In 2021, the Cologne Fair cancelled the traditional offline exhibition, but in this special year, the Cologne Fair still foretells us the six major trends of the home furnishing industry in 2021.

Natural Luxury（自然简奢）

Natural Luxury does not refer to a trend, but the intersection of two trends. It means to maintain the rhythm of green and environmental protection under the rhythm of light luxury.

If we disassemble the two, it is not difficult for us to find that whether it is light luxury or green environmental protection itself, it is a common topic. But the occasions where they appeared before are often not together.

Carlo Bugatti

Take the furniture brand Bugatti as an example. In the furniture designed by Carlo Bugatti, expensive materials such as ivory, mother-of-pearl, camel skin, and deer skin are often presented with unexpected elements to help his furniture series. Its famous king seat also appeared as an easter egg in the play in the famous alien series "Prometheus".

However, although these luxurious furniture is impressive, it is difficult for the outside world to associate it with environmental protection, especially considering that the material of ivory has been banned internationally.

The Cologne Fair exhibitors believe that in the foreseeable future, natural simplicity and luxury will be the top priority of people's attention.

Natural simple luxury trend keywords: Sustainable,Quality, Soft edge, Nordic, Luxury.

Connected Living（互联生活）

In 1962 and 1964, Marshall McLuhan from Canada created and promoted the concept of the global village in his books Gutenberg Stars: The Birth of a Printing Civilization and Understanding the Media.

Today, nearly half a century later, global village has been further extended into a smart village at the Cologne exhibition.

Cologne Expo believes that this trend is not only on paper or verbal. Smart life, for a long time in the past, was only the imagination on the screen or the exclusive of technology enthusiasts, but as human beings are in this world, with the deepening of research, it is moving in a realistic direction.

Smart village showed us this future lifestyle through the platform of Cologne Exhibition.

Keywords for connected life trends: Smart home, Networking, Building, Services, Fitness, Digitization.

Sharing spaces（共享空间）

Traditionally, our homes will have different design spaces to meet different life needs. But now this situation is gradually changing. For example, the emergence of home office now requires us to integrate this new demand into our living space.

At last year's Orgatec exhibition, many products targeting this trend have actually appeared. Driven by this trend, the functionality of furniture will gradually change.

In addition to sharing office and living spaces, under the same roof, we will increasingly use the same space with different people: for example, Short Stay Apratments will provide a large number of public spaces for different users. 

Shared space trend keywords: Co-living, Short stay, Co-working, HAUS.

Blurring Boundaries(弱化边界)

This weakened boundary mainly refers to the overlap of practicality and style in life, such as work and life at home at the same time.

The Cologne Exhibition believes that, to some extent, the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020 is a perfect interpretation of the overlap between living space and office space.

In addition, the weakening of the boundary is not only reflected in the functional areas, but the gap between the functional areas is also disappearing: the proposition of openness has now attracted more and more attention: this is also the concept of LOFT, which has been reasons for continuous development.

Key words for weakening the boundary trend: Open architecture, Outdoor living, Fusion, LOFT, Home office.

Four Seasons(四季)

This is a trend that focuses more on home decoration: the changes in the surrounding natural environment and the iteration of the seasons have had a big impact on our home decoration. In addition, people display their own decoration styles more frequently on social media, and the original season's influence on human home decoration has been further amplified by the power of technology.

Keywords of the four seasons: Creativity, Decoration, Changing interiors, Inspiring nature, Colour.

Multifunctional(多功能)

While urbanization has brought us convenience in life, it has also increased our living costs. With the reduction of indoor space, we are also more eager for multifunctional furniture.

Under this trend, modular furniture that can be freely disassembled, furniture that can be adjusted in size, length and width, and furniture with storage functions will become a hot commodity in the future market.

Multifunctional trend keywords: Space saving, Modular, Multipurpose, Storage space.

Media opinion

In addition to the six major trends in 2021 officially launched by the Cologne Fair, many media and designers invited by it also expressed their views on the trends of home design in 2021.

Brabara Friedrich, a member of the German Design Association, believes that a major trend in 2021 is New simplicity and New ecology. "The sofas under the German brand Bruhl are more concise in design than what we know as ‘simplicity’. This sofa has only two elements: a structural frame and a cushion."

Bruhl sofa

Bruhl sofa

"The Italian brand Arper's Adell chair series reflects the trend of environmental protection: about 80% of the product itself can be recycled after the end of its life cycle. Home products require not only suitable design, but ingenious materials. It can also make the product shine."

Adell chair

Adell chair

German design magazine Arcade believes that designs that reflect feminism and an optimistic attitude towards life will become a trend in 2021. Represented by the Bloc series designed by designer Pauline Deltour for Established & Sons, these designs emphasize the combination of different colors and geometric shapes, and the products often give people a bright and soft feeling. In addition, considering the COVID-19 epidemic, Arcade stated that working from home is another major trend worthy of attention.

Pauline Deltour

Bloc series

Bloc series

Vivien Cheng, a representative from the Hong Kong, China branch of Hinge magazine, introduced the Tranquebar designed by Boris Berlin.

In her opinion, Tranquebar combines Eastern and Western design elements and is a major design classic product that can maintain its own unique style over the long years. Although the designer of the work has passed away, this does not hinder the endurance of Tranquebar.

After all, the classics are timeless.

Boris Berlin

Tranquebar