Recession Inspires Practical Retreats : Trend to Cocooning Transforms Showrooms Into Living Rooms : 1993 A LOOK AHEAD. The Economy Has Spoken: The Newest Design Trend Is Value
Money talks. No, wait. Make that . . .
MONEY TALKS!!!!!!
And it’s saying “Hold me, squeeze me, never let me go.” It’s saying, “You want an estate filled with Louis XV? Come back and see me in about six years. You want simplicity, value and wear? Let’s talk.”
It’s saying what it said to the Clinton campaign staff for all those months: “It’s the economy, stupid!”
OK, so we’re officially out of the recession, but try telling that to the people who determine--or heed--design trends for the coming year. Because both their artistic eyes and fiscal sensibilities have been fixed firmly on the tender state of the economy in recent months, and they have responded.
The short of it: Don’t expect to see any Palace of Versailles knock-offs with Elvis in the White House. And in an era in which no income is disposable, don’t expect to see anybody casually disposing of their furnishings. Today, even furniture has to carry its own weight, and then some. It has to work.
Yes, money talks. And lack of money fairly screams. But all that noise doesn’t mean we’re all going to be living in refrigerator cartons in 1993. It means, say designers, that beauty and style are going to be cozying up to Practicality, with a capital P. Form and function are going to be nearly inseparable. And art and commerce are going to have to grudgingly coexist, too.
” Livability is going to be one of the key words,” said Jacquelyn Jones, the director of marketing for Creative Design Consultants in Costa Mesa. “People don’t want to live on a stage anymore, or to have a home just to impress the neighbors. They want a place where they can retreat and escape from the world. There won’t be all the razzle-dazzle we saw in the ‘80s.”
Not that the new home arrangements in ’93 are going to look like a Japanese tea house; it isn’t going to be quite that simple. But there will, designers and others say, certain recognizable hallmarks of the simpler working home of 1993:
CLEAN LINES
“It’s all about price and value,” said Michael Koski of Design Center South in Laguna Niguel. “We’ve been seeing manufacturers rethinking their entire line so that they’re more affordable. It’s been remarkable. We’ve come out of the very extravagant, the Baroque and the Roccoco, with the tons of handiwork. They’re very expensive to produce. Now we’re going to see things cleaner and plainer.”
Coincidentally, less gaudy furniture also tends to be less expensive. For instance, at the Design Center’s Baker, Knapp & Tubbs showroom, where more opulent traditional furniture has been the norm, the stark 1950s-inspired furniture of San Francisco designer Charles Pfister is enjoying popularity. Where a traditional highboy can run to many thousands of dollars at Baker, Pfister’s simple--and elegant--light wood demi-lune sideboard retails for $4,543.
And, said Koski, showiness isn’t entirely taboo. The current strategy, he said, is to fill the house with simpler furniture, “enhanced with some real zingers, like a big gilded mirror or an antique. Maybe one of those per room rather than the whole house being tarted up.”
COMFORTING COLORS
For peace of mind, not for public consumption. “When you track historical color trends and look at the influence of the economy, generally when we hit severe economic times we tend to go back to a conservative palette, with traditional colors that are warm and make us feel safe and sheltered and secure,” said Terrie Buch, a color marketing consultant from San Pedro and a member of the Color Marketing Group, an international group of consultants who forecast color trends.
Different colors comfort different people, however, and Buch said that the palette for 1993 is varied, grouped into three categories, all basically conservative.
The dark color grouping will be, said Buch, dominated by “jewel tones,” such as burgundys, cranberry reds and hunter greens, as well as a return of navy blue. A second set Buch called “mid-tones” includes blues, violets and greens, which formerly may have been used as accent colors but which now are expected to gain wider use.
The colors more familiar to Southern Californians will be found in the light palette grouping, Buch said. However, she added, the colors will be more complex than those seen in the recent past, taking their inspiration from “natural dyes that we’ve seen introduced in fashion, and it’s now trickling down to home fashion. The colors are almost natural-neutral, a kind of response to the environment.”
