Picture courtesy of Vogue Entertaining

Give flowers some freedom this season. Decorex loves the new floral mood described in a recent Vogue Entertaining. Long gone are the formal arrangements dominating the centre of the table. This season it’s all about freestyle flowers allowed to misbehave.

A bunch of floral tips:

• The secret to the new mood is all about flowers placed in a disorderly fashion. Choose a few special blooms and display them on a fairly flat platter. The key is to use a light hand, placing the blooms in an expressive disarray.
• Offset a table dressed in fine white linen with clusters of flowers, each chosen for its scent, shape, texture or hue. So, its a posy of silvery blue hydrangeas meeting up with long-stemmed pink clematis. Or group flowers with frilly edges together – look out for ruffled tulips and gerberas.
• Bowled over: delicately pick off jasmine flowers and add the flower heads to small Chinese bowls. Place a row of these scented bowls in the entrance hall to welcome visitors with their heady fragrance.

Colour turns over a new eco leaf with the launch of the nature-inspired Plascon Colour Forecast for 2009. “Green is the new mainstream,” says Anne Roselt, colour manager of Plascon. “Never before have we been made so aware of nature’s role in our lives and our part in it.”

Annually, the launch of this Plascon Colour Forecast at Decorex Joburg serves as an important industry reference for architects, designers, fabric houses and décor magazines who rely on Plascon’s experience and vision to capture the colours of a new age.

Shedding light on the zeitgeist Roselt added: “With global attentions focused on heightened environmental awareness, Plascon's latest Colour Forecast pays tribute to the way nature intended colour to be experienced.”

The latest Plascon colour forecast is filled with colours that mimic the natural world around us and bring its life-giving energy into the home. This trend-setting collection introduces 32 new colours in four palettes within the natural theme: air, water, fire and earth.

If ever there was a colour of the year, the Decorex team would predict that Hot-n-Spicy (Code R5-B1-1) - a hot sizzling red in the fiery ‘In the Heat of the Moment’ colour palette – would take the crown. This is colour at its most dramatic and spontaneous when combined with Sienna Sky, Freckle, Lemon Rind, Time capsule and Turkey Dimple.

Also taking green design to glamorous heights is Laurie Owen of Laurie Owen Interiors. Winning a gold for her stand, she illustrated that glam and glitz can combine with organic, natural elements in the most aesthetically pleasing way.

An accolade for the Property Magazine Best Green Stand Award went to @homelivingspace. The green products are all made in South Africa, including Heath Nash-designed lamps made from plastic detergent bottles. The colourful showcase created for these new launch products showed that recycling can be both cool and beautiful.

Every item at our Decorex stall was created by hand, with love in under 4 weeks. Every artist has become a friend. Every product has a story, a family, a history and a job behind it. To us this is sustainability.

Carrying the torch for inventive re-use were interior and sustainable designer Danielle Ehrlich and industrial designer Ewaldi Grové of the newly hatched LIV Design. These two self-proclaimed ‘middle class princesses’ exhibited their debut range of eco-products, in association with the green flooring company Edge 9. Their eco-approach lead to sustainable, beautiful products ranging from the Roly-Poly chair and zip-up felt lamp shades to playful Eco-Baroque pieces: ‘ball and claw’ cabinets made from wire and ‘spare parts’ of second hand furniture.

The inspirational story of LIV, the newly hatched enterprise started when Danielle and Ewaldi were invited six weeks before the show to speak at Decorex’s Conversations on Architecture. The topic was sustainable design. The result is a company - conceived, conceptualized and created in the month of July – winning a gold award for their stunningly quirky stand, filled with do-good design.

