If there’s one modus vivendi trend that has dominated this past year, it’s eudaimonia. Having featured in additional than thirty million Instagram posts and counting, “wellbeing” and “self-care” have influenced our choice of food, travel, fitness, and beauty and now, increasingly, our home decor, too.
At last week’s London style competition that showcased the new trends and merchandise which will be heading for our homes over the approaching season’s successfulness was a revenant preoccupation.
It’s a theme that’s already making waves on the high street, too: research by John Lewis earlier this year showed that an increasing number of us are using our living rooms to practice yoga and meditation, and the brand is launching wellbeing homeware, such as weighted blankets as an aid to relaxation and mindfulness.
Biophilic design the use of natural materials and colors to bring a sense of connection with nature is trending in everything from paint colors to furniture and homeware brands are focusing on designs that will aid our overall happiness.
Here, then, are three ways to give your home a hug.
In a dovetailing of the concurrent trends for wellbeing and sustainability, natural materials are definitively in, and plastic, unless it’s recycled ocean waste, is out.
At the 100% Design trade fair last week, British furniture company Benchmark debuted its new collection, Sage, by American architect David Rockwell, designed for both the home and the workspace and created with human health and wellbeing in mind.
The tables, seating, and sit-stand desks are made from wood and textured-wool upholstery, with non-toxic finishes and materials such as coir and recycled cotton used as padding, in place of plastic foam. Their rounded forms make them ergonomic and supportive, and comforting, both to use and to look at.
Also at 100% Design, an installation entitled “A Sense of Finland” highlighted the design traditions of the country voted the happiest in the world and explored how a typical Finnish interior in the form of a log cabin furnished with simple wooden furniture, with a soundtrack of calming forest noises playing in the background could promote wellbeing.
The way the interior products we choose can affect the very air we breathe within our own homes has come to the fore this year. Air-cleansing house plants remain hugely popular, eco paints are on the rise, and plastic-free is the new watchword in homeware: The French Bedroom Company has just launched what it says is the UK’s first plastic-free mattress, made from flax, cotton, and wool as opposed to the average mattress, which is apparently 60 percent plastic-based materials.
