"Fashions fade, style is eternal"
- Yves Saint-Laurent

Periodically, I am asked to speak on the subject of trends in design. This has forced me to think about not just coming trends, but what the dominant tastes currently are at each interval. My first time to do this was during the period of the late 1970's/early 1980's when Asian styles were replacing the bright yellow lime and orange palette that had been omnipresent for almost a decade, themselves having replaced the harvest gold/ avocado green era.

Parish Hadley's Peacock Room

Parish Hadley’s famous 1970's peacock blue room

This eastern influence was paralleled by a rust and blue palette which lent itself perfectly to the rage for collecting Japanese Imari porcelain.

Imari Vase

An Imari Vase. Arita, Japan, late 17th Century.

I was really impressed by Asian (then referred to the now politically incorrect term “Oriental”) design. I learned of its many subtle forms and elements cloaked in seeming simplicity. In Japan alone there are five different meanings to the word "beautiful".

Japanese Kanji for Beauty

One of several Japanese kanji meaning beauty.

“Don’t follow trends, start them.”
- Frank Capra

But the great circular globe of style and fashion turns inexorably. Soon, country French and formal, “gilty” French, and then English country house (Ralph Lauren's vision anyway), and then southwestern, and ultimately all things Tuscan, ebbed and flowed in the world of interior design and architecture. For a decade, in a parallel design arc, mid-twentieth century modern and French-flea-market-mirrored-art-deco have been the hot and desirable alongside the heavier, Italian look. There must not be any altar sticks left in Europe after the massive tendency for every new "Italian" style home to be filled with them.

Some of them were even real.

Hayslip Design Associates

image: Hayslip Design Associates

Ten years ago in yet another predictive speaking engagement; with lots of evidence already, I predicted that Tuscan would be the next dominate style as far as traditional looks go. It wasn’t much of a risk to predict that... the clues were everywhere…

Increased travel to Europe introduced thousands of Americans to the glories of Italy. We fell in love with the Tuscan countryside, the charming farmhouses and villas, the colors, textures and wanted to bring those elements home to experience on a daily basis.

“Don't be into trends. Don't make fashion own you. You decide who you are, what you want to express by the way you … live.”
- Gianni Versace

Now I am wondering if the next evolving style rage is revealing itself to be Moroccan style. Again the clues seem everywhere…

In late fall of 2011, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York re-opened a series of renovated galleries focused on the arts of Arab Lands. Turkey, Iran, Morocco, and Central Asia are but a few of the areas represented. Two galleries specifically focus on the art and architecture of Morocco, Northern Africa, and the Mudejar style of Spain: Gallery 456, the Patti Cadby Birch Court and Gallery 457, the Patti Cadby Birch Gallery.

The Patti Cadby Birch Court, based on Moroccan late medieval design, was constructed by craftsmen from Fez as an intimate interior court. Adjacent to the Patti Cadby Birch Gallery for art from Spain, North Africa, and the Western Mediterranean, this “area of repose and quiet reflection underscores the living heritage of the Islamic world. Here, original Nasrid columns define the patio space, and dadoes of custom-made glazed tiles in a traditional pattern frame a fountain that will bring the sound of falling water to the galleries.”

Here is a link to a wonderful article in the design section of the New York Times, discussing the galleries.

Moroccan Craftsmen by Ruth Fremson/ New York Times

Moroccan Craftsmen by Ruth Fremson/ New York Times

image: Ruth Fremson/ New York Times

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Patti Cadby Birch Court

Shelter magazines also appear to have gotten on board the Marrakech Express as well…

Look at the ceiling in this lovely outdoor room from Traditional Home. Its beautiful tile work is reminiscent of the Islamic star patterns so popular in Morocco.

Traditional Home Magazine

image: Traditional Home

This cool, blue space from Veranda incorporates many Moroccan touches… note the ceiling’s lovely lattice design inside the coffers, the table’s arabesque curves, the medallion Ikat on the arm chairs, and the tribal wall coverings.

Veranda Magazine

image: Veranda

Here’s another colorful space, this time from Southern Living, with decidedly Moroccan influences…

a mismatched pair of inlaid tabouret, what looks as if it could be an antique textile upholstering the armless sofa, and vivid pottery with Moroccan motifs on the wall.

Southern Living Magazine

image: Southern Living

Even homes in Dallas are exhibiting Moroccan influences:

Smith Ekblad and Associates

image: Smith Ekblad and Associates

This Turtle Creek home, designed by my husband Cole Smith and his team at Smith Ekblad and Associates, features some key elements drawn from traditional Moroccan architecture:

Smith Ekblad and Associates

image: Smith Ekblad and Associates

In this eclectic home, one enters into a central “atrium” with a shallow pool. All of the rooms extend off this area. In traditional Moroccan architecture, this space is known as a riad, or “garden”. The riad is a tool for both privacy and practicality. It allows for plenty of light in a home that may have few or no outward facing windows, as well as needed shade, since the living rooms are shielded from the sun's direct rays. Also, cooler air can permeate the whole of the dwelling, as the home’s hot air is drawn up through the open ceiling in a chimney-like effect, while the harsher elements are kept out.

In the central garden of traditional riads there are often water fountains or small pools. A water feature at the base of the courtyard serves two purposes. First, it is an obvious focal point, but more importantly, the courtyard's open-air aperture channels breezes entering into the riad which in turn pass over the water feature, cool down, and assist in the convection of heat to exit back through the riad's open-air aperture. This style of natural air-conditioning has been prevalent in Morocco for millennia and is remarkably successful.

While this home’s atrium in not open to the elements, the design intent was that of a traditional riad. But rather than seeing stars glimmering in a deep dessert night, one is treated to sparkling light raining down from a contemporary chandelier.

And my firm designed a very fun bedroom for the young daughter of some dear clients that is infused with the exotic aesthetic of Morocco.

Hayslip Design Associates

image: Hayslip Design Associates

Like something out of One Thousand and One Nights, this fantasy version of a Bedouin tent, with draped silks in jewel tones, sumptuous pillows, and low beds for reclining provided a wonderful, creative space for our client’s daughter to spend her teenage years.

Hayslip Design Associates

image: Hayslip Design Associates

Trend development happens organically, influenced by many things: travel, fashion, art, music.

For example, the Art Nouveau movement of the early 20^th century was relatively short-lived as a design trend and was almost immediately eclipsed by Art Deco, an aesthetic that took its cues from the ziggurat shapes found in ancient Egyptian tombs, like that of King Tutankhamen, discovered in 1922.

Notice a trend?

Giza Pyramid, Egypt

Egypt’s Giza Pyramid Bulgari Art Deco Brooch

“Don’t you know we’re riding on the Marrakech Express…”
- Crosby, Stills and Nash

Cole and I are off again on what will surely be an incredible trip. This time we’re heading for Morocco (what a coincidence), a destination neither of us has previously visited. We’re attending the Design Leadership Summit, put on by Design Investors LLC. It’s our second year attending and we’re looking forward to visiting with all the wonderful designers and architects we met last year, in this incredible new setting.

Love,

Sherry

Posted: April 6, 2012

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