Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Tilecast News features and analysis brought to you by Diary of a Tile Addict.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Sam, it turns out we've done nearly 175 km. I'm not sure what that is in miles for those who are on old money, but 175 km, we've all walked around this show doing about 270,000 steps. That's the power of smartphones for you. Well, anyway, now we've done all that, what have we got to show for it?
Joe and hall are going to round up what they have seen, what their best in shows were.
[00:01:11] Speaker C: Okay, I'm going to kick it off. Maybe we'll go alternately. So I thought what we decided to do was pick our favourite products from it and then we're going to go on and talk about our favorite stands, best designs, whatever. So I'm going to start with Codice N 95. They have an Aston collection, which is very broad ranging, lots of different formats, shapes, colors, whatever, but essentially terracotta and gray backgrounds. For all of it, I'm going with Aston Essence 25 by 25.
And it has a variety of white scraffito decors, so they're sort of abstract, but they're subtle. I just like the movement and lighter gives it I think it's a range that's got quite a lot of legs. I don't think you're going to get tired of it easily. And also you can add in all the other Aston products and you know they're going to work together.
And Codeise N 95 are a wonderful firm. So that's my first pick.
[00:02:08] Speaker D: First up for me is Porsche Nose's Palm Caribbean, which was displayed on the back of layered tiles like a facade. And on the other side was Palm Caribbean, which has the look of a woven palm mat, but very, very deep texture, both amongst the weaves themselves and on the surface of each, what looks like the palm strips. Lots of great shadowing, really fun texture. Really enjoyed that range.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Sounds lovely.
[00:02:43] Speaker C: Okay, so I'm now going back to one of the bigger formats and one of the stones, because there was a lot of pale stone at the show, particularly split face brechia or vein cut travertine, which seemed to be the two. So the one I've gone is.com range called Versatile. It's both a vein cut and a cross cut. Alternatives, big formats, but the one that they were really pushing was 120 by 120. Why do I like it? I mean, there were a lot of stones showing something similar. This one had a beautiful texture, very nice gray white surface color variation R eleven slip resistance. But it was although it appeared very textured, it was very smooth to the touch. And I think these new smooth textured finishes are great. I think there's a huge potential there for tile because it's something that's very difficult to achieve with other materials. And while there were lots of people sort of pushing this particular type of design, I thought Coem's was outstanding. So, yeah, versatile by Coem, my next.
[00:03:52] Speaker D: Choice is a pair that were displayed together by Ape, which were essential and eccentric. Both the green crackled effect, which both had a very inky look. A really lovely soft, but earthy green color, with one being more watercolor effect with the crackle showing through and the other being a bit more splotchy, a bit darker, with some yellower tones coming through. And a small baby metro. I would call a baby metro size. They're five by 15. Really sweet, adorable range, but also quite stylish.
[00:04:30] Speaker C: Right, well, I'm going something similar, but just up a little bit in size ceramica. Rondine, I thought their stand was outstanding because they had so many of the hot concepts there. But the one, I really thought they had some fantastic brick effects. But here we're talking a really elongated brick 48 by 450 mil or 48 by 200 mil. Whole road of range of different designs, all under the brick generation. Sort of Port Manto title. But there were Harlem, which had a very distressed urban aesthetic.
Nolita, which was slightly softer. Marrakesh, which had a load of really good gloss colors. But the one I would go for was Cruder, which was a terracotta one. They had it both plain and with a one striped gold decor, which was an option. This was in the 48 by 200 format. Cruder is a huge range which has got everything from 1.2 meters down to 30 by 60. But then this brick design would work as part of that range. Would work really well on its own. Very nice surface texture. It kind of looked like the clay was still drying.
Beautiful.
[00:05:45] Speaker D: I'll also choose one from the same company, Cortina, which was displayed on an island unit or bar. And it's five strips of wood effect in a square. Hard to describe. So we have a square made of four overlapping sections of these five strips of wood effect. And in the middle, there's a stone look square. So it's an inlaid stone and wood effect look. All one tile.
Yes.
[00:06:15] Speaker C: Now I know the one you're talking about. It's a kind of framed effect, but it's done using lots of different pieces, so you get a lot of surface texture and contrast. And I like those stone and wood effect contrast in the same tile. I think they're really good.
