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This month Clair Strong talks us through her key interior design trend predictions for 2023
We have started 2023 with a lot of uncertainty in the world and the cost of living is a top concern for many of us. We spent a lot of time at home during the pandemic – they were our sanctuaries as well as our offices, schools and gyms. This year it’s about bringing joy back into our homes and looking to a brighter future. In 2023 it’s all about using earthy colours, embracing our vintage pieces, arranging our new larders and enjoying me-time in our spathrooms.
Clair Strong
Farrow and Ball
Earthy tones
Earthy colours like chocolate brown, claret red, olive green, ochre and saffron yellow will take the place of cooler colours like blues and greys. These warm and engaging earthy colours are rooted in nature and help create a sense of calm and make our homes feel cosy and inviting in these uncertain times.
Lick's director of interior design, Tash Bradley, described the feel of the 2023 colour palette as "connecting you to nature and being very grounded. Sustainable slow living is what people are moving towards."
Joa Studholm, Farrow & Ball’s colour curator agrees, “There is a move away from the harder grey tones so beloved for the last decade to those that feel kinder and warmer.”
I love this new trend for earthy tones; they feel fresh and modern. The combination of a rich chocolate brown and a soft dusty pink looks soft and gentle without being overly feminine. Rich oxblood and terracotta reds also work wonderfully with this palette.
Natural materials
During the pandemic we all sought to strengthen our connection with nature. Earthy textures, organic natural shapes, raw materials, and greenery continue to add depth and soul to our homes this year.
Natural materials and tactile textures in calming neutral shades are durable, environmentally friendly and look stylish. Whatever your interior design style, there is a natural material that will look amazing. Rattan and wicker used to be a material you would only see in baskets, but nowadays they are so on trend, there are stylish rattan and wicker pieces everywhere to give you a fresh bohemian style. Popular for the laid back Scandi vibe, mix rattan and wicker with white walls and bright accessories for a modern contemporary look.
Modern Maximalism
The antithesis to minimalism, maximalism is brash, bold and over the top. Minimalism is always less is more, whereas maximalism is more is more - it’s a movement defined by abundance and excess, so think clashing prints, bright colours and plenty of fun accessories.
The look can be rooted in 1980s excess, eclectic English country homes or a 1920 bohemian vibe. Modern maximalism is a more measured approach to the style. It takes careful planning and a good eye to create an overall effect that expresses creative flair.
Modern maximalism is full of pattern and personality but is less chaotic and more considered and streamlined. Modern maximalism doesn’t use bright or intense colours – it’s more about moody tones or using tone on tone hues to create a Soho House style relaxed interior. Patterns are chosen to work with each other rather than to clash. Textures are also key to modern maximalism; throwing tactile sheepskins or blankets on the back of sofas, layering rugs on wooden floors and mixing velvet and slubby linen cushions on chairs will create a space that is cosy and comfortable to live in. Arrange objects to create a layered feel but choose similar colours or materials to design a modern maximalist space.
During the pandemic we all sought to strengthen our connection with nature. Earthy textures, organic natural shapes, raw materials, and greenery continue to add depth and soul to our homes this year.
Soho Home
Green Kitchens
Green, that wonderful colour we associate with freshness and the outdoors is now one of 2023’s top colour trends for the kitchen. Symbolising balance, growth, renewal and harmony, green can be a refreshing, calming and invigorating colour, making it the perfect choice for the hardest working room in the home. Using tones of green creates a sophisticated yet subtle effect, injecting colour into the kitchen without it being overbearing.
From forest green and emerald green to olive and sage, it's not at all surprising that this versatile colour is becoming the go-to hue in the modern kitchen. It’s become a new neutral, working equally well in contemporary and traditional kitchens. Moody dark green kitchens with marble worktops and brass hardware look sophisticated and luxurious, while softer sage green kitchens paired with more natural materials look calm and serene.
A green kitchen doesn't have to mean wall-to-wall colour. There aren't many colours that don't go with green. You can paint your lower cabinets a darker green and keep the higher cabinets and tiling a lighter shade or just introduce green through small appliances such as a toaster, kettle or KitchenAid.
The Cotswold Company
The Hipstoric Home
A ‘hipstoric home’ combines vintage and antique styles with modern trends. Pinterest reports that interest in the hipstoric home trend is reflected in the rise in searches for terms including “eclectic design vintage”, “mixing modern and antique furniture” and “maximalist decor vintage”, which saw up to 850% increases in searches in the last year. Pinterest report, “In 2023, people will find new ways to honour old things in their homes. Got a hand-me-down handy? People are combining vintage - often inherited - pieces with their modern styles. Thanks to the Boomers and Gen X driving these trends, antiques have never looked so chic.”
This year, many of us are looking to find new ways to display or use old things in our homes. Whether it’s an antique cabinet passed down through family or a vintage rug bought in a flea market, we are all looking to shop more sustainably and mix treasured and contemporary items together. It’s all about making your home unique and rejecting mass-produced high street items. You can add charm to your home by upcycling some older pieces with a coat of paint or a new varnish, hanging vintage prints, swapping pieces with friends and family and honing your sewing skills to make cushions and bedspreads with fabric remnants.
