Australia’s leading designers were recently announced at the Belle Coco Republic Interior Design Awards.
The projects were testimony to the way interior design trends are evolving in Australia.
Tanya Buchanan the editor of Belle magazine said design is becoming more edgy.
“This year the designers took a more edgy approach.”
The belle editor said trends in Australian interior design are often influenced by what is seen overseas.
“I’ve just been to Milan and not everything is going to filter down to our market. But some of the stand out trends that I think I saw there and in the finalists works were exotic stone, joinery and incredible lighting,” she said.
“The key message was sophisticated work with finishes.”
The duo that won the Interior Designer of the Year award was Jonathan Richards and Kirsten Stanisich from SJB.
Ms Stanisich said when designing a home, it’s not always about following trends, but doing the opposite.
“There’s always colours and things on trend but as designers we have to dig deeper and take a bit more from the heart. What we do might be on trend and it might not be on trend. Sometimes the things that are really out of fashion can be the best for an interior,” Ms Stanisich said.
“In reference to what’s trending now and what’s to come, there’s going to be stronger colour palettes. At first people might think that’s a really ugly colour palette but when you’re attuned to it, it’s beautiful. A lot of it is based on natural mixes of colours so they might occur in nature and we might not see them that way because we are accustomed to monotone palettes.”
Mr Richards agreed that big colours will be trending again.
“As far as colour a couple of years ago there was a resurgence of colour and that’s going to keep going. The colours used in the 70’s and 80’s were so fabulous,” Mr Richards said.
“Over the twenty years we’ve been working in the industry you do see styles evolve. At the moment there have been aesthetic moments with curves, circles and rounded forms in floor plans and I feel we may be reigning that in and use shape to rationalise spaces.”
