Color 2020: Are You Team Pop or Team Drench?

Two related but very different interior design color approaches are vying for the coveted color crown. Are you Team Pop or Team Drench? Both approaches are fun, both inject color shots, and both can be

Two related but very different interior design color approaches are vying for the coveted color crown. Are you Team Pop or Team Drench? Both approaches are fun, both inject color shots, and both can be enhanced by two different styles of rugs we offer. Read on to see which approach is the right one for you!

Color 2020: Are You Team Pop or Team Drench? 

Two related but very different interior design color approaches are vying for the coveted color crown. Are you Team Pop or Team Drench? Both approaches are fun, both inject color shots, and both can be enhanced by two different styles of rugs we offer. Read on to see which approach is the right one for you!

Color in the Home

2020 color trends are not hue-based but intensity based. The shift to color intensity has been powered at least in part by Instagram where off the chart colors often garner the most likes (although we’ll see what happens now that likes are hidden). 

So what’s stopping everyone from jumping on the color wagon? English designer Rita Konig believes people are “frightened” of color. Her advice is just “dial up (the color) a couple of degrees” – don’t do it all at once. Konig’s advice works for both color drench and color pop. You can dive into either one, or dial it up by degrees so you can assess and refine “drench” or “pop” as you go along. We describe both approaches and our rug recommendations for each.

Team Drench

Ask most people to describe the color of a “monochrome” room and they’re likely to say gray, white or maybe black and white. But guess what? Color drench rooms are also monochrome. A notable early adherent of single color “saturation” interiors was innovative Danish designer Verner Panton (1926-1998). His 1969 interiors for German publisher Speigel in Hamburg featured multiple public rooms drenched in striking single colors that are amplified by Panton’s furniture, textiles and lighting. 

Color saturation is switched up for the 21stcentury by drenching a room with a single color and using its related tones and shades to add visual interest. Contrary to what you might expect, color drench rooms are warm and inviting because the color surrounds you like a warm glove – or think of it like the visual and tactile version of Sensurround audio. Just remember that a color drench room means all surfaces – walls, furniture, cushions and rugs are all essential to creating a color drench room. Bedrooms in Hotel Providence in Paris are a good example of color drench achieved through large pattern, high-impact wallpapers.

One of the most Instagrammed color drench interiors is the pink (“Rose Quartz” is the exact Pantone color) Gallery restaurant at Sketch London designed by India Mahdavi. Look closely and you’ll see the color drench is grounded by a black and white tile floor. This is the essential part of a successful color drench room – it needs to be grounded. This can be the floor as at Sketch or the walls as at Hotel Providence. But in our opinion there is no better way to ground your color drench room than with a rug. We recommend an overdyed vintage rug where the vintage pattern is subdued – but not erased – by the single color overdye. Together the color and pattern create the ideal “grounding device” for a color drench approach.

Tips to Create a Successful Color Drench

  • choose a single colour and its tones and shades 
  • accent with neutrals like metallics, wood, black and white
  • remember to layer! Not just your color but textures
  • ground your design with a patterned rug in your drench color. Our vintage overdyed rugs are just the answer!

Team Pop

Color pop is familiar to many – rooms where a bright often primary color (red, yellow, blue) is used as an accent “pop”. The idea’s been around since at least the 1960s when Pop Art ruled, and color pop was like a controlled paintball for the home interior – a burst of targeted, unmissable, high impact, abstract color usually introduced as an artwork on the wall.

In the 21st century color pop is often layered throughout a room rather than as a single focal point. The wildly popular interiors by designer Sasha Bikoff are perfect examples of the new expression of color pop where every surface is a controlled but explosive mix of bright colors and bold patterns. But the Bikoff designs online are often for short-life public events like Kips Bay Decorator Show House where designers often purposely exaggerate color and pattern. Bikoff’s domestic designs are still bold but less explosive with degrees of color pop, like her delightful “traditional” color pop yellow dining room with Oriental rug. And don’t forget to think back to the Rita Konig advice – color can be slowly dialled up – there’s no rule you have to go full-tilt color right away.

Love it Like Lava

Our recommendation for a color pop room is to mix the single shot idea from the 1960s with the color layer approach of the 21st century. A unique way to achieve this is with our new Lava design rug, particularly in our primary colorway. When magma explodes through the earth’s crust due to volcanic eruption it becomes the molten rock mass known as lava. Our hand-knotted sari silk Lava rug features 32 color pops (32!) and captures this rich geological phenomenon in a pop of colors that delivers the dynamism of new millennium color pop while controlling the color flow. 

Tips to Create a Successful Color Pop

  • identify your “color mindset” – the colors you respond to emotionally
  • decide if your color pops will be a herd that run through your space (similar to Bikoff) or if they are a series of single pop accents (like the 1960s)
  • If you are brave and bold – mix the two approaches – but if you want to start slow, introduce a color pop mix through a single piece like our luscious Lava rug!
  • Don’t think that color pops have to be primary colors – they don’t! 

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