[00:06:28] Speaker D: Breaks up the rich, nutty notes of the wood look with the paler grout. I just think it looked it looked great, especially from afar. I just beelined straight for it to go and have a look.
[00:06:40] Speaker C: Okay, so I'm now going to Eddie Max aster Astor, who had a range 60 by 120 called Tuche. It's a zebrano marble with a police effect on the surface. Color bodied, glazed porcelain rectified. So it's a very technical material. But it had a really, really beautiful stone textured stone effect. And a lot of these micro split face stone effects I thought were a real trend at the show. They're very tactile, but they're not harsh. It's not like cheese grater. This is soft to the touch. So a nice side of tactile.
[00:07:22] Speaker D: I also have a soft, nice side of Tactiles Tramadipietra's new Archie range, which came in a lot of really lovely warm colours. And it's a load of archways, but they're all made up of what would look like stacked stone if they were human size, but much smaller scale, almost like a mosaic. But they are one solid tile and they'd look really lovely, like you just want to trace your finger around each archway. They have a very classical look. They'd look I don't know if antique would be correct, but it's that shape, that vibe, but in very modern, nice colors.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: So I'm detecting quite a lot of texture in all of these.
[00:08:04] Speaker D: A lot of texture everywhere. And when you can actually touch it up close, we spend a lot of time just looking at the pictures on the Internet and hoping that they are really nice tiles. So when you actually get to feel.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Them all, that's almost a sign of a good tile when you want to.
[00:08:20] Speaker C: Touch it, though, isn't it? I saw two instances where the sales guy from the factory had a torch with him and he was holding the torch right by the edge to show the effect of the shadow on it and how it would move around with the light, which it was quite funny because I saw I bet I saw it once. I thought it was, oh, that's quite fun. And then I saw it again and it was really interesting because a lot of these are designed to effectively move as you move and the light source relative to you moves.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: So they change throughout the day in their setting.
[00:08:51] Speaker C: Yes, which is nice, sort of animates the whole thing. Okay, so I'm going to sort of change the pace now. We're going to go to Japan with TN Corporation. I mean, I love their stand and they're small, they're neat, they're very considered, but they're very natural. And so Watoy ormania I mean, the names are difficult because they are all in sort of Japanese ones. It's difficult translation, but they're 45 by 145. A micro brick. Again, very delicate decorations. Generally they were using a blue glaze as the highlight, but it's very much, again, about the material quality of the tiles. And they're just so very beautiful. They're like little jewels in a box. And I always find them a change of pace to everything else at CHESAI. It's just a unique Japanese aesthetic. Love them.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: And it shows what you can do with a small stand. You can still get quite a lot across, can't you?
[00:09:51] Speaker C: Massive amount of impact, I think, and pretty well every range they showed this year, I thought, oh, that's nice. Oh, that's nice. And I'm pretty sure that Hannah felt similarly about them.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:03] Speaker D: Now, as Tea Incorporations were one of my favourites, but I can't choose the same. I'll go for something similarly Japanese with Mercury's raku range, which Raku's a rakute look tile. And it has three shades of blue, a dark, a much paler sky blue and one in between. And I just really I think maybe because it was one of the first stands I went to, and also the woman there was very personable, very lovely. It was a very good start to the show. So it has a little soft spot for me for the show, but every time I scroll past it in my images, I go back to it and I think, oh, those are some really lovely, lovely colors, lovely trio of tiles, one of my favorites.
[00:10:46] Speaker C: Right. For me, I'm going to choose my tile of the show, I guess effectively not, because I think it is the most beautiful tile or the most creative, but I think commercially, if I was running a tile shop, I would want this in it. And it's avant by monopol. Or I think it's monopol. M-O-N-O-P-O-L-E. Never quite sure to pronounce it. It's a Hexagonal tile, but on three of the six faces it's got an inbuilt picket. Sorry, I struggle with this inbuilt picket word. But the idea is that when they interlock and you end up with a continual border around the tile, with some of them, the actual design also has a border. So you have a border within a border. And as Hannah was doing with all of her ranges, this is one where the material combinations are used very cleverly. So you get stone with marble wood effect, with marble wood effect, with plain glazed tiles, and then they just do two different colors of plain glazed effects. I think they had 48 different designs and I was really impressed that Monopol I saw this range as kind of the prototype of it at Sevisama earlier this year and I was really impressed. Thought, this is a great concept. I think they've tried to patent it, which they said they had, but we all know how difficult that is to police in the tile industry. But good luck to them. It's a really interesting concept.