LIV wisdom…here are some quotes from the Liv duo’s seminar-presentation:

• We are two middle class princesses who embarked on an adventure, rummaging through factory waste bins, in high heels and designer clothes, in the quest to discover new materials, re using found objects and recycling them into design and production of hand crafted funky things.
• When we think about the crafts being made and marketed on the streets, all we see is beaded keyrings and lizards and not the potential that can happen if we as designers just take a minute to acknowledge their skills and collaborate with them. We began to realise that design is not only about pretty things designed in Europe and then copied and mass produced in china. Design has moved beyond the human scale and the love has been lost somewhere along the way.
• Sustainability is not just mud and straw and organic products. It is about trying to create a lifestyle that thrives on integrity, human involvement and the creation of sustainable situations. It is about stopping, thinking and designing with your heart. It is about using materials wisely and re using materials wisely.
• We are not sustainable. We buy into an insensitive consumer culture on a daily basis. We are not walking around with organic hemp clothing and we are not riding around on bicycles. We love beautiful things, we wear synthetic imported clothes from china and we fly to Cape Town for R500, return. We are just 2 girls that are creative and passionate and really want to make a difference through our design.
• True sustainable design is the warm and fuzzy feeling that one gets when one uses a product that has fed six families. This ‘Green revolution’ is not about a product, this is a cultural phenomenon.

Connecting with Africa is the big trend, as new directions point to a hot new destination: our continent! Decorex this year saw a massive increase of designs representing the African continent, compared to the past when imports from Europe were all the rage. Leading the trend is Design Africa – which won the coveted Decorex Joburg Best Stand Award for its contemporary style with soul.

An exciting, new generation of designers from Africa are making their mark on the discerning world of international interior décor. Reinterpreting their heritage through a contemporary lens, these inventive artists of Design Africa are challenging and changing preconceived perspectives of African design.

The Design Africa collection represents designers from seven countries, including Mali, Senegal, Ethiopia, Ghana, Swaziland, Zambia and South Africa. The wealth of creativity on the continent and the demand to join the collection is driving Design Africa’s continued expansion.

Using new forms, provocative textures, natural materials and rich colors, designers from Africa are pioneering new frontiers of creative expression that give the world a fresh voice and bold ideas. Their work defines a captivating new aesthetic that captures the style and soul of contemporary Africa: imaginative, energetic, cosmopolitan, expressive, sensual, proud and principled.

About Design Africa
Design Africa is a visionary initiative dedicated to showcasing and supporting Africa’s leading designers. Design Africa aspires to create a new impression of African design among international buyers and to assist a select portfolio of pan-African designers to reach their commercial potential.

The designers in the Design Africa collection demonstrate the high standards desired by international interior designers, architects, specifiers, decorators and retailers:

• Create unique, high-end products with contemporary style
• Produce to consistent, high quality standards
• Service orders professionally and reliably
• Focused on customer needs including customization
• Offer excellent value

The Design Africa logo expresses the unique identity of designers represented in the collection: energetic, vibrant, inventive, cosmopolitan, sensual, and inspired by their heritage. “Contemporary Style with Soul,” clearly differentiates the collection from the limiting stereotypical expectation of African design.

The Design Africa icon is a contemporary interpretation of an ancient Andinkra symbol, signifying wisdom and creativity. The fusion of these two concepts echoes the inspiration of many of the collection’s designers who find the seeds of their innovation in an appreciation of their cultural and natural legacy. The icon, with its rays depicted in orange, also suggests unlimited creative potential and the successful expansion of Africa’s leading designers to all points of the compass.

Why the judges loved Design Africa:

The Design Africa stand with its magnificent products from all corners of the continent was a show-stopping total experience. The products - from as far afield as Ghana, Senegal, Mali, Ethiopia, Zambia, Swaziland and South Africa - were exceptional and beautifully presented. The space created by designer Josef Greeff was a radical departure from general exhibition design, setting a new benchmark for South African exhibition design.

The judges also noted the blend of sophisticated, organic and artistic elements, using a mud-covered designer dress and fashion apparel as art objects. “While on an international level Design Africa breaks from all the clichés about African design: the subtle, muted mood is elegant and truly international.”  

for more information, visit www.designafrica.ca 

There is no doubt that fashion trends have a strong influence on interior design. One of the latest trends emerging from the major international fashion houses is “Soft-Goth”. A dark, glamorous bedroom interpreting this trend won By Dezign Interiors the Sanlam/Visi Style Shapers Award at Decorex Joburg.

