Often the unsung heroes of home design, textiles truly play an important role. Your choice of throws, scatter cushions, rugs, and upholstery can set the mood of your space. Home textiles - in the right colours, patterns, and material - pull your decor scheme together, add character, and tell a story. But, where do you start?
Century 21 South Africa reached out to home textile design expert, Bonolo Chepape. She is a textile and surface designer, and the owner of Lulasclan, a textile and creative consultancy studio. You've likely seen (and admired) her work for some of South Africa's biggest brands including Nando's, Smeg, MTN, Standard Bank, and Mr Price Home. Bonolo has also been featured by Top Billing and House & Garden. She shares her know-how to help make home textiles bring your space to life.
Bonolo, why do you believe home textiles are so important?
For the major part, home textiles are a reflection of your individual personality and style. They offer a way to express yourself. With every home being different, textiles offer a way to mix and pair different elements and prints to reflect yourself.
I believe a home should be a library of your life. It should tell the stories of all that you've loved, discovered, cherished, and all that has been passed down to you. Home textiles can help share these stories.
How can you use home textiles to tell your story?
Ask yourself, how do you want to feel when you walk into your space? What do you want your space to remind you of, and say about yourself? Then build a colour pallet as this will inform what you source for your space. From the shape of mirrors, geometric style of the chair fabric, choice of subtle stripes patterning on curtaining, to your art, it all starts with colours. Bring in elements that hold special memories, evoke positive emotions, and reflect your personality.
What home textiles can one use? What's trending in 2022?
This year is all about embracing maximalism, a design concept that more is more. We're also celebrating the outdoors as a home textile trend since the world has been heavily closed in since the COVID lockdown. We're now getting back into the festivity of outdoor spaces and welcoming people back into our homes.
You can bring the outdoors inside with florals, chequered prints, and organic geometrics. For home textile colours, look to earthy pastels such as peaches, soft mints and teals, soft pastel violets, and dusty natural pinks.
This year's also about showing off your favourite things to the world or home visitors. Your home textiles should feature an eclectic mixture of organic shapes and forms that tie back into nature. But, it should also reflect the fluidity of the times as people are now able to travel.
Moving on to your tableware or table setting, we see this trend more as people are entertaining family and friends again. Look for clear transparent glasses with old fashioned detailing, linen-look napkins, and organic floral runners and tablecloths. With decor, bring in clay or ceramic vases to complement your rustic home textiles. The clay or ceramic should have an organic feel that resembles the earth. For patterns, it's a celebration of strips in different widths and the overlapping of the stripped elements.
Let nature inspire you this year in your home textile designs. It's going to help us navigate through the changing times as we connect back with the world.
Applying home textile trends can be daunting. What advice do you have for homemakers?
Trends, although daunting, should be looked at as inspiration. It's important for your individual personality to be the hero of the show, and to reinterpret trends to suit your life.
Choose your colour palette: Start simple with colours such as whites, light greys, and tobacco/light browns. Using these for your big-ticket items such as your couch and linen is a great base material for these items.
Incorporate your wall art: This is the perfect place to start to see how your style evolves. Your art piece will become the focus of where you draw your colour scheme, what fabrics to use, and in what scales. So, let this be a piece you're really drawn to because your art choice should be a perfect reflection of yourself.
Play with wall coverings: Once you've got your colours derived from the art piece, look at wall coverings. You can use a very light monotone floral wallpaper paired with a bright accented painted wall in a forest/olive green.
Make the most of scatter cushions: In the case where your art piece is less abstract but geometric or structured, try to include graphic elements in your decor scheme. You can use scatter cushions with lines or circular shapes to achieve this. These home textile items also give you the freedom to experiment. Get creative with a large floral design or bold geometric design to make your couch stand out. You can pair each cushion with a solid plain complementary scatter cushion so that the prints do not become overwhelming for the space.
Choose the right rug: For surface rugs, a monochromatic rug that has organic shapes or some lines work well with pops of colour from your colour scheme. If you're afraid of colour, take a look at the weaving technique of the rug. A simple weave can help you create balance.
Get creative with occasional chairs: These are your statement pieces and you can have fun with them. As you'll usually only have one or two occasional chairs in a lounge, use these to experiment with bright bold prints if you've kept everything neutral. Alternatively, you can also focus on a monotone patterning for these to let the design shine.
Bring in your accessories: Accessories such as oblong mirrors are great for small spaces and are unique. To add an organic touch, bring in plants to add some green or dried faux pampas grass. These come in different shades and colours and are beautiful alternative natural elements. Decorate with vases and lampshades on wooden or black matt steel display servers and finish it off with sentimental family pictures in different frames for an eclectic look.
This is fantastic home textile advice. Bonolo, you were born and raised in Rustenburg. What are your favourite places in the area for design inspiration?
Rustenburg is an area with lots of property developments. Because I love architecture, I usually take a drive to discover structures of beautiful houses in areas like Cashan, Safari Gardens, Waterval East, and Bo-Dorp. It's in subtle things like the choice of windows and gates that can sometimes inspire and spark an idea.
I also like to reflect on what type of design style would suit the interior of these homes. I usually end the trip at Platō Coffee for a cup. It's a space that feels like art with a truly beautiful interior.
Find the perfect Rustenburg home to inspire you
With Century 21 Rustenburg, you can find the space for your creativity. View our properties for sale, and contact us today. With the right fit, you'll be able to let your home textile ideas run wild.
For home textile help in Rustenburg, you can visit Lulasclan at www.lulasclan.com or email info@lulasclan.com. You can also check out their Instagram at @lulasclan, or Facebook and Twitter at @lulasclan.com for inspiration.