Unmatched Furnishings The Look For ‘95

Remember four words when looking at furniture in mix, big, light, retro. They sum up furniture trends coming on strong.

Mix. Don’t match. You still see suites of matching furniture, especially for the bedroom. But the savvy way upscale designers and dedicated antiquers mix various styles has been adopted by smart manufacturers. Bernhardt went a step further at the International Home Furnishings Market with “American Mix,” vignettes featuring pieces from different collections put together like you might do at home. One jazzy country dining room setting used white-washed Windsor chairs around a painted black pedestal table with a wood-finish china cabinet, white-washed sideboard, black-and-white checkerboard mirror and bold zebra-patterned area rug.

Taking a cue from the craze for mixing different pillows on the sofa, upholstery manufacturers offer sofas with pillows in several fabrics. Some even cover the frame in one fabric, cushions in another. Milling Road debuted one new sofa in a knockout combination of softest cocoa leather on the frame, white duck trimmed in cocoa on the long seat cushion and reversible pillows in both fabrics.

Big is in: oversized sofas and chairs to collapse in, giant cocktail tables to go with the big seating, and massive beds, especially those with posts or canopies. Milling Road’s Bermudainspired four-poster bed stands out as one of the best. The hefty octagonal bed posts end in bun feet and taper slightly to spindly finials on top.

Haywood Wakefield, a name from the past, staged a comeback at market that epitomizes two trends, retro and light finishes. Two Florida collectors selling original pieces from the late 1940s and ‘50s bought the Haywood Wakefield name and logo (the company went out of business in the early ‘80s) and began having faithful reproductions crafted.