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| Heimtextil 2015: amazing range of new textile design products  Showcased at Heimtextil in Frankfurt am Main were the new designs and technical developments for the soft furnishings of tomorrow. From 14 to 17 January, 2,759 exhibitors from all corners of the globe showcased which fabrics, colours, patterns and shapes will be the hot commodities for the coming season. "As the leading international trade fair for home and contract textiles, Heimtextil once again impressed everyone as the world's largest shop window for innovative designs. And the new 'Theme Park', in particular, with its numerous product displays from our exhibitors, made its own contribution to an experience of the state of the art in textile design, " reflects Olaf Schmidt, Vice President Textiles & Textile Technologies at Messe Frankfurt, looking back.Both in the newly created 'Theme Park', the new hot-bed of trends and inspiration at Heimtextil, and generally, throughout all the different product groups, colours have a huge role to play. The colours of this year's collections are cheerful and cosy, and yet, in their gradations, demonstrate greater refinement and delicacy of touch than last year. Particularly popular at Heimtextil were light petrol, light green, flamingo and water-blue, accompanied, as a warmer contrast, by honey, copper and coral. The more expensive the material, the more the design involved darker background colours in anthracite, midnight blue or mocha brown. The combination of black and white appears frequently, mostly as delicate outline patterning. More and more frequent are designs that involve colours flowing into other tones as they move up through the length of fabric or create a pedestal effect in another colour. The number of colours in which materials and wallpaper are offered is growing. To go with patterned fabrics, the majority of Heimtextil exhibitors offered plain fabrics in almost all relevant shades. Attractive designs for every home Flowers and blossoms continue to be the favoured motifs for fabric patterns – from informally scattered single blossoms and intertwined foliage motifs to giant individual blossoms the full width of the fabric. Animal motifs were also very much in evidence at Heimtextil, with butterflies more prevalent than anything else. These had appeared in great numbers the previous year. Decorative songbirds sit on sprigs of blossom and parakeets peep from behind palm leaves. Feathers provide a new and attractive motif. Herringbone and houndstooth have developed a whole new charm in new combinations and unusual colours. Baroque motifs are equally subject to new interpretation and are often used simply as decorative edging. Many fabrics appear with delicate or more pronounced deep-grained texture, which lends them a particular charm, both to look at and to touch. Transparent and semi-transparent weaves are frequently matched with decorative fabrics in the same collection, but then again, also appear with their own, independent, impressive and intensely coloured patterning. New looks for arm chairs and sofas There was a sense of rejuvenation in the presentations of upholstery fabrics at the show: they appear for the new season in fresher colours and with more interesting patterns. Even for traditional patterns, suppliers are risking unusual colour combinations, such as turquoise with dusky pink or black with yellow. Through a combination of matt and shiny yarns, both plain and tone-on-tone weaves acquire a certain wit and a special note. Almost all fabrics have textured surfaces – from fine ribs to luxuriant slubs. New weaving techniques and yarns enable highly sophisticated and hitherto unimaginable opportunities for patterning. Offered in more and more collections are fabrics that are matched in terms of patterns as well as colours. They can therefore be used for various different items in the same seating area or for coordinated sofa cushions. Combining them, therefore, becomes an amusing pleasure. Many upholstery fabrics these days are easy-care and washable. Outdoor fabrics for the balcony, terrace and garden have, these days, become so cosy and decorative that they can happily be used both inside and outside. Walls make a big impression! The popularity of wallpaper is on an unstoppable upward curve. Customers have long since recognised that it is a very effective way of changing the whole atmosphere of a room with relatively little effort. The breadth of the new generation of wallpapers is almost infinite. The scale goes from minimalistic plain faux-finishes and tiny patterns in mini-pearls to hammered surface effects; from flowers and blossoms in all sorts and kinds of style and size to banana palms that stretch to the ceiling; from a surface with real bamboo canes, painted in bright colours, to water-lily leaves that have been dried, dyed and arranged to form the wallpaper surface. Stones, marble, driftwood, even