By Dezign’s winning bedroom successfully took the mystery of Goth and softened it with luxurious textures and sumptuous velvets. Strands of gold and silver reflected warmth and light, creating a romantic mood full of passion and seductive elegance.

The winning Styler Shapers, Claire Clarke and Bianca Shakinovsky, developed a look reflecting romance and sophistication, which is bold and sexy – and elegant at the same time. “We wanted to capture the ancient mysterious spirit of Africa and combine it with the latest international fashion trends.”

Soft Goth Shapes Style:
Quick fire questions to Claire Clarke + Bianca Shakinovsky:
Q: Your creative vision?
A: To bring comfort + luxe to modern living.
Q: Big achievement?
A: To be nominated Condé Nast H&G Top 50 SA interior decorators.
Q: Your design mantra?
A: Blend old and new, traditional and sleek, geometric shapes. Texture, layers + contrast,
     hard materials against soft, shiny against matt.
Q: Top tip?
A: Space comes to life with shine.
Q: Can’t live without?
A: Our Barry from Curtain Couture / our range of Di Toscana Italian bamboo towels and
     gowns.

For more information, visit www.bydezign.co.za 

“There are connoisseurs of blue just as there are connoisseurs of wine.” The words of the French novelist Colette can just as well describe Aboubakar Fofana’s intense passion for the ultimate of blues: indigo.

There is a mysterious, spiritual quality about the ancient art of indigo. It embraces the very essence of Africa – her soil, water, air and people. Aboubakar Fofana, Calligrapher, artist and textile designer was one of the continent’s design heroes represented at the award-winning Design Africa stand at Decorex. His reinterpretation of indigo infuses this blue magic with a new vitality and a contemporary aesthetic.

Fofana was born in Bamako (Mali) in 1967 and has lived in France for two decades. He returns to his atelier in Mali, creating sublime indigo designs on organic cloth, personally nurturing its birth from plant to finished product.

The collection of hand-spun woven dyed-stitched pieces in the Design Africa range includes sheer veils, elegant sarongs, dramatic table runners and striking furnishings.

From where this resurgence in African design and rediscovery of ancient techniques such as indigo? Modern design can be stale, making the Western world yearn for the exotic and the handmade.

Reporting on Fofana’s recent exhibition in the International Interior Design Show in Montrial, Danny Sinopoli (Globeand mail.com), writes: “A hot desert wind has been blowing through the design world, bringing the colours, motifs and magic of the region to trendy interiors everywhere.” Fofana, whose beautiful hand-spun textiles caught the eye of Paris's fashion houses, was a highlight of the third annual African-design exhibit. Sinopoli continued:

“Fofana’s appearance followed on the footsteps of similar showcases in Miami, Paris and Milan, where companies and designers such as David Adjaye of Britain, Zenza of the Netherlands and Istanbul-born Arzu Firuz of France wowed showgoers with their desert-inspired furniture, perforated pendant lamps and graphic vinyl floor mats respectively.

Picking up on the trend and adding his own twist, the popular American furniture and housewares designer Jonathan Adler augmented his product line recently with a lattice-like rug pattern called Marrakesh.”

In the artistic hands of Fofana, indigo sees a rebirth – retaining its ancient allure, but shaped for the 21st century. His project Sublime indigo - Japan, France, Mali,won him a Villa Medici / AFAA award in 2000, which allowed him to work and study with Japanese master dyer Masakazu AKIYAMA, deepening his knowledge of Japanese dyeing techniques.

He started his textile workshop in Barnako, Mali with 6 vats of indigo; making a huge contribution to reviving the indigo plant in West Africa, whose use was gradually abandoned in favor of chemical dyes, with disastrous environmental consequences. His first collection of indigo products was introduced in November 2003 in Paris.

