From pop-culture colours to boho-luxe-Med, here are the key summer interior design trends of 2022
Summer is a time to have fun with design, and there’s a joyous pop mood to 2022’s summer season – an expression perhaps of the prospect of greater social freedom, not to mention warmer weather. Counterbalancing this is a desire for outdoor furniture evoking a boho-deluxe Mediterranean lifestyle. Here are five key summer interior design trends that should be on your radar:
Outdoor furniture
A major – and rather grown-up – trend this summer is for outdoor furniture designed to be so comfortable and stylish that it’s indistinguishable from its indoor counterparts. Milan brand Ethimo, which celebrates outdoor Mediterranean living, showcased its collection Calipso at Clerkenwell Design Week (CDW) in May. This elegantly minimal but super-comfortable line teams a teak base with soft cushions that appear to hover in the air, supported as they are by an unobtrusive aluminium frame.
Perforated metal furniture
One mini-trend this year is for perforated metal furniture – a particularly practical form of outdoor furniture since its perforations make it light and easy to move around. Brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec created their thoroughly modern Balcony collection for Danish company Hay. Its powder-coated steel chairs, tables and benches have punched-out circles forming even patterns, and come in forest green and an offbeat scorched-earth brown, among other cool colours. One iconic forebear of the trend is the portable, stackable, high-tech Omstak chair, designed by Rodney Kinsman in 1972 and made today by Omstak 1965. It’s available in ultra-pop apple green, fire-engine red and egg-yolk yellow.
Eye-poppingly colourful interiors
Unapologetically colourful interiors are a hot trend, their splashy hues perfectly suited to sunnier days. Edinburgh-based interior designer Sam Buckley has no qualms in juxtaposing such colours as salmon pink, sunshine yellow and air-force blue in the same room, as evidenced by the project pictured – the Edinburgh apartment of a computer game designer. Buckley is hugely inspired by supergraphics – supersized graphic motifs emblazoned on the interior or exterior of buildings – and in particular, those by artists Felice Varini and Georges Rousse depicting distorted architectural perspectives or dazzling optical illusions.
Gabriella Crespi’s rattan
Rattan furniture is enjoying a big revival, so it’s fitting that one of its key advocates – Milanese designer Gabriella Crespi – is in the spotlight now. She’s a cult figure in avant-garde Milanese design circles – ultra-hip Dimore Studio has included her rattan and bamboo pieces in its installations during The Milan Furniture Fair. Now Danish brand GUBI has joined forces with Crespi’s daughter Elisabetta Crespi to reproduce her Bohemian 72 collection – a lounge chair, three-seater sofa, ottoman and floor lamp – made of tubular rattan canes topped with generously plump cushions. It was originally conceived as part of the designer’s Bamboo collection, dreamt up between 1972 and 1975.
Mushroom lamps
One overarching trend this year is for curvilinear forms, as illustrated by other designs featured above. Another facet of this vogue is a micro-trend for mushroom-shaped lamps. This particularly cute example – the Pao light by Naoto Fukasawa for Hay, available from SCP – is inspired not by the humble shroom but by traditional Mongolian pao tents when illuminated at night. Portable, compact, and boasting a durable, glossy polycarbonate finish, it’s suitable for indoor or outdoor use.
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