2011 furniture trends

Sean Williams

The past few years has seen furniture trends move from wood to polypropylene (versatile plastic), and the next twelve months will certainly see a lot more of this. Patterns have moved from the outside of the polypropylene to the inside, to ensure longer life and less scratching.

We have seen many basic designs and cheaper ranges coming out over the past few months, because of the effects of the global recession. From the products displayed at the fair, it seems as if this trend is set to continue while budgets gradually increase.

There also doesn't seem to be any set trend in terms of colour for the upcoming months. Whilst there were quite a few 'green' pieces, I don't foresee this being the hard and fast new colour trend.

A huge success

In line with this trend, the four Italian Scab manufacturing plants had products at the fair, produced by international level designers who are coordinated by Scab's Luisa Battaglia. The company is capable of transforming aluminium, steel, polypropylene and fabrics into practical and sturdy products that are a pleasure to use and to look at, through its stringent manufacturing procedures and innovative technologies.

Based on 50 years' experience, the quality of its products is an internationally recognised point of reference in garden furniture and household items; a quality, which is the result of unsurpassed skills and constant checks on raw materials and manufacturing procedures.

The 2010 fair was a huge success with 297 460 accredited sectoral operators, 7% up on last year, with 56% coming from abroad, confirming the fair's international appeal. These figures are further bolstered by the 32 103 members of the visiting public who attended the Sunday opening - making it 329 563 attendees - plus the 5791 communications operators, including 5110 journalists from all over the world.