Bright, arresting colors will still have their place, however, in much the same way striking furniture has its place: in accents. Such items as bath towels and throw pillows, “things you don’t invest a lot of money in,” will see the more dazzling colors, Buch said.
MULTIPLE FUNCTIONS
When the pocketbook shrinks, so does living space. That means that this morning’s breakfast nook may be this afternoon’s writing room.
“Living rooms, particularly, will shrink down and become more of a parlor,” said Jacquelyn Jones. “People are going to be willing to have less of a living room and more of a family room.”
Included in that room, increasingly, is a designated space--such as a built-in niche--for a home entertainment center. Designers, Jones said, are pushing architects for this feature: a spot to house not only the TV monitor, but the stereo, VCR and any ancillary equipment.
Elsewhere in the same room may be space for still more electronics: the home computer and other office machines. More and more homeowners are saving money by working at home, or working variable hours at their offices, and therefore require a space at home to set up shop. This space can be designated but, Jones said, many designs allow for conversion of a part of one room to an office, allowing, again, for multiple functions.
“There aren’t formal living rooms or dining rooms these days,” said Costa Mesa designer Walter Nutting. “If paperwork has to be done, it can be done in a little den that is now converted for multiple use, in which furniture that can perform several functions is used.
“Maybe there won’t be a formal dining room table, but a drop leaf table that can be pushed against a wall and used for writing and then pulled out and used as a dining room table. Also, the old Murphy bed concept is coming back in a big way. You might have a bed in the home office wall that can be pulled down and the room can be converted to a guest room.”
HOMEOWNER-FRIENDLINESS
Think of it as efficiency, think of it as ease of motion. Think of it simply as being easy on the eyes. Clutter and nonessentials, said Jones, should begin to disappear and be replaced by spare yet strategic furniture arrangements and color schemes designed to make the time you spend in high-occupancy rooms a bit more soothing.
Kitchens, in particular, likely will be lined with high-efficiency cabinets made from light-colored wood, said Jones--maple is expected to be in demand--and counter space and other kitchen ergonomics will be more thoroughly planned.
The master bedroom, however, will be the place for pampering. If the home will begin to be seen as a personal escape, the master bedroom will become the sanctum sanctorum, a kind of self-sufficient hideaway, with a well-appointed master bathroom appended. The look, Jones said, will resemble a suite rather than a room. If a hearth is included in the plan, it is likely to be brick--another return to tradition.
ECO-AWARENESS
We won’t all start living in geodesic domes in 1993 but, said Fullerton designer Dorian Hunter, we might start thinking more about it.
“The kind of housing we have now is rampant and it’s taking over all our natural terrain,” said Hunter, a member of the Eos Institute, a Laguna Beach-based education and research organization dedicated to more environmentally compatible living space. “It’s all we know. People need to be exposed to other alternatives.”
Modular housing, nontoxic building materials, adobe homes with walls constructed from such castoffs as old tires, entire homes made from straw bales--these all have appeared in designers’ crystal balls.
Don’t expect to move into a house made of bovine fodder in the next year but, said Hunter, “I think what we’re going to be seeing in the next 12 months is an attempt to educate people about this. Also, the economy is going to open up their minds to this.”
* And . . . the exception that proves the rule: Hard times be damned.
Custom home architecture is decidedly not feeling the current fiscal pinch. The reason, according to Newport Beach custom home architect Brion Jeannette: The people who want a custom home can afford it.
“We’re seeing more clients who are willing to take advantage of the economy,” Jeannette said. “We’re doing projects that have all the bells and whistles on them because the clients know that now is a good time to create that cost savings. In this economy, we’re seeing as much as a $40 to $50 savings per square foot.”
The most requested luxury: home entertainment rooms, many in a theater configuration with commercial-theater-grade sound systems.
Still, said Jeannette, even those whom the recession has only grazed are falling into a kind of pattern of the times.
“They’re looking for something cleaner,” he said. “We’re seeing more contemporary-style homes than we have in a long time. I think people are getting tired of all these eclectic houses. The houses now are tending to be more light and bright.”
Which sounds, money or no money, eminently Practical.
