Botanical designs were set to prove popular this year, continuing on from the trend of 2017, incorporating florals for a “focus on health and wellness” through “the incorporation of the natural world into interiors”, as well as “tropical modernism” which saw a burst of demand last year. Tropical jungle prints haven’t entirely fallen out of favour just yet, and at Cevisama there was still plenty about.

Bestile‘s Black Flamingo presents a large decorative mural in a 1,200 by 2,400mm format, depicting a colourful scene of coconuts, palms, hibiscus flowers, and bright pink flamingoes. Arklam‘s Hibiscus offers a watercolour style hexagonal 230 by 270mm format, forcusing on the floral details of tropical plants.

A subtle nod to the tropical trend came from Itaca‘s Smoke collection, the decors of which featured gold illustrations of iconic leaf shapes. STN Ceramica also combined the skeleton look of palm leaves in their Spatul decors alongside geometric patterns.

Mainzu‘s Bali Stones Samui decor tiles take the standard tropical motifs and present them in slightly muted, earthy tones whilst maintaining a high level of colour. Finally Roca and Azulev‘s jungle-looks focused mainly on the leaf patterns with tiles that had a faint aged effect and varied art styles.

But despite the continued prevalence of tropical flora, the florals did seem to be heading in a new direction. With health and wellness still a key focus, many flowery designs moved away from the drama of large montsera leaves and palm fronds and instead took a softer, more delicate approach. Nexo‘s large Tokio and Lis panels feature stunning images of nature, creating pieces of ceramic art.

The company’s Silk range is even more mellow in its design. The 150 by 170mm hexagonal tiles are a patchwork of geometric patterns, stone-look tiles, and dainty florals. The subtle motifs are worn in against the stone-looks, with the designs faded and the pinks, greens, and purples only just visible.

Cevica‘s Jazz Mix Deco is another floral patchwork, this time in a 150 by 135mm fishscale format. The colour palette heavily focuses on blues and yellows with various motifs combining to create this old fashioned style design. Ape‘s Harlequin utilised yet a different shape, with their Holland White Mix in a 100 by 200mm stretched hexagon. The inspiration behind the blue and white designs appears to be wallpaper with the same motif featuring in various ways.

Dune‘s Berlin collection added a little something to the trend with their leaf patterns. The roughly hand-sketched designs feature a variety of motifs on the leaves themselves, adding a pop of colour alongside the visually earthy decors.

Cevica’s Silk wasn’t the only floral delight they had on show. Their Chintz series was one of the first to catch Tile Addict’s eye. Inspired by a popular 17th Century fabric print featuring flowers, fruits, and birds, Cevica’s Chintz utilises the motifs and colours to produce a range of 8 decors (and 8 solid colours) in a 170 by 200mm trapezoidal format. The designs have a wonderfully retro look that, combined with their shape, can be made to look enitrely modern.

Finally, Pamesa provided a lot of flowery designs. Agatha 21 by Agatha Ruiz de la Prada for Pamesa was awash with colour. There were quaint, detailed and delicate designs combined with soft shades perfect for a child’s bedroom as well as a special Provence floral pattern offering a bolder pop of colour and a more eye catching motif.

A new post by Hanna Simpson, Diary of a Tile Addict, February 2020.