Top Fall Trends

Amy Lau

Excerpted from New York Living Magazine:

Named one of the "the Next Garde" in decorating by New York magazine this year, and cofounder of the Design Miami Fair, Amy Lau had just returned from the Basel show when we caught up with her. Bubbling with excitement about all she had seen, she began by saying, "People are celebrating pure, experimental color… asking for bright citron and purple, colors from nature, only heightened."

"Organic is the word of the moment, with everything for the home inspired by nature," she says. "From tables and chandeliers that reference trees to legs in animal forms and leaf-like chairs, textiles and carpets—it's everywhere."

Also desired is anything rare and difficult to find, she says, citing California Studio Craft one-offs from the Sixties and Seventies; modernist furniture from Scandanavia and France made of oak, less prevalent than teak or walnut; and anything by the midcentury masters. Newly fabricated, but uncommon, therefore coveted, are "limited editions, usually made in groups of 5, 8, 12 or 20," like her mirror on the previous page. The third group possessing this cachet, she says, is such old materials as flocked urethane and micara, the precursor to Bakelite and celluloid, when used in new ways.

Shine is complementing these materials and natural forms, she says, and points to Arik Levy's stainless-steel tables polished to a mirror-like finish; enamel, as done on her bedside tables, loving it because the glass-on-copper process "grabs the color," and "like never before, antique-looking brass, matte and shiny, especially for lighting, bathroom fixtures and furniture details."

Lau sees increased at-home entertaining, making powder rooms and "larger kitchen islands, as beautiful as furniture," more frequent request. As for the next best thing, she says it's "art furniture, or as some call it, design art." With the boundary between art and design blurred, the consumer is unsure as to what it is, or what to do with it. Perhaps that's the reason she and others say "curating" is a growing trend in their business.