The artistic elements involved in both the interior design sector and the fashion industry have long overlapped. Clothing and room dressing fabrics can often be interchanged, with furnishing pieces such as tassels and buttons often interchanged between the two sectors.
That crossover has reached a new level with a growing number of star fashion designers entering the world of interior design.
With Derek Lam recently taking on the role of designing the green room for the highly acclaimed Emmy Awards and runway favourites showing up in wallpaper patterns and soft furnishing, the prevalence of fashion in design is an ever-growing trend.
The most recent example of this cross over is in designer Jean Paul Gaultier’s collaboration with Paris-based fabric specialist Lelievre. Some of Gaultier’s most famous and iconic designs will be transferred onto interior design features and fabrics.
Some of the designer’s most classic prints will now adorn sofas, ready-made curtain and rugs.
According to Lelievre’s Emmanuel Lelievre, the iconic fashion designer will “awaken the world of interior design.”
The real question is, does it need awakening? Interior design as a sector and its industry professionals have come a long way from their earlier ‘decorator’ groundings and are beginning to be perceived as highly influential and specialized industry members.
Could designers with their star power and influential pull actually further alienate interior design and bring back its ‘aesthetics-only’ reputation?
While it may seem hyperbolic that one designer could transform an entire industry, there is no denying that the sector is heavily driven by trends.
Perhaps a greater concern comes with the acknowledgement that the highly unsustainable world of fashion relies on hot-minute trends.
Beauty and aesthetics will always be appreciated in this sector; at its surface level, that what interior design is based upon. In a modern industry that is leaning more and more toward holistic and healthy design, however, the involvement of fashion icons in the sector is a breath of fresh air, even if it may not leave as resounding a mark as other such new industry movements.
