TRENDS 2011/2012: THIS YEAR´S CHRISTMAS BLUE AND EXTRAVAGANT
Christmas Eve is already at the door and in many homes, in these moments are people talking about decorating the house or apartment, about decoration of Christmas table and especially the Christmas tree. For some, it will be easy: as every year they pull out box with grandmother´s old decorations from the closet. But others are busy: they are watching the latest fashion trends.
The essential part of Christmas are diverse decorations and therefore it is understandable that Christmas season has become in fact separate fashion branch falling within the home fashion, which has its own exhibitions, competitions, designers and critics. The most important event in this field is Christmasworld annual fair, which takes place at the beginning of the year in Frankfurt and sets out fashion trends for the coming year.
Christmas 2010: Lilac stays, coming blue
"This year's trendy Christmas decorations are colorful, dreamy and extravagant," says the director of the Frankfurt fair Jutta Baumann. Regarding colors, there are no taboos. Topics that will dominate this year´s fashion columns shall remain also hit of the next season. So this year for Christmas we can meet again unusual violet and blueberry, which was on a first place in 2009. Among them this year adds a new trend which is blue - blue, creating a mystical and dreamy atmosphere. A variety of blue stretching from bright ice until midnight blue and black. Elegant contrast you get by a combination of white, silver and gray. If you prefer a warm, fresh colors, do not hang your head. Experts advise combination of light green with orange and lemon with gold.
Extravagant décor counts
In addition to watching current trends in color decorations is substantial to pay attention to new standards in design and ornaments. Welcoming is at the moment everything what is funny and provocative. Markedly requested is applying of silver dust, artificial snowflakes, and basically everything that glitters and creates interesting reflections. Evident is also a change in preferred shapes, especially in the action figures. Classical balls, angels, drops, stars and birds are slowly replaced by various fairy-tale characters, mushrooms, pets or even sports equipment.
Most important is a quality
Even though the market it currently filled with cheap plastic decorations, most people still prefer the classic blown glass. The difference in the look is so striking that it cannot even talk about direct competition with products. Different is when comparing manual and mechanical production. Even though customers mark "handmade" require most of them recognize the difference at all.
"The machines nowadays are really able to blow so perfectly that it can reveal only the specialist," explains Kateřina Tichá, leader of company GLASSOR. "Quite good recognizable is cheaper machine manufacture of blowing into forms. The decoration has visible join that connects the two halves of decorations. Another sign is the wide stalk. Hand blown decorations to the contrary have to have a stalk as thin as possible. "
How to actually handmade decorations?
Currently, nearly all glass decorations are blown from semi finished materials - glass bars, which can be commonly bought. Then is the technology basically the same as it was a century ago. Glass is melted and then manually (or rather verbally) by blowing out the desired shape. Then decorating follows. One of the options is handmade silvering when exact dose of mixture chemicals is poured into the decoration poured exact dose mixture of chemicals, whose composition each manufacturer strictly guarded and decoration is dipped into the hot water, and the result is that an internal surface of glass decoration precipitates a thin silver film. The most important of the whole process of "handmade" however is hand painting, which gives the original look to each decoration.
The GLASSOR Company annually creates 5-7 collections that are based on the latest trends and customers' expectations. Shapes and décors are devised with an emphasis to the themes of the collection. Each collection is completed with a brief characterization, which aims to evoke the atmosphere of the theme. Even though is currently 97% of all production of GLASSOR selling abroad, domestic market is not disregarded. Individual shapes or decorations can every Czech customer order on the website in the e-shop.
Author: Andrea Cejnarová
Photo: Vladimír Weiss