Design Redefined: At the Las Vegas Furniture Market

Hello, This is our first column of “Design Redefined”, a monthly article we hope will bring you valuable design information. In January, I attended the 2016 Las Vegas Furniture Market. It features furniture and accessories from thousands of trend setting vendors and is such an exciting time! I brought one of my newest designers with me. She was in awe of the variety and sheer magnitude of the buildings that house all levels of design from low to high-end and transitional to modern. Notice I did not say traditional – I purposely left this out because I did not see the traditional furniture you might see on Downton Abbey and that many of us grew up with and inherited. Even though industry statistics say that traditional is right behind modern in sales, I saw very little. Blue and white Chinese and Dutch porcelains lamps, jars and vases, as well as a few paintings made an appearance, but not much was truly traditional.

What did we see and what do we see trending? Grey is still in. We saw grey in wood furniture, upholstery and amazing rugs and wall art. Other popular colors were dark blue, teal, orange, pink, purple and multi-color patterns. Gold is back too! Not brassy, but the glamorous, rich, gold leaf look. It is often mixed with white and I personally loved what I saw.

Post -Modern Design is certainly trending (think Mad Men set but better) and we saw some amazing selections.  Dynamic wall art was also a big category with amazing mirrors, metal wall pieces, framed art canvases, wood and alternative art décor that can be custom designed per client. The most beautiful piece we saw was at Global Views , one of our favorite vendors. It is a small side table made of Malachite. It costs a fortune and I wish I had won the lottery so I could own it!  However, one thing I know is that with or without deep pockets there is a way to create a great design for every space.