| 41zero42 jazzed up their Open collection of wood- and marble-look tiles with a runner accented in brilliant yellow. |
| The DigitalArt collection from Ceramica Sant'Agostino recreates the look and texture of twill across a range of shades. |
| Coem’s gently textured Kanvas collection lends itself to highly graphic tessellating patterns. |
| The Cementine_Evo line from Fioranese comprises a handful of mix-and-match looks inspired by vintage Op-art wallpapers of the 1960s. |
| Etic, a line of narrow outdoor tiles from Atlas Concorde, recreates the look of wooden planks. |
| Another tessellating pattern, this one a randomly placed mosaic from Marca Corona 1741. |
| Large wall tiles from Kale capture dual trends: irregular diagonal stripes, and the look of weathered steel. |
| Grespania’s Modena collection of wall tiles melds the ever-popular look of white marble with the subtle 3-D effects trending at Cersaie. |
| Emil Ceramica presented these graphic interlocking tiles featuring a stone-like finish that appears to be scraped by metal. |
| Also from Emil Ceramica: Paper Bianco and Paper Grigio, two lines of wall tiles printed with an image of stacked newspapers. |
| The Umbria Antica line from Tagina recreates the look of castle flagstones worn down by centuries of use; patterned options are available in addition to the flat concrete-look tiles seen here. |
| Del Conca’s Terminus collection turns 3-D tiles into patterns that become boldly graphic under the right lighting. |
| The Cantina collection from Faetano has innovated with exterior-corner tiles in the past; this year, tiles hinged at 90 degrees for inner corners were added. |
| Colours taken from a Mediterranean ocean-inspired palette abounded at Cersaie, including the Shades collection from Imola Ceramica. |
| Another ocean-inspired look from Imola Ceramica: the delicately patterned mix-and-match Kiko collection. |
| Berloni Bagno offered up the Manhattan sink – a single sheet of frosted blue glass that seems to float just above its vanity. |
| The thick, glossy glaze on Fap’s Frame collection of wall-sized ceramic panels is inspired by the look of resin, and begs to be touched. |
| Pop artist Steve Kaufman's colourful prints appear on these statement-making tiles from Settecento. |
| 41zero42 jazzed up their Open collection of wood- and marble-look tiles with a runner accented in brilliant yellow. |
The latest trends in porcelain and ceramic were on show last month at Cersaie. Here are 18 new collections – by brands including Coem, Ceramica Sant’Agostino, Tagina and 41zero42 – that caught our eye.
The lookalikes are back. At Cersaie, the tile showcase held in Bologna from September 26 to 30, the biggest trend of the past several years – planks and panels that recreate the look of wood and marble, like those seen at the booths of Atlas Concorde and 41zero42 – was still in full force. The industry’s growing investment in printers capable of reproducing intricate patterns with a high-degree of fidelity – and at ever-increasing scale – means that these material mimics are now rendered more convincingly than ever, and at sizes of 1 by 2 metres or more.
Small-scale tiles also got makeovers. At the booths of such brands like Coem and Del Conca, tessellating patterns and mosaics – which never go out of style – ventured even farther into the exploration of 3-D effects. For some, this meant adding shallow reliefs to satiny-finish wall tile for an almost lace-like surface. Others produced collections of tiles in staggered depths, which can be arranged to cast shadows that fall in vivid patterns.
The focus on replicating natural and timeworn materials, including paper, fabric and metals, meant that the use of colour was often restrained. But there was one undeniable colour trend: turquoise – a deep, saturated hue that evokes the ocean – popped as the standout accent in numerous booths.
All the new collections place materiality front and centre, with carefully rendered textures – satiny, glossy, rough, smooth or even wood-like – that demand to be touched. And the expo’s numbers – with 1,524 companies from 55 countries displaying their latest and greatest to 100,000 attendees – confirm Cersaie as the biggest tile show on earth, delivering the looks that will define tiled spaces in 2016.
