The Decorative Trend Forecast
Dear Diva Readers,
top: 5px; float: left; color: white; background: #781300; border: 1px solid darkkhaki; font-size: 100px; line-height: 90px; padding-top: 1px; padding-right: 5px; font-family: times;”>Ever wonder which antiques and vintage items are going to be the next big thing in interior décor? I’m not talking about fads, but trends. What’s the difference? House Beautiful Editor in Chief Newell Turner explains in the January 2011 issue, “Fads come and go, Trends live longer.” The lads and ladies who curate London’s famed Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair recently shared on their website what they see as insider’s tips on the current trends in interior décor. After reading their list I was impressed by how “spot on” their tips were – one look around my own home and office shows how I had already implemented these trends, Antiques Diva® style!
Objects on a Grand Scale
Huge armoires, glass-fronted cabinets, giant mirrors and over-sized lighting have been especially popular this year. In my own home I’ve implemented this look with my giant bulbous living room chandelier! The non-traditional shape and oversized appeal adds wow factor to the room!
Black accents
Be on the lookout for black lamps, small furniture such as ebonized or japanned chairs, desks and occasional tables, and glassware. In The Antiques Diva® office, I have a small chinoised French Napoleon III side table punctuated with black-shaded lamp.
Upholstered furniture is more popular than ever
The Decorative Fair team claims upholstered furniture was flying off the stands at their last fair! Advice I often give clients is that they can actually save money – and “be green” – by buying antique or vintage instead of new. The Decorative Fair explains, “Antique furniture offers better quality value-for-money than new!” Often I see items in furniture stores that cost 3X the price for a new reproduction that it does for an antique or vintage ORIGINAL piece.
Hotel Chic incorporating boudoir glitz and gold
20th C furniture is especially popular in unusual finishes such as parchment, vellum and lacquer, antique Venetian mirrors, and lots of antique gilding – furniture, frames or lamps. You can’t go into a room in my home without coming across one of these items! My bathroom alone incorporates both a gilt stand and a vintage Venetian mirror!
Industrial lighting vs feminine crystal
Top sellers at The Decorative Fair include quirky wall lights, original Anglepoise lamps, modernist glass chandeliers, extravagant antique crystal chandeliers and all kinds of floor-lamps.
In The Antiques Diva® & Co office we juxtapose Baroque chairs with a white table and an über stylish modernist glass chandelier.
Floral and colorful textiles and useful English & Decorative wood furniture
Floral and colorful textiles used as a ‘statement’ in a room: just one piece of upholstered furniture will get the look, or cushions and bed/sofa throws using antique textiles. In The Antiques Diva® office, we set the Diva tone by using flush turquoise velvet with an array of pink silk throw pillows.
Decorative wood furniture that complements wallpaper schemes: chests of drawers, side tables, consoles. The Decorative Fair reminds us, that now is a great time to buy – “Some prices are half what they were in the 1990s.” The English tea table I paired with my turquoise canapé is a functional piece I use daily – plus the dark wood tones down the gilding on the upholstered piece.
Natural history objects as decorative features
Large shells, fossils, antique coral, antlers, and large pieces of polished or natural quartz and semi-precious stones are being snapped up by decorators. In my entrance hall, I use a combination of these elements to create a modern day Curiosity Cabinet type of display using a tortoise shell, a collection of shells gathered on beaches around the world and some old apothecary jars.
Whichever way you choose to implement these decorative trends into your home, do it with Diva- Style! Get ideas and shop for your home décor in our online brocante!
Happy Decorating,
The Antiques Diva®
Diva News Network with Special Guest: Chef in Berlin – Making Tea Time Treats
top:2px;padding-right:5px;font-family:times;”>In this special Diva News Network I invited my good friend Jill DiGiovanni to be a special guest on DNN! Together we’re going to show you some behind the scenes details on preparing some super simple recipes for doing an Afternoon Tea Party – Diva Style! Jill is the brains and beauty behind the international cooking school (and exclusive caterer) Chef in Berlin.
Diva News Network with Special Guest Chef in Berlin
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Happy Entertaining!
The Antiques Diva™
(Photo Credit Right: CrissCross)
PS. I’d love to see how you entertain! Send me some pictures to post on my site of your next tea party! toma@antiquesdiva.com
The Two Toma’s and The Round Top Texas Antiques Show
top:2px;padding-right:5px;font-family:times;”>While you know me as The Antiques Diva™, my friends and family call me by my given name, Toma. It’s an unusual first name and when introducing myself to a new friend it always requires an explanation – “My parents were expecting a boy and were going to name me after my grandfather, Thomas”. Fortunately I have a healthy self-esteem and figure that my parents lucked out in getting me rather than a rotten little boy called Tommy! But imagine my surprise when last December while visiting my father in Durant, Oklahoma I stumbled upon another lady named Toma! Before meeting her, I thought I was the one and only!
Over time, The Other Toma began reading my blogs and before long we became modern-day pen pals, discovering that not only were we name twins but that our interests and hobbies were strikingly similar! She’s an Estate Sale Diva with an incredible network of fabulous haunts in the Midwest USA for antiques, vintage and just plain junk! Lucky for you, she has recently started a blog called toriancobweb.blogspot.com/” target=”_blank”>Victorian Cobweb giving estate sale advice and telling readers about tips and treasures in her “neck of the woods” in southern Oklahoma!
Today she posted such a fabulous tip that I couldn’t let it go unnoticed by Diva Readers! Sadly I’ve never been to this fair, but next year I’m thinking “The Two Toma’s” should do the fair together – Diva Style!
Enjoy!
The Antiques Diva™
P.S. Should you know another “Toma” please do email me – toma@antiquesdiva.com. We might just start our own club with all our exclusive name twins!
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Victorian Cobweb writes:
toptexasantiques.com/” target=”_blank”>Fall Round Top Texas Antiques Showtoriancobweb.blogspot.com/2008/09/fall-round-top-texas-antiques-show.html” target=”_blank”>
Just around the corner is the antiques show of the year for the South Central Region of the United States and……….I’ve Never Been! I’m talking about Round Top – Texas that is. Opens September 30th and closes October 4th this Fall, the Sprtop.jpg”>ing dates are March 31st to April 4, 2009. So mark your calendars and dust off your walking shoes because this is the biggest show this side of the Mississippi!
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Dealers start setting up as early as 3 weeks in advance…. so early shopping would be the ticket to the treasures!
If you are making plans to go this year, keep in mind this late in the year you probably won’t be able to find lodging very nearby (especially considering all the evacuees from Hurricane Ike). But plan now for next spring and fall.
Happy Treasure Hunting!
The Diva Does The Wall Street Journal!
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I’m interrupting my Mediterranean Cruise to post the latest divalicious news… after all, it’s not every day that The Antiques Diva gets name-dropped in the Wall Street Journal. As this month’s “Person in the Know” on Spire, an online social resource, I was recently asked to write a blurb on Doing Belgium, Diva Style. You can read the article on the Spire website. While you’re at it, I’d love to invite you to join – free of charge – as part of my network of friends.
Meanwhile, Robert Frank of the Wall Street Journal has posted on his WSJ blog an informative article about Spire and this new means of social networking targeted towards people who are interested in travel, gourmet food, wine, cultural events, etc. In this article, they mention three “People in the Know” including me, The Antiques Diva™! Click here to read all about it,
Arrivederci!
The Antiques Diva™
