Textile Trends Debut at Interwoven

While High Point, North Carolina’s semiannual furniture market gets the most shine, the city’s other trade show — the Interwoven textile fair — offers an arguably better glimpse into the future trends of home design.

“The majority of trends start in textiles,” said Jaye Anna Mize, vice president, home and lifestyle, of trend forecasting agency Fashion Snoops. The company partnered with Interwoven to present a gallery of trends impacting the home during the most recent show.

Interwoven, which is put on each May and November by the International Textile Alliance, brings upholstery makers from around the globe to offer their latest designs to furniture manufacturers and interior designers. Those designs represent the trends that will influence the home over the next few seasons.

Here, a look at some of the key trends from the show:

Hot Hues

Color-wise, the warming of the home palette is likely to continue to expand over the next year or two, with some of the more subdued shades that came into prominence during the pandemic stepping aside for bolder interpretations.

“Brights are coming to the forefront,” Mize said. “We’re really grounded in a lot of these pinks and purples, which we haven’t been in for a while — we were more in the mauve pink realm, and now we’re getting into more vibrant coral hues.”

Citrusy shades also play a role in this brighter resurgence.

“I’m loving these limier greens, these brighter pops of yellows,” Mize said. “And we’re continuing the orange conversation from last fall — orange is one of the strongest colors entering the market.”

These bolder hues often are paired with more earthy blues and greens, reflecting the vibrant palette of nature. That color play showed up in Interwoven showrooms such as Milliken, which launched its Spring Garden collection, heavily influenced by flora and fauna.

“With the Spring Garden collection, it’s very bright with a lot of green and blue like leaves and sky, and then the pinks for the flowers,” said Linda Alley, design manager at Milliken. “It’s about brining the outdoors in.”

Neutrals continue their warming trend, taking them farther from the chilly grays of a few years ago and deeper into toasty browns.

“Brownish hues with beautiful creams are coming to the forefront,” Mize said. “We’re getting out of those stark hues and adding some layers to the white conversation. So you’re seeing under-casted purples and pinks that make you feel safe and make you take a breath. Also oranges, lavender-y purple hues, as well as blues and olives bring a more traditional vibe.”

Takes on Texture

Comfort became key during the COVID-19 pandemic, and that desire for coziness still reverberates through home textiles.

“We’re still feeling a lot of unrest and unpredictability mount around the world and we’re led to seek softness in our own lives,” Mize said.

That softness appears in the resurgence of velvets — also big in fashion collections for fall 2023 — and the continued use of novelty yarns such as boucle, as well as in overstuffed silhouettes on upholstered pieces.

“A lot of cloud-like interpretations are coming into prominence,” Mize said. “Sofas and upholstery pieces are almost getting to where they’re huggable, in a sense of things that make you feel ultra comfortable.”

Mize said mixing materials through interweaving has become important, too. That appeared in a number of showrooms at Interwoven, from DeLeo Textiles to Sunbrella, which launched several fabrics featuring a mixture of materials. Of those, Sunbrella’s latest recycled collection created by textile designer Richard Frinier featured a mix of new and renewed yarns.

“One of the key themes you’ll see is this warming up of neutrals and a mixture of textures, whether it’s through weave effects or novelty yarn effects,” said Amy Gillam, design manager at Sunbrella. “It’s something we’ve found consumers want.”

Pattern Play

The softness and warmth influencing color and texture also figure into pattern trends, taking the rigidity out of classics with a more free-flowing interpretation.

“We’ve really come to embrace this fluid state of being that refuses to be defined by binary conventions,” Mize said. “We’re breaking boundaries going forward, and what we’re looking for is joyful celebration in the face of adversity. Mother nature is heavily represented.”

Natural influences figure prominently in home textile pattern trends, but not in an overt way. While florals are definitely having a moment again, natural touches soften more traditional motifs.

“We’re seeing a lot of wispier strokes, particularly in stripes,” Mize said. “Stripes are always present, but they’re a little more organic than before — they’re soft, they’re blended, they’re a little more laid-back.”

Sunbrella offered several fresh interpretations of classic patterns, from stripes to houndstooth, with a softer approach.

“We’re taking classic patterns and reinventing them, and it has a distressed over-dye,” Gillam said.

Circular and swirling patterns appear in a number of ways in home textiles, be they more water-inspired or in the form of celestial motifs.

“Radiant bursts and spherical patterns that symbolize deeply held values as we strive to improve our modern-day balance,” Gillam said. “We talk a lot about circles and concentric design being a healing modality, particularly within prints. We’re seeing a lot of those concentric applications coming through representing things like the moon and other things in nature with symmetry.”

Classic checks are back as well, driven in part by the influence of Generation Z. But today’s checks have a fresher, less structured feel.

“There’s this warm luminescence to the checks,” Mize said. “They’re no longer so strict or so traditional — they’re being broken out and having more of a dye effect or just being brought together with a lot more funky hues.”

Mize said these updated takes on classics represent the changing nature of the trend cycle in the wake of the pandemic, particularly for the home category. Trends such as nostalgia, wellness and comfort have been around for a few seasons now, and Mize said they’re likely to persist as consumers crave subtle updates over wholesale change in the home.

“The trend curve is slowing down,” she said. “We went through COVID-19 and redecorated our homes. We’ve got our staples, so what we’re looking for now is to add a little something without necessarily reinventing the wheel.”