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Editor’s Picks
Green Metal: Fabric Options Beyond Hemp and Metallic Looks

Colleen Carstens

Over the past few years, including this current one, design trends have included an enhanced focus on green design—an environmentally friendly initiative—as well as a varied use of metallics in all interiors products.

In tune to today’s hot-button issues, consumers’ heightened sense of eco-awareness means more are turning to organic, non-toxic, and green options, and companies are catching on. A sustainable line of fabrics for Twill Textiles, Climatex® Lifecycl™e Home collection was designed specifically for the residential market and offers sophisticated patterns on durable, eco-friendly materials. The line’s pesticide-residue-free wool and organically grown ramie are dyed and processed with non-toxic chemicals. The weaving process for the Climatex Lifecycle Home collection includes a system where all components used in the fabrication of these products, along with all byproducts of the manufacturing process, do not harm the environment—the company’s production system is 100% biodegradable.

The 2008 European design fairs continued to embrace the metallic palette, encouraging the use of varied metal looks from floor to ceiling. Celebrating 20 years as a designer of wire mesh fabric, Cascade Coil Drapery Inc., a family-owned company that evolved from nearly a century’s worth of experience in wire fence manufacturing, continues to provide the design industry with bold and modern shimmering textures of wire mesh curtains. With its big break on the set design of the Rolling Stone’s Steel Wheels Tour in 1989, Cascade Coil Drapery’s wire mesh fabric curtains enhance the interior or exterior decor of commercial and residential applications throughout the world.

The US—made curtains are manufactured from steel, aluminum, copper, or stainless steel, and offer modern metallic looks with colors and finishes ranging from natural aluminum or nickel-plated to bright paints in any color imaginable. The shimmering metallic curtains have been featured on HGTV, used on the set of TV’s Will & Grace, accented Wolfgang Puck’s CUT restaurant and side bar at the Beverly Wilshire, and showcased throughout numerous industry publications. The versatile mesh refracts and reflects light, stylishly serving as drapery panels, room dividers, and backdrops, as well as outdoor exterior solar shading and accents.

For more earth-friendly interiors products, keep an eye out for the upcoming April issue of WF—our first-ever Green Design issue. And read about the popularity of trend-forward metallic palettes from the GMI trend specialists on page 26 and page 104.

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