Hot new interiors trends: the London brands taking Paris by storm at quirky design show Déco Off

London brands are forging ahead at Paris’s offbeat design extravaganza. Check out the hot new interiors trends, from oversize blooms to craft, abstract and an Italian art house mash-up.
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Barbara Chandler18 January 2019

The quirky and fabulous Déco Off interiors show opened its doors in Paris on Thursday 17 January. The 10th edition, it runs until Monday and is open free to all with the late night on Saturday to 11pm. That’s Paris for you.

Bustling and friendly, it fills an ancient tangle of showrooms and pop-ups around two quaint streets on opposing sides of the Seine.

Visitors include store buyers, interior designers and lovers of home design the world over. London brands are out in force and there’s a lot to be proud of in terms of originality, variety and expertise.

From Japanese woodcuts and brutalist buildings to studio ceramics, greenhouse gardening or a Russian palace, each collection has a unique take.

From Clarke & Clarke’s new Exotica range: curtains, Tropical in Citron, £55 per metre; sofa in Passiflora Kingfisher, £39/m; cushion in Palma Citron, £40/m; footstool in Kauai Kingfisher, £29/m; armchair in Botany Tropical, £25/m (clarke-clarke.com)

You don’t just buy a pattern, you buy into a story, with endless options for layering papers, prints, weaves and trimmings. Designers have done the hard work so that decorating is a doddle.

Interiors style from the UK

New designs from the UK are simultaneously on sale in Paris and London, and Style Library is pulling out the stops. This umbrella brand has a clutch of décor labels, from Sanderson, so quintessentially English, to the more exotic Zoffany and treasured Morris & Co. It also includes Scion, Anthology and Harlequin. Its cosy little period showroom on the Rue de Mail goes into a state of siege, as foreign buyers crowd in.

“The Europeans love our heritage and craftsmanship,” says general manager David Butcher, “and no amount of Brexit is going to change that.” Sanderson’s Glasshouse is a glorious riot of big botanicals. At Zoffany, design manager Peter Gomez has turned to art, with Bauhaus abstracts and pencil sketches. Harlequin takes its cue from mid-century pottery studios with its Atelier collection, painting by hand for a feeling of craft.

The tropical trend

The tropical trend is not wilting yet, though it has outgrown kitsch flamingos and overblown blooms. Zanzibar by Scion is a fresh take, amid palms teamed with that brutalist Barbican concrete. Immersed in island life are Lee and Emma Clarke, of Clarke & Clarke, now also part of Style Library. Their Paris pop-up is draped with Exotica: see birds-of-paradise, leaves and flowers on velvet, linen, embroidery and intricate weaves. Colour zings and hums, from kingfisher and teal to softer slate, amethyst, mineral grey and blush.

Star of the Romo group’s Paris showroom is Japanese woodcut artist Katsutoshi Yuasa whose prints on delicate washi paper have morphed into fine-lined abstracts and florals. GP & J Baker are celebrating craftsmanship with handblocks and embroideries. They’ve fittingly called it Artisan.

Pop-up in Paris

Channel-hopping for a Paris pop-up are Tim Butcher and Lizzie Deshayes of Fromental, commandeering an art gallery for an Orient Express, where compartments have glossy wallcoverings redolent of Parisien Art Deco lacquerware.

Bernie de Le Cuona, of Chelsea Harbour and Pimlico Road, is taking over a Paris gallery. Her passion is fine fibres — Belgian linen, soft alpaca from Peru, Mongolian cashmere, Chinese silk and top-notch Australian wool. She went to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg and the Royal Garden in Versailles and then did Wanderlust, 10 new fabrics for discerning decorators everywhere.

Meanwhile, The Rug Company of London is presenting US decorator Martyn Lawrence Bullard.

North London wallpaper wizards Cole & Son, past masters of block printing, are doing fabrics with their best-loved patterns from decades past, plus new surrealistic wallpapers from Italian art house Fornasetti. Paint people Little Greene have added delightful period London wallpapers to their ongoing edit.

Floral design

Think floral, think Designers Guild, ever pushing the petals into something fresh and different. New for spring are bouquets of peonies and ranunculi, hand-painted in photo-realistic detail. “Paris is our second home,” says founder/director Tricia Guild. “We’ve been there for nearly 30 years and France is our oldest export market. The French adore colour, florals, print and pattern.”

Huge wallpaper panels with two 3m drops on a roll look more like murals than conventional wallpaper with its evident repeat patterns. This is a burgeoning trend, which you’ll also find at Osborne & Little, currently celebrating 50 years in business. Its stunning wallpanels will make an instant bower of giant orchids and magnolias: “Glamour and style, big-time. The Europeans will love it,” says Graham Noakes, sales and marketing director.