The trend theme of the AW 2010 Formex Fair and Exhibition is now realeased: it’s HAPPY!  Next professional meeting for nordic design will take place August 12-15, 2010.  It will be gathered around “togetherness”;  to bake together, make things together, cook, go out, work, relax and share our experiences via facebook, blog and tweets – conversation and interaction between people is what makes life worth living. The theme encourage us to come up with new traditions, give friends and family unexpected compliments and lower our guards. To feel the optimism in the changing times and have an elegant glass of bubbly on Tuesday and a slow-cooked meal on Thursday. Sounds jolly fun to me!

As for home decor trends the upcoming season, trend theme states:

Simple furnishings, no showing off. Go with what you like in a delightfully personal, slightly crazy mix. Get rid of any burdens. We furnish our homes to match our way of life; loves, impulse purchases, faithful companions and old memories combined with brand new and home-made items. Country accessories mix with urban influences. Handicrafts and a studio feel are still super-current. For colours, look for 1950s pastels and bolder colours. Delicate patterns, checks, stripes and flowers, with shades of grey as a base.

Formex, by virtue of its size and impact, usually have a nose for trends. To not say, set trends. I am *happy* with the direction mapped out in the autumn theme. It’s a spin on what is trendy right now, adding an extra scoop of freedom, friendliness and optimism.

We tend to always keep an eye on the Swedish Formex fair. It is the largest trade fair for Nordic interior design – and a great roadmap for how the trend-winds blow. Here are some (press-) pictures from the currently ongoing exhibition.

The overarching theme for the SS 2010 fair is Creative Flow.

..is the trend theme of the Spring 2010 Formex Fair and Exhibition. Current season, AW 2009, Formex took us on a fashionable journey back to yesteryear. From the window of a respectably-furnished train carriage we saw the 1940s and 50s, literature, maps and globes. The colour scale included olive green, orange, tomato, rust and muted yellow. The trend theme was Vintage Travel. Now, for the light season ahead, Nordic designers gather round the theme Creative Flow. Spring 2010 Formex fair will take place January 21-24, 2010.

The outline says cautious optimism and a desire for change create considerable scope for creativity. So what’s the setting this time? Rooms…places where people go to create. Workrooms and studios of designers and creators, may it be an industrial premise, converted shops or loft spaces, the gardener’s greenhouse, the author’s den or the artist’s studio. Or rooms where creativity and living space merge: The kitchen table becomes a sewing corner; the living room a painter’s studio. Some key words on this trend theme: Natural, raw surfaces blend with bright colours and high finish. Poppy primary colours meet muted earthy naturals. The feeling is sophisticated, but also very relaxed. I like it! Creative flow is exactly what I need. Not only because I am planning how to arrange and furnish our new home (I have lots of flow on that part!), no, because I have some creative job to do. For-a-living. I need to find the flow. My study room/home office in the new flat will be given the best circumstances to stimulate this. My chioce of creative colour for the walls is obvious. It’s a blue hue. The blue on the pic below (from DAY Birger et Mikkelsen) is very similiar to the colour I’m after.

To determine the colour on the pic (to make paint-shopping easier) I tried the programmes Color Capture and Color Snap (iPhone app-versions). To my great satisfaction the hues closest were called Refuge, Stillwater and Sea Reflections. I know nothing more creativity-stimulating than the sea, the great blue ocean. In order to be creative in a concentrated way, I need calm and serenity. Like the view of an open, calm sea. Noise creates ideas, waves challenges ideas, but for creativeness to flow the sea needs to be still. Shades of blue brings me peace and enliven my creative spirit. I will combine the sea-reflecting cold blue walls in my refuge with velvet curtains in a warm copper-rust-orange hue, hung on a white-painted birch tree branch. I will rest my head in a black daybed, and have all books arranged in white bookshelves. I’ll post a photo when it’s done!

What is a creative environment to You? How do You arrange a room or space to spark creativity?

This weekend the Formex Fair and Exhibition is taking place in Stockholm. It is the largest trade fair for Nordic interior design with around 24,000 national and international professional visitors.

This autumn’s trend theme, Vintage Travel, is presented as a fashionable journey back to yesteryear. It wants to take visitors back to a more glamorous Europe, more specifically by means of a respectably-furnished train carriage with plush-covered seats, an elegant lamp in the window, own compartment and a glorious, old-fashioned restaurant car with white linens and waiters. A lot like taking the train in an old Hitchcock movie, they say (!).

Anyway, the train has a destination and or at least some kind of a route. Quite a few directions are given: It will go back to places comme il faut in the 1940s and 50s: like Venice, Rimini, the French Riviera, or ski resorts such as Wengen and St. Moritz and we will escape into literature appropriate to the era. Maps and globes are essentials. The colour scale is green (olive green tones) with orange, tomato red and rust as contrasts along with a muted yellow. Those coulours go well with the former mentioned Pantone AW2009 palette, don’t they?

On the fashion side, they want us to picture the fashions of the 1940s and 50s with hats, gloves, boas and fur collars and inspiration is derived from remakes of classics such as “Brideshead Revisited” and “Changeling“. Uniforms, not only military, but also those of the chauffeur, station master, and coach driver provide inspiration. The style is dressed and strict and medals, sashes, emblems and embroidery are important.

In interior decorating, surroundings are cosy, with upholstered furniture, rugs and lots of textiles. A great deal of intricate detail can be found, as well as a mixture of vintage and contemporary. People read books, according to the Formex autumn trend theme! We jot notes in elegant notebooks and on small correspondence cards, and from time to time we may even write a letter by hand.

To close the report, Angelina Jolie as Christine Collins in Changeling, and Matthew Goode as Sebastian Flyte in Brideshead Revistited. Photos from imdb.com. Now who doesn’t want to jump on this good-old fashion train?