Like all the best trends—velvet furnishings, pastel kitchen appliances, even low-carb diets—animal prints have cycled in and out of style over the years (and centuries). At times they've been perceived as luxurious and expensive, at other times tacky, outdated, and even a little scandalous, but they never truly leave the cultural lexicon (most recently, Tom Ford's 2018 Fall Ready to Wear Collection relied heavily on those wild patterns).
But at Apartment Therapy, we've started noticing a whole new way of incorporating animal print inside the home—instead of the the typical zoomed-in cheetah markings, leopard spots, and zebra stripes, we're seeing repeating patterns showcasing the entire animal, typically on a solid colored background. And we're calling it our first-ever pattern of the year: The New Animal Print.
It's a bit maximalist, but we're actually seeing a shift away from the stark minimalism that has dominated the past decade or so. 2018 was marked by an array of maximalist, even whimsical trends, from terrazzo, to patterns featuring body part after body part, to curvy furniture that calls back to the Art Deco era. Don't worry, Scandi simplicity isn't going anywhere, it's just not the be all end all anymore. That's part of why we were so drawn to The New Animal Print—it evokes that sense of maximalism, but it's also natural, thanks to the animals it portrays, while echoing the repetitive nature of most traditional prints. It's like the perfect marriage between accessible and out-there.
Plus, we're only a month into 2019, and we've already seen iterations of this pattern creeping up more and more. There was last week's House Tour that featured zebra-adorned wallpaper, the leopard-patterned wallpaper Cole & Son shared on their Instagram, and the countless home products we've seen with similar prints: wallpaper, of course, but also rugs, and pillows, even smaller accessories like wallets and tableware.
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from Apartment Therapy | Saving the world, one room at a time http://bit.ly/2GcNycW
