Premiere Vision Feb 2010

Colours

As always there was an abundance of poetical verse to describe the trends and colours for S/S 2011 at PV and Indigo this week ‘colourful jellies’ ‘satirical pastels’, ‘languorous tone on tones’, ‘ limpid sea waters’, ‘ fresh skin tones’, ‘brilliant monochromes’ ‘mysterious abyss’ and ‘synthetic lights’ to mention but a few!

For me this year the colours that tooted my bells were a small selection in contrast with the huge palette available on the fashion agenda. I will try and match some to pantone references and some to our wallpapers, some may vary from the actual as I’m matching them with own ‘my’ eye chart!

Blues and greens fitted into the Aquatic and Limpid seawater themes ranging from the stronger turquoise to pale transient blues.

Turquoise

Pantone 15-4715 to a darker Pantone 16-5123

Soft paler blues

Pantone 14-4307 and very pale Pantone 12-4304

I would also include in the blue theme the strong trend for blue ink tones and washes starting from ink black / navy to very pale light blue. ‘Luminous darkness’ included Navy, khakis and pale aquas.

There were a lot of greens, khakis, dark greens, brights to pastel creamy greens. Pantone 17-0525, 15-0522, 14-6316

A riot of oranges, reds and pinks from luminous pastel orange Pantone 12-0714, 12-1009,to dusty pinks 13-1409 12-1305

Mix pale violets with the orange violet 13-3803, 15-1905 with the orange tones 14-1311, 13-1019 and khaki with this orange

Putty tones

Jocelyn Warner Wallpaper, Fern Putty

Raspberry reds, mulberry deep pinks .

Skin tones to camel and fauna Pantone 12-1005, 14-1210, 13-1013 , 15-1308, 15-1309.

Bronzed browns to muted gold’s

Jocelyn Warner Wallpaper, Blossom Renaissance Gold

Mysterious abyss – Very dark mat grounds juxtaposed with shiny gloss inks , dark browns with black, black on black

Jocelyn Warner Wallpaper, Kew Black Gloss

There was also a very bright theme ‘Aspirin ‘ think polka dots, Op Art Damien Hurst dots, very, very bright brightest, orange, greens, pinks, blue.

Print themes saw again a strong nature theme of  ‘floral opulence’.

In the theme ‘Today’s Yesteryear’ fabrics had a soft feel to them ‘tenderly washed’, pictorial silks with sandstone finishes, nostalgic influence. 1950’s screen-printed fabrics with a hand painterly feel, textured brush strokes and ink washes, ink jet prints with magnified water marks, a break away from the exactness of photographic prints.

Artificial nature – a ‘wonderland’ of fauna, dragonflies, grasshoppers, water lilies.

Another print theme was the very light, transparency skeletal fragile forms plants, birds, insects – fine line drawings, mono prints, semi transparent architectural scenes / structures. Exact drawn pencil lines mixed with haphazardly ink.

Tropical theme included parrots and birds, exotic flowers magnified and scaled with fruits and lush jungle looking leaves. Think Henri Rousseau and his treatment of leaves, oil pastels, paint and collage.

Indigo seems to see an increasing amount of textile designers offering vintage collections, antique, contemporary swatches, clothes and accessories mixed with the current fashion trends. Some of the prints and dresses are quite stunning, items that you would not be able to get from your local jumble or charity shop. I can see the attraction as the trend for nostalgia and the ‘yesteryear’ is so strong.

Posted in botanical, colour, interior design, pattern, trends, wallpaper

I’m really looking forward to going to Premiere Vision Spring Summer 2011 show next week, this is the colour and textile forecasting show held in Paris twice a year. I have been going now for around 20 years; I find it very useful for colour development work, seeing the technical advancements that are happening in digital printing, weaving and machine printing. Sadly the famous trend forecaster Li Eldekoort doesn’t have any involvement with the audio visuals, a shame as they were very inspiring, she is really one of my favorites (see Sept Blog), you can still buy Bloom magazine at the newsagents but her View on Colour and INview are no longer in publication, luckily you can still buy back issues.

Indigo is on at the same venue; where you can buy designs directly from textile designers for the following season AW 11/12.

I’m constantly looking “out there ” for colour inspiration, on my early morning jogs (um… have only just started this so don’t hold your breath!) I have been watching some wonderful colour spreads. Not brilliantly in focus as snapped with my iphone whilst listening to my inspiring jogging music!

I really love the blues; lilacs mauves with the peaches and soft pastel yellows, there are an infinitesimal amount of colourways that you can work from using nature – its mouth watering!

Posted in colour, design, technology, textiles, trends

At Decode, currently on at the V&A, the first thing you see is Daniel Brown’s ‘On Growth and Form’. Commissioned for the Porter Gallery, it’s just outside the exhibition and is massive in size, about 4 metres high. But despite this big scale, its position makes the work easy to miss and that, along with the fact that it’s the only Daniel Brown piece in the exhibition, is a real shame.

In it, muted colours and delicate floral, organic forms are constantly morphing to make images that change and grow; the result is hypnotic and soothing. It reminded me of a Fischli and Weiss exhibition I saw at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris back in 1999, which included Sichtbare Welt (Visible World), an installation where they layered double-exposed images of flowers on top of each other. When these slides were projected in slow transition and at a huge scale you had an illusion of movement plus a blast of colour and beauty to mind-blowing effect. Brown uses more advanced technology but the emotional power is the same; awesome and calming.

Seeing Fischli & Weiss’ installation when I was about to start my first wallpaper collection was a real inspiration for me to make large-scale digital banner prints. It was just at the time when both digital photography and digital printing were becoming more affordable, helping pattern and imagery become more ubiquitous in interior design.

Brown has already been commissioned to produce works for private clients but I think something like ‘On Growth and Form’ would be great in a hospital or public space. And pretty soon it might be possible to have work like this in our homes.

I think designers and artists seem to turn to nature images at a time of change when something comforting is needed. Fischli & Weiss’ flower installation was touring as we were approaching the end of a millennium and Brown’s work is on show as we enter a new decade, and in a period of uncertainty.

Elsewhere at Decode interesting works included the kinetic artwork ‘Weave Mirror’ by Daniel Rozin which uses image-capture combined with hundreds of C-prints that organise themselves into a light and shadow, ‘woven’ picture of the person looking at the work. It sounds (and probably is) complicated but is beautiful to look at. Oasis, a lightbox with black sand creating amoeba-like forms, the splodgey, interactive piece ‘Body Paint’ and Aaron Koblin’s ‘Flight Patterns’ a visualisation of the flights across US airspace in a single day also stood out. Unfortunately ‘Dandelion’ by Sennep/Yoke wasn’t working but I’d love to have seen it.

Decode is at the V&A til April 11^th.

Here’s where you can read more about ‘Sichtbare’ by Fischli & Weiss.

Posted in art, botanical, design, review, technology