Julie Pople Designs spent the last week at Frankfurt’s Ambiente Expo, one of the largest shows for tableware in the world.
We met with dozens of design directors as well as spending time browsing the different showrooms to get a feel of where the tableware, as well as homewares, markets are moving.
More than ever, design directors are looking for something new and different. Many are tired of traditional florals and other perennial standbys, yet they are still around as they are still selling. It is unclear if this is because consumers still like them or that the industry has not yet found an alternative.
Established brands are marketing brands within brands so they can move away from what has been their core business with more limited risk to their image. Villeroy & Boch gives us a good example of this with their Vivo sub-brand. Vivo is young, hip, bright and loud where as Villeroy & Boch made their name, and continues to succeed, with more traditional botanicals.
Companies seem to be having a hard time differentiating themselves through pattern and are employing all available technology to stand out. Shape is becoming more and more important as well as texture. Embossed patterns on porcelain seem to be gaining in popularity as well as textured decals.
A lot of companies are re-releasing their retro patterns from the sixties, Portmerion and Dansk for example. With any return it is important to note the subtle changes from the original sixties pattern to the updated retro looks that succeed today. Renewing a pattern, even when on trend, is much more than just dusting it off and putting it back on the shelf. To quote Julie Pople, “Trends come full circle but progress in a spiral rather than returning to where they originally were.”
Back in London the forecast trend for urban art continuing to push into mainstream culture was highlighted by a visit to the Waterstones bookshop in Piccadilly Circus where an entire section is titled ‘concrete as a canvas’.