whole irregular brick walls have been used as models. Traditional patterns such as houndstooth have been abstracted, presented in contemporary colours, and thus give an extremely up-to-the-minute effect. Many wallpapers appear three-dimensional because of the delicately sophisticated shading of the pattern. This effect is even stronger for those patterns that have a slight relief to them and thus lend the wallpaper a degree of plasticity and depth. For everyone who likes things just that little bit niftier, there are some interestingly shaped plastic components, which can be arranged to make decorative wall coverings, thus creating colourful arrangements completely at will. Elegance beneath one's feet The palette for carpets and rugs is full of colour as never before. Favourites, as ever, are cosy carpets with velvety surfaces in muted colours. They often have a strip round the edge in a different colour. Alongside this, Heimtextil showcased lots of narrow-ribbed textures in monochrome or two-colour versions. The 'used look' remains popular: many of the carpets displayed patterns and colours that were slightly faded. Kelims remain a regular feature of exhibitors' collections, with both traditional and modern designs. When it comes to the patterns for new carpets, the range extends from ornamental baroque revivals to mosaics, stripes, checks and spots and even carpet-sized giant blossoms. Frequently displayed at Heimtextil were carpets with super-sized plaits or interlaced patterns. New amongst the exhibits were two-colour cotton rugs and carpets in calm, classic stripes or checks in delicate or luminous colours. Lots of variety for curtain poles, tracks and passementerie The rustic and over-romantic phase is on the way out. The new curtain poles and tracks for the window are inclined to be more elegant and retiring and are made of stainless steel, aluminium, chrome, brass and painted metal. Poles are more frequently offered in black or blackish-brown. New on the scene are some particularly handsomely shaped, high-tech looking curtain rods – as are some that can be used simply as finials and end-pieces. One that is particularly striking is a new, very delicate ceiling mounted pole, where the distance from the ceiling can be adjusted. It can also accommodate minimal distance between the pole and the ceiling. Tie-backs and passementerie have adapted to fit in with the trend in curtain poles and are relatively muted in terms of form, colour and material. Elegant gallery-type rods in aluminium, from which to hang pictures using nylon threads, are now being offered in a variety of variations, including one version which is practically invisible and will disappear into a plastered wall. Tailor-made for the window – roller, vertical, Venetian and panel blinds To protect our privacy and give shade from the sun, there is now an endless number of fabrics, patterns and colours available, all made to fit exactly the customers' windows by the Heimtextil exhibitors: from delicate voile and decorative materials of all kinds to blackout weaves which exclude the light completely. For the blackout fabrics, the blackout effect is not infrequently enhanced by the use of a black coating on the reverse surface. Amongst the ready-made window decorations, the ones that score highest are the pleated blinds, particularly those with a honeycomb effect. In the pipeline for the spring is a new pleated blind system, which is also suitable for outdoors, made with robust, weatherproof technology and fabrics, which are resistant to both the sun's rays and to moisture. Particularly successful are also the so-called 'double blinds', made from two panels of cloth that roll up one behind the other, with alternating dense and translucent stripes. This enables the amount that can be seen through them and the amount of light they let through to be adjusted entirely as the user wishes. Digital: printing technology with a future Something that was impossible to miss on the exhibition stands at Heimtextil 2015 was the range of decorative fabrics, bed linen and wallpapers that have been produced in a digital printing process. The advantage of this technique lies in its speed of use, its photorealistic quality of reproduction and the use of particularly large, repeat-pattern templates. Not to mention the frugal use of resources with a sparing use of coloured inks and dyes, which is a clear plus for the technology. The templates can equally well consist of photos or sketches. The technique is therefore particularly suitable for manufacturers who need to provide decorative window blinds for their contract business, with a company logo or some other corporate motif printed on them. Bright and colourful for the bathroom Bathrooms of the future are becoming more colourful than they have ever been before – if we are to believe the range on offer from Heimtextil exhibitors. 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