• For more information on the indigo process, visit www.aboubakar-fofana.com.
• Recommended reading for colour aficionados: The book ‘COLOUR, travels through the paintbox’, by Victoria Finlay (published by Sceptre) uncovers the secrets of pigments and dyes, from indigo to ochre.

At the award ceremony Cairey Slater, general manager exhibitions, noted that the excesses of the 1980s and the style-first approach of the 1990s have been replaced by the era of emotion-in-design:

“What people want now is to make emotional connections and to be surrounded by things that mean something. More than ever we want to be comforted by beauty, by quality, great craftsmanship and eco-conscious design. The successful exhibitor understands that we live in the Age of Aesthetics, and that good design transforms both culture and economy. The winners offer that x-factor that draws us in on an emotional level, turning a blank canvas and empty stand spaces into something distinctive that made the heart beat faster.”

Category: Best Overall Stand on Show:
Winner - Design Africa (stand designer – Josef Greeff)

Category - Gold Awards: Strey Architects; Laurie Owen Interiors; Khaya Interior Studio; Marble Classic; Imiso Ceramics, LIV Design / Edge 9; Stone Connection; SieMatic by German Kitchens & Appliances; By Dezign Interiors (also won the Sanlam/VISI Style Shaper design competition).

Category - Silver Awards:
 SA Garden / Tuin Paleis; Abacus Gardens; IID (the South African Institute of Interior Design Professions) ; Craftsteel; @homelivingspace (also won Green Award); Italtile; Flamingo Upholsters; Classic Trading; Rhoms Timberworld; Forest Flooring.

Category - Bronze Awards:
Elle Decoration; SA Décor & Design; Ambiente Luce; Feast de Renaissance; Farmhouse Kitchens; SMEG Appliances; Castelyn Berg; Steel Rooster; Real Simple; Simply Freestanding; Antique Bathrooms; Cobra Watertech.

SANLAM/VISI STYLE SHAPERS DESIGN COMPETITION
Winner: Claire Clarke and Bianca Shakinovsky of By Dezign Interiors.

The handmade is the mother tongue of a new South African design language, blending the urban with the organic, the neo with the natural, and the sophisticated with the rustic. The rich diversity of crafters fills the country’s national treasure trove with heartfelt traditional pieces, witty objects and highly collectable once-off creations.

Co-located alongside Decorex as a dti-initiative the South African Handmade Collection craft trade show shaped handmade craft into a contemporary form and introduced it to this high design show environment. As a brand this definitive collection represents the highest quality, design led, and well manufactured, environmentally friendly South African craft products, conforming to fair trade practices. Each work in this collection represented a strategic step taken by its creator towards becoming a successful local entrepreneur and exporter.

The exhibition included a special pavilion for Craft IKons, including Elliott Mkhize, Thembi Nala and Rebecca Matibe.

A show stopper was the signature stand by renowned interior designer Stephen Falcke, incorporating craft pieces he selected from the SA Handmade Collection with modern designer items. Here a group of white giraffe wood carvings were used to illustrate how craft has moved from the curio category into high design. A fresh, bright apple green colour palette brought a touch of humour to the interior.

Winning the award as the best craft product on show was Woomen, the highly collectable range of handcrafted soft toys for adults and kids created by Pete and Elaine Woodbridge of Cape Town. These wacky creatures have international appeal and are bound to become cult classics.

DECOREX CAPE TOWN
Celebrating ten years in the city of design chic with a never-seen-before line-up of interactive projects. Record-breaking five-time winner of EXSA Award as the country’s best exhibition of its kind.
25 - 28 April 2008
Cape Town International Convention Centre, Cape Town
www.decorex.co.za

DECOREX JOBURG
Southern Africa’s foremost showcase of sheer excellence. Decorex Johannesburg debuts the exciting, challenging - sometimes contradictory trends - shaping the future.
30 July - 03 August 2008
Gallagher Estate, Midrand
www.decorex.co.za

Media partner