With the Trend Forum, Light+Building will be offering a particularly powerful magnet for architects and interior architects, designers as well as the specialist trade in Frankfurt am Main from 6 to 11 April 2008. In the Foyer, between Halls 5.1 and 6.1 the style studio bora.herke will be presenting the trends for domestic living for 2008/2009 in four different room designs. In the run up to the international trade fair for architecture and technology, Claudia Herke talks about identifying trends, the influences on her work and current tendencies in decorative lighting.
Ms. Herke, what particularly surprising things do you intend to offer visitors at the Trend Forum?
With the four home scenarios we want to show visitors to the Trend Forum which colour series – and more importantly – which materials are going to be of significance next season. In order to create coherent life-style ensembles which count, our style studio looks for very individual solutions for presentations and room concepts. The aim is to stage something genuinely surprising. That is why we combine opposites within a single home scenario and showcase products both from designers who have been known for many years and from newcomers, too. Visitors see items of furniture and lighting products modified in such a way as to enable the trends to be readily recognised.
Why are there four home scenarios?
Cem Bora, Annetta Palmisano and I have this year filtered out four major, substantial themes, which can stand independently. Behind these four worlds of colour and mood are the four descriptive clusters: "purist, clear, minimalist", "natural, organic, technological", "decorative, modern, reduced, elegant" and "bold, monochrome, neon, intense, graphic".
How do trends emerge? What is your source of inspiration in your search for trends?
Trends are there, you just have to see them. In order to distinguish them, we take our inspiration from a large number of influences: from fashion and art, exhibitions, trade fairs and publications. Our job as a style studio is to filter out some major themes from the multiplicity of possibilities that the market offers. In our search, we look carefully at the world of fashion, because trends in this sector are recognisable at an early stage. Of course, we need to know how the new fashion ideas are to be read, in order to identify those that really have a chance of becoming a trend.
So trends have their source in the fashion sector?
One cannot entirely say that. But the initial formulation of a trend prognosis, which firms use as a guide for developing their collections, comes from fashion. For years we established trend prognoses for the clothing fairs, then moved via Heimtextil into the field of interior decoration and hence to other trade fairs such as Light+Building.
Is your job of seeking out trends not a very subjective business?
When you have been observing trends as long as we have, you acquire a certain objectivity. We have simply just developed a feel for what will catch on.
You organise trend forums worldwide. Are there any differences between a trend forum in, say, Buenos Aires and Frankfurt?
We have learned to approach markets differently, whilst at the same time our trend predictions are always on a global scale. However, the way we present things and the balance within the staging of a particular room is always different.
Why is Light+Building a particularly good platform for your trend forum?
It is precisely because we go in for global pronouncements on trends, that Light+Building, as the world's leading trade fair, is particularly suitable for our trend forum. Light+Building showcases some very beautiful and interesting products and is a platform which gives interior designers and architects some super inspiration. And, with our home scenarios, we can give these visitors some additional inspirational ideas, by presenting decorative luminaires in the context of a particular ambience, set in a particular room. It is really impressive what one can do with lighting to create and change a setting and how many ways there are in which light can be used.
Sustainability is a buzz word – how has this notion influenced the way in which you have designed and created the room settings?
Sustainability is one of the factors influencing the creation of our home scenarios, and one of the things that determines our selection of products, as, for example, we pay more attention to products with a long life span.
How, in concrete terms, is this theme reflected in one of your home scenarios at Light+Building 2008?
In our lifestyle world entitled "Vegetal Technology" visitors can see a room with shapes and materials inspired by nature. It is interesting how much nature has to offer in the way of inspiration for the implementation of technology. At all events, sustainability for us is an over-arching theme, which plays a major role in all our home scenarios, but the "Vegetal Technology" ensemble is the one where it best finds expression.
What tendencies are there as far as lighting is concerned, particularly in terms of decorative lighting?
Quite a major trend is the unbelievable enthusiasm for experimentation as far as luminaires are concerned. There are many new ideas in terms of form and materials processing. Other trends are the very reductionist, purist designs, whereby materials tend to be mostly metallic and highly polished and technology is to be presented in conjunction with nature, combining a very modern style with natural materials such as wood.
Could one add, as a further tendency, that the boundary between technical and decorative luminaries is less and less in evidence?
Yes, that's right. Decorative luminaires are becoming increasingly functional. And it would be impossible to conceive of our home scenarios without the inclusion of some functional luminaires which have an important influence on our work.
Additional information on bora.herke:
- Internationally famous style studio in Frankfurt am Main
- Since 1990 fashion designers Claudia Herke, Cem Bora and Annetta Palmisano have been arranging and staging international trend shows and exhibitions
- Have been involved in arranging various events on behalf of Messe Frankfurt for ten years
- The work of the style studio also includes the development of visual merchandising in the form of brand profiles, concepts for shop window designs and corporate identity work
- bora.herke develops trend shows, product presentations and showrooms from design to implementation
- www.bora-herke.de
