Barcelona is a city well known for its style. From modernism to noucentisisme, its artistic heritage is evident from the world-renowned architecture of its buildings to the look of the people that inhabit them.

Nowhere is this more apparent then in the Barri Gotic and further from the Ramblas and not as obscured by touristy t-shirt vendors, in the Circuit del Born. This area is home to the Picasso, Contemporary Art and Textile Museums as well as countless galleries and trendy boutiques. The London equivalent would be Shoreditch, an artsy urban center where style is inherent. In El Born this is not just evident in the galleries and museums but in the graffiti stenciled in abandoned doorways to the skillfully modern design for signs for the more mundane businesses such as Laundromats.

Too often trends are copied by going through the motions. Bringing style to the plate is not as easy as partnering with a fashion designer and fitting their designs to new shapes. Tableware is much different then art on a canvass or fashions on the catwalk. It is a difficult line to walk as a designer between giving retailers what they think may sell because the style is on trend and ensuring that our transformation of the style is successful. For example, the 80’s look with a penchant for Mondrian style block color prints was successfully showcased in Barcelona but we have also seen this look dulled on the table. Designers have brought this to the table in a smaller scale borders on plates and although they have succeeded in bringing this trend over the energy that is fueled in part by the large scale is lost in translation.

The current style in Barcelona can be described as urban-punk and is evident in the graffiti on the walls and the piercings on the urbanites. Naive scribbled pen ink style sketches, as you may find on a vandalized school desk, are everywhere. We have begun to see this style on the table and expect it to pick up steam.

The Spanish aren’t scared of pattern or boldness and shops like Desigual engulf their clothing in striking metropolitan motifs in eye catching colors. We are yet to find evidence of this trend transferring to housewares in this city or elsewhere but expect it to arrive in asymmetrical layouts on plates and in reduced motifs on cups and saucers.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 4:19 am and is filed under Inspiration, Trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.