Wabi-Sabi Style: The Main Trend of 2018

We wrote about what hygge and lagom are. Now wabi-sabi has come to replace them – this trend is not coming from the West, but from the East. Nadежда Кузина explained what it represents and how to decorate a modern interior according to wabi-sabi principles.

Nadежда Кузина Expert Interior Designer, Decorator.

What Is Wabi-Sabi?

Wabi-sabi is the "cousin" of Japanese minimalism. A style brought into modern interiors from the lifestyle of Zen Buddhist monks. Literal translation – "modest simplicity".

For the Japanese, "wabi" means modesty, solitude, understatement, inner strength. "Sabi" means archaic, sincerity, authenticity.

The principle of wabi-sabi implies conscious poverty, modesty in life – but modesty very artistic, the modesty of an artist.

Furniture

Items in a wabi-sabi interior appear not by chance and must meet certain requirements:

• to be imperfect, with some flaw;
  
• to be simple and harmonious.
  

Wabi-sabi is similar to the European rustic interior style. Some items can be taken from it – only let them be coated not with paint but with matte lacquer.

Some furniture can be borrowed from the loft style – for example, metal structures with patina or rust, simple light fixtures.

Textiles

Materials and textiles are similar to those used in Scandinavian interiors. Choose the most coarse and simple ones, in natural color palette.

Lighting

The philosophy of interior lighting in wabi-sabi is also similar to the principles of Scandinavian style – soft, not bright, diffused light. This approach was inherited from the lighting of a Japanese tea house – teshi, which was specifically built facing north windows and surrounded by trees that further diffused the light.

Storage

It is unacceptable for a plasma TV or a computer to be visible in such an interior – it's better to hide them. The computer must be replaced with a laptop that can easily be tucked away after work.

Order a built-in cabinet the full height of the wall. For the doors, you can use unfinished rough boards. Inside there will be both storage space and a retractable TV.

If the room allows, you can create a separate storage closet which inside can be quite modern.

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