Golden Touch - Key Trends in Bathrooms
By Cheryl Gurner, Creative Director, Bathrooms International

I sense a new style coming in, which I'm calling GLAM-CHIC! It's a culmination of glamour and elegance, but with a new contemporary sophistication. It's been growing underground for some time; it started with the vintage revival in fashion and has gone on to advocate and re-appreciate great design in the home from decades past. (At times, it tipped into the 'practical-homestead' feel where it has mingled with green issues and flirted with environmental concerns).

At the same time, we've been living in a market flooded with minimalism, which has lacked a degree of femininity. This new mood is softer, it allows the different issues to work more comfortably together, and in an atmosphere where markets feel vulnerable, it lends a feel-good factor of authenticity, timeless design with real materials and lasting value.

Gold is returning with a vengeance - but soft golds and bronzes. This will draw on black and white with gold and, add to that, Rhodium Silver and you have a new level of sophistication. Rhodium plated sterling silver takes the white of silver down, to leave a finish that is somewhere between the blue of chrome and the soft brown of nickel but doesn't tarnish.

Organic materials, such as wood and stone will continue to work well and are key to many of our designs. Glass, particularly worked glass by Lalique, complements this trend and combined with no-glitter gold and silver is, to my mind, what's starting to happen now. We still have a demand for stone jewelled taps, but these are deep and subtle tones.

In terms of colour, white sanitary ware is the leader although we have Ceralite® basins, which are exclusive to us, and can be commissioned in any finish; limestone and marble effect are very popular. Storage facilities in bathrooms are always important and more colour will come through, as glimpsed at Milan. Furniture will be `off the floor' and free-standing.

All new homes will be rated on their green credentials from June, with a measure code for sustainable homes, so showers will increasingly be the first priority, and not just for spatial issues.

Steam facilities are very much in demand, and in the current economic climate, people will be more likely to make better use of, or add facilities, and stay at home to enjoy them.