By Emily Morrow Finkell
[High Point, N.C.] This fall, I fell in love about a hundred times. One of the times, I was standing in the gorgeous High Point Market showroom at Currey & Company with my husband where we stopped in our tracks to stare open-mouthed at a stunning red coral, pearl and gold leaf chandelier called the “Chimera Chandelier.” I was awed by its beauty and unusual use of materials.
The Chimera Chandelier by Currey & Company is made of red coral, strands of pearls, polished shells and gold leaf.
If there was one standout trend in High Point, it would be best described as a “maximalist look,” or as my friend Brownlee Currey of Currey & Company said, “Flippantly, I call it the ‘L.A. Decorator Boyfriend look’ which includes the loud botanical prints that we are seeing everywhere, saturated greens, saturated reds, it is highly, highly decorated. The interesting part is that there’s a mid-century harvest conversation going on but it really is a mix of the late ’30s to the ’60s, from a period point of view, it includes a cluster of mid-century activities going on within this story, with deco, mid-century ’60s modern, it’s all going into this bucket.”
There was also a significant flourish of gold everywhere — metallic gold to be specific. There was also “harvest” or “saffron gold,” but that was easily outweighed by the massive amounts of metallic gold leaf and patinaed gold effects.
Metallic accents at High Point added a glamorous ambiance to designs.
Black and white combinations with gold were a favorite among the showroom designers, as well as the ever-talked-about Millennial pink, blush and warm off-whites paired with gold detailing.
Gabby Decor’s showroom introduced stunning pieces of furniture and accessories constructed of rattan, acrylic, chrome, matte ceramic, distressed wood and some “petrified wood” finishes.
Dark-toned woods were also in abundance in case-goods, tabletops and walls. Each interpretation of the dark-toned wood offered something interesting to create a little texture — face-sawn and crackled, side-scraped and white-filled. There was also an equal balance of light wood finishes, many of which were painted white and distressed by crackling in the edges and corners.
Dark toned wood paired with whites creates texture and depth.