Design meets fashion
Design meets fashion:
By Christian Merieau - Managing Director of Samuel Creations.
Boundaries between Interior Design and Fashion Design are blurring rapidly and I consider that to be a natural and healthy process. I can see two reasons for that:
The design process of both is based on coordinated usage of material, structure and shapes to enhance the basic necessities that are clothing and shelter.Under the influence of fashion and technology, everything is becoming a short lived consumable delivering rapidly a sense of well being, belonging or social identity.
Creating spaces to socially interact, Interior design is deeply enrooted in our modern civilization and it is therefore natural that it follows its trends.
Are interior designers are overshadowed by the new trend to build fashion properties?
Fashion designers such as Armani, Versace, Kenzo, Missoni, Elie Saab and even Jean Paul Gautier are free to design for our industry because they are brands/Icons recognized by the general public but we now see the reverse happening with well known Interior and industrial designers. Philip Strack, Ross Lovegrove, Karim Rashid, Zaha Hadid and Marcel Wanders are now being hired to create fashion accessories and apparels. True talent knows no boundaries and I believe that it is our profession's duty to generate and promote its own Icons that will influence other industries.
Is the trend of designer properties here to stay or is it a fad?
Like any other trend, the trend of "designer properties" will slowly fade to be replaced by new and more and appealing influences.I must, however say that in most hotel properties that Samuel Creations is recently designing (even the most standardized ones), an expectation seem to be recurrent - the desire for more than just comfort or functionality - the craving for a unique life style experience. Right now, Properties branded by Fashion Designer seem provide just that.
Is the trend of designer properties is a good thing, and why?
Frank Alvah Parsons who became in 1910 the president of the now notorious Parsons School for Design was already anticipating a new wave of the Industrial Revolution, and predicted that art and design would soon be inexorably linked together to the engines of industry. Socio-economical event such as the Industrial Revolution have always heavily influenced history of interior design. Why would today be different? The trend of Fashion Designer properties is neither good nor bad. It is one of the new response that some of clients are looking for and as such is it surely serving Interior Design to move forward. Do we question the value of the Louis XV style or of the Arts and Craft movement? No, because it has been a step toward what interior design is today. Fashion Designer properties will surely have the same influence. Furthermore, I am persuaded that the usage of Fashion Icons in Interior Design is going to promote our profession to a broader public and this will be in a long beneficial for us.
