Maison et Objet 2009/2010 Official Trends

"Best in Show" Wallpaper

Contributed by Susan Schultz

Part of what makes Maison&Objet such a fabulous show to visit is its large-scale trend presentations. Large stands, one for each of three trends and each placed prominently at the entrance to a main hall, are typically filled with displays that rival and often surpass those of the top international design companies. While the displays seemed to have been simplified a bit this session, the theme was very upbeat: Antidotes, the need for design to provide positive solutions to an increasingly disoriented world.

From the official materials you can get a sense of the issues and concepts the trend board felt strongly about: Energy, positivity, anti-baroque, whimsy, work-in-progress, elegant fusion, etc. Here’s some edited copy from the stands.

The home has become, now more than ever, a safety value that leaves us dreaming of better living. In its modest, intimate way, that place for experimenting with change consoles us with anti-gloom remedies. There is no miracle solution. But all kinds of creation, know-how and technologies, colors and whimsy, elegance and quality of life are distilling a new positive energy.

Iconoclash by Vincent Grégoire

A positive subversion is mocking the established codes with humor and elegance. The decorative revival takes pleasure in shaking up the icons of déjà vu. Eras, styles, folklores… Décor is questioning tradition and heritage in order to give value to what has none and put what has too much back in its place. In a playful way, exercising freedom fuses the archaic and the technical, the natural and the artificial, the nearby and the faraway, the urban and the rustic.

Valeurs-refuge by François Bernard

An unmoored era is putting the Beautiful back on track. To comfort us in a world of uncertainty, the home is revisiting its classics and fixing up the run-down charm of the known. In a décor that tells stories, a Paris-London round-trip updates the clichés of chic. Without nostalgia, today’s dandies are restoring intimacy, comfort, the elegance of handmade design, the grace of sketches and a welcome eccentricity.

Color Patch by Elizabeth Leriche.

Décor is finding colors to cure the ambient grayness. A shock therapy against uniformity and monotony, a chromatic explosion transforms color into a creative material and a vehicle for strong emotions. Art, design and architecture wave the flag of saturated colors in a jubilant aesthetic at the crossroads of digital art and street art. A pixelated, geometrical, florescent rainbow that announces the return of fair weather days.



Photos and text contributed by Susan Schultz


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