Walls Get in Step with Fashion

Fashion and home décor trends are so closely aligned now that we can add a favorite new look or color scheme to both our wardrobes and our homes at the same time. One day you’re shopping for shoes in the hottest color and the next day you find yourself reaching for throw pillows in a matching shade.

In fact, if you’re gearing up to decorate, fashion is a great place to look for some of the key trends that are proving to have staying power at home: lace, black-and-white, gingham and bohemian looks. Fashion and home products designers are reworking these familiar favorites and turning them into something new and exciting. These looks are finding expression in today’s most inspired wallpaper designs — an affordable and beautiful way to revitalize a tired-looking room. Since the new easy-hang wallpapers — called non-woven wallpapers — are much easier to hang and even easier to remove, you can try a trend without fear of living with it forever.

Lace updates its delicate femininity and now goes boldly where it hasn’t before in both fashion and home. It may appear as a lace insert running down a pant leg or a sheer overlay to a form-fitting dress in a contrasting bright color. In wallpaper that translates to larger-than-life lace stripes with color peeking through the pattern. In other designs, lace goes vintage and looks as if it has been worn away by time.

The combination of black and white never really goes out of style, but now it’s given unexpected twists. It’s about breaking the rules, like wearing a bold black belt with a delicate white dress. On the wall, it means taking traditional motifs such as botanicals, birds and damasks that are more typically found in an array of colors, and offering the patterns in stark black and white for a surprisingly modern mood. “The clarity of black and white gives almost any timeworn wallpaper pattern a kick in the pants,” says Mitchell Owens, senior interior design editor of Traditional Home magazine. “The new generation of homeowners appreciates classic motifs, but wants them interpreted in a fresh, youthful manner.”

Long a country decorating staple, gingham has always played it a little safe. Now, the classic check grows more bold and confident in color and scale. Look for ginghams in eye-popping sorbet colors such as pink, green and orange. In other wallpaper patterns, large checks seem to ripple like fabric, adding a delightful softness to the graphic look.

Bohemian looks in all their embellished glory have been among the most enduring trends in fashion for several seasons and are still going strong. Not defined by any one particular style, Bohemian blends together different cultures and eras to create an intriguing mosaic of patterns. Whether it’s an embroidered peasant skirt or wallpaper patterns inspired by Moroccan tiles and Indian paisleys, it’s all about easy living, mixing and matching, layering and an “anything goes” attitude, which really makes for foolproof dressing and decorating.

To learn more about incorporating these and other trends into your home with wallpaper, visit www.wallcoverings.org, then click on Wallpaper How-to.

Courtesy of ARA Content