Style trend 2024 Gentle Paradox: contrasting interior
Every year, the Flower Council develops several style trends for the horticulture sector, collaborating with Tuinbranche Nederland, iBulb, INretail, and Bureau Nijman + Van Haaster. The Green Industry Trends for 2024 consist of four style trends that focus on flowers, indoor plants, and outdoor plants. In this article, we will explore the style trend Gentle Paradox, which places contrast within interior design at its core. Keep reading to get inspired!
Style Trend 2024: Gentle Paradox
Gentle Paradox is all about contrast. In a calm interior, we find an abundance of round and soft shapes, with furniture that is sometimes made of unexpectedly hard materials. Hard, smooth materials alternate with soft structures, as if trying to soften the hard reality. The core values of this trend are dreamy, soft and hard, rich in contrast, surprising, boundless, light, romantic, and friendly.
Gentle Paradox in interior design
Within the Gentle Paradox style trend, the predominant shapes are round and spherical. Many of the products consist of a single compact shape without any individual details, with components appearing to have grown together or merged into one. There is an interchange between hard and soft materials. Materials such as marble, concrete, ceramics, plastic, baked tiles and natural stone are common elements, alternating with high-pile carpets on floors and walls. Textiles also play a role, from pleated and ribbed to bouclé. In terms of patterns, the sky’s the limit, with everything from romantic floral patterns to abstract designs.
The Gentle Paradox colour palette is soft and conveys a sense of tranquillity and harmony. Neutral colours and pastel shades alternate with a warm cognac colour. Green hues are mostly found in flowers and plants. Flowers often help soften a space and make it more ‘dreamy’. For example, placing arrangements in corners or on the floor, against the wall. Arrangements are ‘cloudy’, often with transparent edges and also featuring dried flowers. Individual flowers add a sense of softness with their shape or subtly overflowing colours. For plants, a transparent character and soft leaves, in terms of colour and texture, are also important.
Gentle Paradox in the Garden
Outdoors, we also see a contrast between hard and soft elements. Round shapes appear in garden furniture, on terraces and on borders. The garden is dominated by circular shapes, kidney shapes and oval shapes that remind us of shingles or stones. Contrast is created by using rounded shapes and hard materials. In terms of plants, we also see an exciting interplay between compact, hard plants and soft, swaying grasses and cloud-like plants. Green plants are planted alongside flowering vegetation in pastel tints. The latter reinforces the dreamlike image that we also see in the interior.
