Nick Graville, Sales & Marketing Director from British showering manufacture Kudos, explains why the trend for coloured enclosures is set for growth this decade.
It’s true that many interior design trends work in cycles and just like fashion they never come back quite the same the next time around. One cycle that’s taken some years to return is the demand for coloured bathroom fixtures, most latterly in shower enclosures and panels, but this time with a difference.
For the past 20 years colour has appeared in bathrooms largely through decoration, accessories and soft furnishings, most people safely sticking to a plain white suite with chrome taps and fittings. However, over the past decade the choice of products for the bathroom has grown hugely allowing colour and texture choices across all fittings, encouraging real personalisation in the design of the room.
For many years homebuyers were nervous to return to coloured fittings, bitten by the completely co-ordinated and coloured bathroom suites, like avocado and shell pink, of the 1970s that remained far too long, maybe due to the cost to change the full suite. Today, a plethora of different materials are available for basins, baths and wall coverings and furniture is now prevalent with both modular freestanding and fitted options.
The result is that housebuilders are now selecting various, almost ecletic, items for the room. Gone are the days of a three or four piece suite of basin, bath, toilet and bidet all carrying the same design and therefore fitted together. A room could have a resin basin sitting within a vanity unit and the bath a freestanding solid surface option so only the toilet is ceramic. Colour can therefore be added within one fixture or fitting instead of across all items in the room.
There has also been a resurgence in the sales of coloured tap and showering control finishes. Chrome was the top seller for a long time but today you are as likely to see Brushed Nickel, White, Brass, Gold, Black and even rose gold as the choices of on trend finishes expand.
Due to the obvious link between bathroom brassware and any shower enclosure wall profile finish, these too can now be specified in different coloured finishes too. Thus allowing the designer to match or contrast finishes, adding further customisation to a room design, a trend that is forecast to grow rapidly during the 2020s.
The difference this time round however is the ability to change individual products without having to rip out the whole bathroom and this is being considered at the design stage. Individual products are now the trend, so swapping them out to change a colour in the future is much easier.
Shower Panels
It is certainly a reassuring feature of our Kudos Ultimate profiles, which are sold separately to the glass, that it’s possible to replace them easily as they have the same drilling configurations. So, don’t be afraid to install on-trend Matt Black taps and enclosures now as the homeowner will be able to change to a different coloured tap or profile, in say chrome, in a few years without making changes to tiles or redecoration. That’s definitely a lesson learnt from the past, be encouraged to go for the colour you want without the concerns that future home owners may be stuck with it much longer than required.
Next time you’re considering the bathroom for a project, remind yourself of the difference to the past, replacement isn’t the same problem it once was and largely due to this the trend for coloured enclosures is set to grow at pace over the next decade.
