west elm + Allegra Hicks
Designer Allegra Hicks says that her passion for pattern was fostered by her childhood in Turin, her art training in Milan and Brussels, her travels throughout the world--particularly India—and her marriage into a British design dynasty.
“This idea of art and life being fused harmoniously together has shaped my work,” Hicks writes in her new book “Allegra Hicks: An Eye for Design” (Abrams.) “I let designs evolve out of pleasure, out of seeing something I find inspiring and beautiful.”
Hicks lists natural elements, such as seeds and plant forms, as the inspiration for her “alphabet of shapes,” the language she uses to create her decorative patterns. Other sources of inspiration include the sea, flowers, mineral fossils and stones in the road. The interplay of shapes and storytelling is evident in everything Hicks designs, from her dramatic caftans for high-end fashion retailers to her exquisite home furnishings line of textiles and rugs.
The seasons also inform Hicks’s work, determining the colors and textures of textiles as well as patterns and motifs. Winter inspires minimalist patterns in black and white or fiery red. Spring motifs flow easily in shades of turquoise and green. Summer designs burst forth with strong graphics in saturated pinks and oranges paired with vibrant white.
For west elm’s fall collection, Hicks drew on the colors of fall in her native Italy. “Our palette is like the first days of autumn in Southern Italy—the colors remind you of the summer, but they’re muted,” says Hicks. Grey blues, warm taupes and a rich gold mingle to convey ripened fields beneath a deepening sky.
Hicks has created three exclusive prints for west elm’s fabric by the yard collection: ripple, an abstracted series of circles in dusky blue; comma, a lively curved graphic in plummy brown; and palm, a painterly vision of foliage on a warm gray ground.
The Palm pattern also appears in a coordinating window panel and pillow cover in moonstone blue. Other pillow cover patterns inspired by sound and water waves, as well as fireworks-like flowers, appear in shades of flax, blue and white. The bold white-on-white graphic for the wavy burnout window panel recalls sand dollars or snowflakes to bridge the seasons.
The abstracted almond shape in Hicks’s wavy rug is one of Hicks’s primary shapes. This elongated oval appears again in her handmade printed harlequin jute rug--the first rug that west elm has ever done in printed jute.
Hicks encourages decorators to play with period, style and shape in a room to achieve a pleasing balance. “I like to pair clashing colors or themes and designs that at first seem unrelated,” says Hicks. “It’s great to be eclectic.”
We think that’s a terrific design philosophy for all seasons.