Dopamine décor
Dopamine dressing brightened up the 2022 catwalks, with fashion designers showing brightly coloured clothes aimed at uplifting the spirits and sparking joy. Dopamine dressing has now hit the interiors world. But what does it mean?
It’s quite simply all about using colours, patterns and furnishings in your home that make you feel happy. Zesty yellows, hot pinks, brilliant blues, fiery oranges – it’s all about filling your home with colours that give you a big mood boast. Start off small by introducing a colourful art print or some bright cushions and then, as you feel more confident add a colourful geometric rug, a bold wallpaper print or a jewel colour coloured sofa. Using a joyous cocktail of colours is an easy way to add vibrancy and energy to your living space in 2023.
Install a larder
Larders used to be cool dark places to store perishable products before the advent of fridges - every home had one. Nowadays, they are back in fashion as a practical and attractive way of adding storage to our kitchens. Kitchen storage can be a bugbear for almost everyone; no matter how big your kitchen actually is, stuff seems to expand to fill it. Many kitchen designers have now started incorporating freestanding or built-in larders into their schemes and they have become the most covetable kitchen accessory, taking over from the kitchen island. They're the perfect way to store all your dry foods and they also provide handy places to keep small appliances like coffee-makers and food mixers.
You can recycle an old flea market find, have a larder cupboard made bespoke to fit into an alcove or recess, or buy one from a specialist kitchen company. Have fun with colour – your pantry doesn’t have to match the rest of your kitchen! Make it super functional with lots of adjustable shelves, spice racks, baskets you can move around, a wine rack and plenty of hooks. Use lots of pull-out baskets and glass jars so you can see everything easily. Get some chalk paint labels or an old Dynamo machine to make fun labels for your storage containers and you’ll be able to find everything quickly. Larders may have been around for centuries, but it’s great to see them back in 2023.
Embrace the 1970s
Seventies decor and colours are having a revival. As well as seeing more earthy ‘70s shades like terracotta, sage and mustard, you’ll see furniture made of teak, hanging chairs, macrame plant hangers, rattan tables and shag pile rugs in all the most stylish homes this year.
The popularity for mid-century modern furniture is beginning to wane but charity shops are still full of interesting vintage styles from the seventies.
Look for soft shapes and relaxed style seating with plump cushions and tactile fabrics to give a seventies vibe in your sitting room, traditional teak dining chairs for the kitchen, a 1970s style sideboard and String shelving units for your dining room. Psychedelic prints on fabric and wallpaper or some classic album covers framed on the wall are an easy way to dip your toe into the trend if it feels a bit too retro for you.
Wallpaper or painted borders
It’s hard to believe that wallpaper borders, so loved in the 80s and 90s, are back. This time they are much cooler than the Laura Ashley borders of my youth. Use them around door frames, between the walls and ceilings or to create a dado effect in a hallway.
If you don’t want to invest in wallpaper, painted borders are an inexpensive way to play with a room's structure and perspective, and give you the chance to create interesting colour combinations. You can paint architectural features like cornicing, highlight bookshelves or alcoves, hide radiators or turn the ceiling into a fifth wall. Why not try painting the skirting boards in a contrasting colour or paint a border around an internal door? It can be a bold and interesting way to introduce a brighter colour into a muted scheme.
Susie Atkinson
Make a Spathroom
The spathroom – a spa-inspired bathroom – is a huge interior design trend for 2023, driven by the popularity of self-care.
In 2023, we are on a mission to transform our bathrooms into something much more decadent - a luxurious sanctuary where one can soak in the bath at the end of a hard day or even enjoy an at-home sauna.
Bathroom companies are now creating bathroom suites with huge walk-in waterfall showers, Hammams, saunas, Jacuzzi baths and hot tubs. Even small spaces can indulge in rainfall showers or claw foot baths. Sinks come in all shapes and sizes too, so you’re no longer limited to the practical but stylistically unimpressive pedestal basin.
Natural materials like slate and stone look fantastic in the bathroom; they’re style classics, ultra hardy and add an element of cool, spa-like Zen to the room. When you’re finally ready to sink into the bath the last thing you want is to be fighting for space with the kid’s bath toys. For items that need to be close at hand or are worthy of display consider little alcoves cut into the wall to provide a home for soaps and candles.
From spa-like bathrooms, to stylish green kitchens – next year’s interior trends are all about reimagining our spaces and enjoying our homes.
If you are looking to revamp your space, working with an interior designer will really help you use your budget wisely and create a look that feels cohesive, pulled together and will stand the test of time.
As a small, friendly, creative business based in Bath we pride ourselves on offering client-led interior design solutions for all the rooms in your house, from styling for sale and redecoration to complete redesign and refurbishments. We can also design off-plan for those of you with moves ahead.
You can see many of the projects I have worked on since 2006 on my website at www.clairstrong.co.uk or click the buttons below.
