities.

Stijlinstituut (“Style Institute”) Amsterdam director Anne Marie Commandeur oversaw the introduction and expression of these themes in dramatic fashion, showcasing new designs, colors, materials and sustainability concepts.

“The Heimtextil 20/21 trends address a handful of these layers, as there is not one way to address them all, and none are pinned to an exact place or time,” says Commandeur. “The fluidity of society is a fact and the offering of interior textiles and design must flow with that. It’s how we realize that each of us can connect to one or several of this season’s trends.”

Alongside Stijlinstituut Amsterdam, London-based studio FranklinTill and Danish agency SPOTT Trends & Business contributed to the 20/21 global forecast for perspective-related interior design. Together with the Heimtextil management team, these Trend Council participants gave insights into future styles.

Making Room for the Multifaceted Self

As an overarching theme, “Where I Belong” addresses layered identities via the five diverse Heimtextil 20/21 trends:

• “Maximum Glam” turns the glamorous life tech-savvy

• “Pure Spiritual” finds balance in nature and mysticism

• “Active Urban” values utilitarian, adaptable solutions, whereas

• “Heritage Lux” celebrates rich historical legacies and “Multi-Local” embraces global cultural influences.

MAXIMUM GLAM

Pleasure seekers revel in layering theatrical influences and glamorous showtime aesthetics, forging a fantastic marriage between the crafted and digitally rendered. Textiles show a “more is more” attitude through a mash-up of glam, gradients and spectrums, fake fur, pile and fringe, jacquard weaves and fantastic prints. The flashy, kitsch color range becomes brutally glam thanks to electric sheen, synthetic shimmer, digital glitch and artful blur. A riot of clashes and rebellion.

The glamorous life is now tech-savvy, primed for Instagrammable self- expression. Individuals crave intense experiences, which creates a need for a new virtual reality where multi-sensory experiences occur on screen, inspired by real world tactility. Rebellion against convention is not for the fainthearted. It’s expressive, eccentric, and surreal, without room for minimalism, standardization or commodification. Its ironic attitude is textile craft inspired and pop in presentation, introducing an aesthetic that delivers Maximum Glam with a gritty legacy.

This theme places the art of textiles on stage. It’s an ancient practice that continually reinvents itself, taking the medium from handcraft to technology driven. An interest in bespoke experiences is rising. It creates potential for immersive interiors and materials in response to desires for sensory stimulation and mesmerizing events in breath-taking locations. Technology helps us explore new worlds. It turns dreams into reality. In this pressured society, we are in search of emotion and immersion, and find unique interiors and materials that entertain and bewilder. They occur in crafted textiles, blurring boundaries between reality and illusion, physical and digital. Data-inspired patterns and crafted jacquards are simultaneously dynamic, energetic and glamorous.

More is More

Textures come to life through dynamic surface effects and 3D decoration, refracting and reflecting finishes inspired by the digital realm. Ornament and decoration are revived in a tech-dominated world, creating form beyond imagination. Maximum Glam celebrates spectacularly developed textiles. It’s a mash-up of glam, gradients and spectrums, fake fur, pile and fringes, jacquard weaves and fantastic prints. Exciting surface effects appear where light interacts with the material. Fluorescence, phosphorescence, iridescence collide. Lenticular surfaces, liquid and lacquered, luminous refraction and reflection give movement and presence.

The Maximum Glam area was conceived by Bastiaan de Nennie of Phygital Studio [Phygital = Physical + Digital…get it?]

He positions his practice at the intersection of the increasingly intertwined worlds of the physical and the digital. Components of a pre-digital reality are used as building blocks for new digital creations.

“Maximum Glam is about strong details of interior products. There was this whole box of textiles Anne Marie came with, which was super inspiring and challenging to start interpreting all those textiles. One big splash of random colors, textiles and materials, futuristic, almost circus. Fluffy hairs, iridescence, jacquard woven, a bit like cultural textiles.

“I scanned the textiles to create this new reality, making collages and assemblages. I don’t copy reality, I use reality. So, if the camera doesn’t have the perfect resolution or if the 3D scan is not perfect, I accept it and use the imperfection as a signature instead.”  

Heimtextil 2020 coverage is made possible by the following companies: