Top Stories » Special Features » Kitchenware

You've heard of trophy rooms and trophy wives — well, lately the talk in shelter trends is of the trophy kitchen.

The kitchen has taken center stage as the unabashed star of the home, especially as consumers increasingly demand products that offer the sought-after combination of form and function, style and substance. And the trend isn't due solely to the idea that the consumer has gained a greater awareness of a gourmet lifestyle and its accompanying aesthetic; the attitude also is very much rooted in a status-symbol mentality.

"The idea of having a 'trophy kitchen' is very much the new status symbol," contends Simone Mayer, owner of real.life.basic in Miami Beach. "To some consumers, having a certain brand of cookware is just like having a Mercedes in the driveway. Consumers are most definitely dressing their kitchens as opposed to just stocking them, and every item that goes into their kitchen is very carefully orchestrated."

The primary reason is that the kitchen has become the focal point of the home. "There are the public and private spaces of a home, and lately, the kitchen has become much more of a public space," explains Cynthia Cornell, color stylist for the Chicago-based Institute for Color Research, a subsidiary of Color Communications, Inc., a color marketing firm.

"As we're entertaining more, and as that entertaining involves the fun and ceremony of preparing a communal meal, the kitchen has usurped the living room as the focal point of the home. So we want today's kitchen to not only look great, but also to represent our capabilities and our interests."

Leslie Clark-Van Impelen, director of bridal services for Macy's West in northern California, agrees. "The shelter magazines are like the fashion magazines used to be 20 years ago," she says. "Dressing your home has become the status element, much more so even than dressing yourself. And as people are entertaining in their homes more, we're seeing our homes not only as a place to retreat and rejuvenate, but also as a reflection of our lifestyle and our level of sophistication and taste. How our home looks has become much more of a touchstone to who we are when people come into our home."

And make no mistake: when it comes to kitchen color and design trends, the customer is always right. "Today's consumer is educated in a way that we've never seen in the history of marketing and design," Cornell says. "We're very much in an era that's based on blending art and design, and more than ever it's not the manufacturers who are making those decisions; rather, those decisions are very consumer-driven."

What are the hot color trends in the kitchen today? Better yet, just how far can fashion go in the kitchen? We talked to retailers and color and fashion experts around the U.S. to gauge the design trends and the consumer attitudes that are driving them.

If there's a powerhouse in kitchen color or design trends these days, it's undeniably stainless steel. Seen in everything from cookware to kitchen tools to small electrics, from barware to pot racks to major appliances and beyond, stainless steel is the undisputed king of the kitchen.

What's behind the consumer frenzy for stainless? "Stainless says future and past," Cornell says. "It's a story of restoration in a sense; there's a level of comfort, as well as a European appearance. And because stainless typically has been preserved for the professional kitchen, it makes a statement that you've purchased the best possible. Because there's a true sense of ownership and pride in even our appliances these days, stainless makes the statement that you've purchased the crème de la crème."

"I would say that stainless is our leader in kitchen design trends," Clark-Van Impelen says. "Even in kitchens that are focused on an arts-and-crafts movement, stainless has become a strong presence; and of course, it's the key element in the high-tech kitchen. That also points out how versatile stainless is, the idea that it mixes well with a lot of palettes and makes a great statement on its own."

Mayer points to the tremendous variety of product available in stainless steel in today's market. "We've just brought in a new group of stainless-steel barbecue tools and plates, so that's a category in which the arena has definitely moved beyond wood," she says. "We're also looking at a line of stainless dinner plates, an item that once might only have been used as a charger. And another new item that's doing great for us is a stainless-steel martini glass. It's not just the look, but it is also the practicality of it, because it's a martini glass that won't break. So I think stainless is definitely here to stay."

Clark-Van Impelen also believes stainless will remain strong, especially among her bridal couples. "Look at the huge trend in platinum in tabletop; in registrations, platinum and stainless are perhaps our most popular design categories," she says. "And overall, both illustrate how much fashion is considered alongside function: 10 or 15 years ago, for example, if a bride wasn't into cooking, we told her to buy Corningware so she could put it in her microwave. Today, she might not know a lot about cooking, but she still wants beautiful stainless-steel cookware so she can hang it on a pot rack. It's very much a status-symbol mentality among our brides and grooms."

Indeed, Clark-Van Impelen points out that a key component in guiding the bridal couple is "taking a thought of something they like and building an infrastructure around it. Even if a bridal couple doesn't know too much about cooking, they start out on the visual level of what they like, and then we talk about lifestyle, function, and practicality. But with all the beautiful home magazines out there, today's brides and grooms come in with a very definite idea of what they want their home to look like, and that is a very different attitude from the brides and grooms from years past."

Major Changes

Even when color became the big story in kitchen-design trends a few years ago, manufacturers were still uttering a caveat: you'll never see color in major appliances again, because we all got burned by avocado.

According to Brian Maynard, director of marketing for KitchenAid whose parent company is Whirlpool, "never is a long time." That's why at the National Kitchen & Bath Show set for April 7-9 at Chicago's McCormick Place, Whirlpool will unveil a dishwasher and side-by-side refrigerator in one of KitchenAid's most popular stand-mixer colors: cobalt blue. "We make other colors in appliances around the world already — red in Asia, for example, or metallic colors in Latin America," Maynard explains. "We think the American audience is ready for this. We look at tremendous consumer confidence, which is certainly tied to a strong economy, as well as consumers' increased exposure to art and design and the fact that [sales in] cobalt blue continue to increase for us. Put all those factors together and this debut makes sense." Both appliances are expected to begin shipping in late third-quarter 2000, Maynard says.

Upon hearing about KitchenAid's plans to use cobalt blue in its major appliances, Cornell immediately responds that "cobalt will sell, for several reasons. First, blue will remain the number-one color among consumers, in my estimation, for the next decade. Second, cobalt pairs extremely well with stainless steel and white, and consumers will immediately see that. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, we're willing to take risks as educated consumers that we were never willing to take before. We know that if we buy an appliance and tire of it in five years, there are options available to us, such as going to an automotive manufacturer and having it repainted. The Internet has played a big role in educating us in these options. So we no longer feel like, 'I've bought this appliance and I'm going to have to look at it for the next 10 to 15 years.'"

Stephanie Witt, CKD, CBD, president of Kitchens by Stephanie, Ltd. in Grand Rapids, Mich., and president of the National Kitchen & Bath Association, the Hackettstown, N.J.-based professional association that sponsors the National Kitchen & Bath Show, believes that Whirlpool's cobalt debut is among the first of several such mainstream introductions as many majors plan on putting their toe in the color waters. "In the high end, we've been seeing color in major appliances — from Jenn-Air or Viking, for example — primarily because when people deal with designers, they're much more daring, and when you're building a custom home, you're building it for the long haul," she explains. "The builder who's building a speculative home, however, has to put in something rather generic to appeal to the largest pool of buyers. But as the consumer puts more thought into updating their kitchen and investing in their home — as long as they're investing to stay there and not to sell it — then I think they're more receptive to the idea of color in a major appliance."

Cornell agrees, pointing to the European influences Americans are experiencing in home design. "The Europeans are leaders in coloration; cobalt blue, oranges, and other pure colors have been in the European market for a decade," she says. "So we as a culture have just become more familiar and comfortable with the concept. And so major-appliance manufacturers are getting back into the color act, though a bit cautiously. After all, you might not always want to be the first on the block, but you definitely don't want to be the last."

The Asian Story

Almost since we began talking about the new millennium, Asian and its accompanying spirituality has been a dominant design force throughout the home. And judging from January's NHMA International Housewares Show, interest in Asian shows no signs of abating.

"Curiosity about the Asian table among consumers remains very strong," Mayer reports. "As a result, we're able to go beyond the Asian looks we've been carrying and be a little more adventurous. We're seeing crystalline glazes and pastels, looks that aren't exactly traditional, playing a bigger role in Asian. We're also bringing in some huge Vietnamese platters, and red lacquer is becoming very hot. What I'm finding overall is that Asian initially was being seen largely as a Japanese influence, but you see the Chinese influence becoming stronger. Red is a good example of that."

Red is indeed a color to watch, according to Cornell. "What's happening in red is our recognition of other cultures," she says. "There's certainly the Asian influence felt in a true red, but there also are reds that are born of a Moroccan or Mediterranean influence. Red is also becoming strong, I think, because psychologically it's a very powerful color. Red rejuvenates, while blue and green relax. As a society I think we're all a little exhausted, and the more tired we've become, the more red I think we need."

Also folding into the Asian story these days is an increased presence of metals, namely copper, bronze and, yes, stainless steel. "Design trends these days are very much rooted in a mix of textures and shapes," Cornell says. "In that sense, Asian is an extremely well-thought-out palette, one that's also imbued with history, longevity, and purity. So all of the Asian elements — black woods, copper, metallics, red or earthenware lacquer, celadon green — will become more understandable to the American consumer, and we as a Western culture will continue to embrace the Asian traditions, while adding our own cultural requirements to it."

On the Horizon

Perhaps one of the biggest indicators of fashion's prominence in the kitchen is quite simply the depth and breadth of color and design trends in the market today. Unlike as little as a few years ago, there is a wide variety of design trends jockeying for position in your kitchen. Stainless steel, retro looks, and Asian have been hot stories for several seasons, while red, reactive glazes, and "dirty pastels" — i.e., pastel tones that have been grayed or dulled — are being positioned as the fashion-forward looks.

And while retailers and color experts alike are ready to embrace new trends, they don't always care for the names applied to them. Cornell calls it an "ugly phrase," preferring to think of them as the new neutrals. "They've been grayed or fogged, which allows them to take on a more neutral aspect," she says. "So maybe it'll be a soft peach, but that fogging will give it a certain patina that will make it a more neutral tone."

Mayer, meanwhile, also mentions that "I don't love [the idea of] dirty pastels, but I do see plenty of pastels that have a luster added to them. It's a fresh look that adds a little more depth, and it's also an example of how we're embracing certain colors on a more year-round basis, rather than at only certain times of the year."

It's precisely that receptive, responsive attitude among today's consumers that makes the overall concept of color and design a key component that should be marketed to and merchandised for each customer who walks through the door. "Gone are the days when there's one hot style, one hot color, or one hot direction — the options are too big, and the world has become just too small," Cornell says. "Indeed, one of the most exciting things about color trends right now is Americans' recognition of cultural diversity. It's really a very powerful moment in design history in that we're able to embrace this idea of global design. There's a general cultural acceptance, an idea of 'no rules.'"

Ultimately, trends in kitchen colors and design will increase in their synergy throughout the home and, according to Cornell, "will move and change as we adopt them to our needs and materials. But with all of the advancements in technology and the ever-changing ways that we're simply living our lives, the consumer will continue to drive the array of choices on the market — and the one thing they'll definitely demand is plenty of choice."