Pumped up: Tête-à-tête on a chair or sofa

A chic, at times somewhat perfumed breeze is wafting through interior design at the moment. Some aspects were already in evidence at the start of the year. And now, as expected, the trend for velvet covers is also continuing blithely in Milan: As if drawn by magnet, visitors’ hands were attracted to the surface of many armchairs and sofas at the Salone del Mobile, letting their hands glide over the soft and cuddly exteriors. And recently this current retro chic trend has been joined by another returnee: a fringed border graced the lower edge of many chairs and poufs, with the effect occasionally heightened by a delicate omber color nuance copied from hairdressers, for example in the “Amami Sofa” by Lorenza Bozzoli for Moooi.

The base for upholstered furniture is also receiving more attention, too: delicate, gold-decorated metal struts set in a zig-zag pattern form the frame of the Bordeaux-red “Orus” sofa by Paolo Castelli, while the seat of the “Magnum” armchair by EstudiHac for Sancal rests on a shiny metal plinth. Meaning metal and velvet remain allies in the upholstered interior – the fitting contrast is then cool leather, preferably in light brown tones, such as with “Tama Living” by Eoos for Walter Knoll, certainly reminiscent of the lounge furniture of yesteryear.

Alongside the word “lounge”, in Milan truly inflationary use was made of the term “loveseat”: broad settees with rounded surfaces, backrests that are a soft curve transforms into armrests, and playful two-seaters – all destined to make us believe that romanticism is back and with the right furniture you can snuggle up to the person next to you on the seat all the more harmoniously. Anyone who finds this distasteful and prefers to maintain a formal to the person they are talking to will nevertheless not have to stay standing: seating islands, S-shaped two-seaters with the two seats positioned opposite each other, and compact armchairs enable you to converse without getting too close. This layout is readily available – be it in the outdoor armchair combination called “Vis a Vis” by Sebastian Herkner for Ames, the curvaceous “La Isla” by Note for Sancal, the elegant “Josephine” settee by Gordon Guillaumier for Moroso or the new edition of Mario Bellini’s “932 Mb1 Quartet” for Cassina.

The current versions of modular seating worlds let you chose how to position the seats as you like: “Bob” by Thomas Bernstrand and Stefan Borselius for Blå Station, “503 Soft Probs” by Konstantin Grcic for Cassina or “Okome” by Nendo for Alias can all be sub-divided like any kit system and then combined again effortlessly, more at less at will. And there is no need not to throw restraint to the winds when choosing the colors either for the modular or the compact models: The color scale extends from powder-pink to bright-green as with “Promenade” by Philippe Nigro for Gebrüder Thonet Vienna and can be enjoyed in any number of different nuances.