BOLDER COLOURS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20509, 29 August 1936, Page 11

BOLDER COLOURS

INTERIOR DECORATION A change in fashion now taking place in the furnishing fabric trade is one that might soon date homes and colour schemes unless care is exercised in selection of fabrics for curtains and loose covers this season, states the London “Daily Telegraph.” Fashion is moving from pastel shades to bright colours, and it will bring with it fabrics full of personality and beauty, marked by a richness and elegance that has been absent from the folk weaves and indeterminate geometrical designs of which so much has been seen in recent years. This will lead later to a great transformation in thousands of homes all over the country in the next year. It will be more than a mere change in the density of colours. It will have a vital effect on design, and will probably brink back the beauty and elegance that was known to our perhaps too ornate drawing-rooms of sixty years ago. It will be adapted, however, to modern needs and taste. There are many reasons for this change in fashion. We have had a surfeit of pastel shades in the last few years, and many people are beginning to find them somewhat anaemic. Moreover, women are asking for something different that will distinguish their homes from those of nearly all their friends. A West End buyer not long ago gave some advice to furnishing salesmen. His advice and his opinion are always respected in the trade. He told the salesmen that good strong colours that will make a scheme live are to be the thing this year. This movement from the insipid to the elegant is due to the monotony of current styles. The grand touch of years ago is coming back. Personality and individuality are to be the keynotes. Some of the new cream or biscuit ground fabrics, with bright blobs of scarlet and black dotted about them certainly have it. Plain fabrics will be more popular. They will be constructed in such a way that the texture will be plain to be seen. Leaf patterns are increasing in popularity, and will in time lead back to the floral era, in which we may see revivals of roses and lilacs in a modern form. At first the trade will not forsake completely the off-white, biscuit, cream and stone backgrounds. The colour will be in the pattern and the “decoration.” Decoration, by the way, is another recent trend. It covers ideas like the super-imposition of tufts of contrasting colours on to woven fabrics of a different nature.