Stacy Garcia Collaborates with Brintons

As a design-led company, we have always embraced the opportunity to work alongside celebrated designers. And the success of our most recent collaboration with Scottish design house, Timorous Beasties, illustrated how external designers can perfectly compliment the work of our talented global design team.

Stacy Garcia, a leading light in the American soft furnishing industry, recently approached Brintons about developing an exclusive Axminster carpet design collection that would compliment her other interior design products. Brintons Global Design Director, John Bain, was only too pleased for the company to become Stacy Garcia's exclusive Axminster manufacturer.

Stacy Garcia works across a number of product groups including wallpaper, window treatments and fabrics and is best known for her innovative design aesthetic and surprising colour combinations.

The first designs from the new Brintons Stacy Garcia collection will be unveiled in May and will reflect Stacy’s colour trend predictions particularly the return of optimistic brights over the coming years, especially red. Red will be particularly bright and influenced by Rio 2016.

Something more unexpected that we can look forward to seeing is softer, more pastel yellow. This will let yellow play a more neutral role.

The leaf shade of green is over-played so green will start to be less literal, we should starting looking towards olive and bright hunter to take its place. Turquoise and ink blues will become the new blue basics and perhaps one of the greatest departures in this scheme is lilac. As deep, royal purple has been the color of the last couple of years, the dramatic lightening of this shade will look fresher than ever.

As for the new classic colours? Look no further than bronze and gray.

Design – What we can expect for 2010?

John Bain, Brinton’s Global Design Director, with over 20 years experience in carpet design and the guiding force behind the Brintons’ global design team, is predicting that we will see some ‘escapist’ glamour kick start this new decade of design, but created in a sophisticated palette. Here’s what he has to say about what we are likely to see in during 2010.

Trend is very important to getting our products in line with customer expectations. “People often seek the comfort and security of familiar colour and design themes in times of recession, but ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ so in a tough economic climate, it is also a great time to take risks, experiment with the new and explore unknown territories.

I like to call it ‘escapist glamour’. Escapist glamour is when designers start taking some risks in an attempt to break free of the doom and gloom that seems to be all pervasive. This will start to become evident with the use of a much brighter and more pure colour palette mixed with the more neutral themes in an attempt to create a splash of drama and to break free of the doldrums.

We may see some experimentation with the use of different surfaces, textures and substrates, for exactly the same reason and particularly to meet the ever-increasing focus on sustainability.

Already bamboo and raffia derived yarns in rugs and broadloom have made their presence felt in mainstream markets in many everyday textiles but this year we’ll see more exciting natural fibers emerge like grass and banana leaf which can turn otherwise waste materials into seriously stunning 100% recyclable products in the right design, colour and texture. It’s all about developing a new way forwards whilst shaping a more eco friendly future.

Continuing with the ‘break with convention’ theme, the clever use of scale and exploration of how pattern can be used in the interior space will continue to be a striking differentiator in public spaces, particular those boutique hotels who often lead the way with more innovative interiors, delivering unique travel experiences and attracting customers with expectations of ‘something special’ from an increasingly design aware and discerning clientele.

The use of over scale images and items has become more common over the past couple of years however I think we may see some designers really going out on a limb and using items in a bold and almost out-of-context scale during 2010.