They had some Cotto colors in there as well, which play into it. They had a lot of the on trend colors in the plain ones, 48 different designs. And basically they had given the whole stand over to this one concept. So they had it on the outside, they had different displays, but the actual clincher for me was the display pack they had for it would fit on a one by 1ft square, two foot high display. And basically that told you everything you need to know about it, because each tile had a room set on the back with all the different colors on it. And you just thought, yeah, this is such an easy concept to convey and yet it's really quite a complex design. And if you can do those two things to me, you've won. I mean, I think it's an absolutely fantastic, commercially viable thing. So the first person who hears this should rush out and buy it because it's going to be going like hot potatoes.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: There is room for it in your showroom.
[00:13:14] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. There's room for it in every showroom. And you can't say that about most of the tiles that were at Chess.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: That's all your favorite tiles and things that you've seen as individual ranges, which stand really wowed you. Was there a stand that you thought, this is impressive, even if you didn't actually want what was on it, necessarily, but pulled you in?
[00:13:35] Speaker D: For me, the first stand to really do that was 41 00:42 with their I think the range is two, which is a mosaic look. They had the powder blue. It went all the way through the stand and it really pulled you in. Just a lovely bright color and a fun pattern. And then you go all the way through the stand and then you reach the sodai part of the stand, which was a massive color combinations pattern. It was a really fabulous little bit of the show for me was 41.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: 00:40, two cent, and you mentioned that on the first day, so it clearly was very memorable. Yeah.
[00:14:10] Speaker C: Okay, well, I'm going to go to Turkey for mine. Vitra and in a way, it's almost the complete opposite of what Monopol did. Vitra managed to show a vast amount of what they offer, and they're a big, multi SKU kind of tile company, but in four displays, they managed to get over one display entirely. What they do in exterior, 20 mil tile, brilliant. One panel says it all. They had their architectural color range, all the RAL colors. Beautifully, beautifully done on one panel. And what they'd done was each little display had a range of squared and rectangular formats, all in the same pattern. So you not only got all the colors there and the colors were exquisite, but you had all of the range options. And then on the other side, they had their other one, which is the color matched across all the different ranges. So you can put this stone with this wood with this terracotta, because they're all color balanced. They did that on one display. So basically it was like edited highlights in several displays, so you could see the whole company in one reveal. And that is very hard to pull off. And yet the space didn't seem crowded. Very clever bit of display in my book.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: I'm going to throw one in as well because I quite like Bardelli. I thought they'd got in quite a lot of impact with very little space, really. They had three ranges that I thought they just showed what they could do. They had little board of each of the color ranges and all rest of it, but then they showed what you could do with it. So Kaleido with a C was one which is quite out there, actually. It's quite 70s in a way, but it was very impactful. I thought Badelli Twins was very neat too, just little mini Metros, as you'd call them. Hannah but the way they'd done the sort of displays with that and then play, which again, very simple, quite old fashioned in format, but actually I think what they'd done with it was quite.
[00:16:09] Speaker C: Katla the just I've got a couple more I'd like to talk about in displays. There was a lot of there where people were talking about their heritage, showing handmaking, as we'd said.
Obviously, you know, you have to give a nod to Francesco de Meyer, who don't have to show that because that's what they're experts in and their stuff's exquisite. So there was great. And at the other end of the scale, I have to give a nod to the Pironda group because I thought they had great tiles on all three brands. And basically, if there's a hot thing in tile from Be it etching inks or using granilla polished post production to get three D stone effects or sculpted single color rectangular tiles, or the distress finishes that only FF range, whatever they had, it was like, yes, tick. A really great example of that. And you went around the entire three stands and you thought, yeah, each one of these is spot on. Again, very difficult to pull that off. And there were some others where other stands, and I'm not going to name them, where you go on, you thought, yeah, this is a beautiful looking stand, but the kind of dressing and everything seemed to bear no relation to the tiles at all. And you just thought, what's the point? You really are trying to sell a sizzle, not the sausage. And really we were in a sausage show, I thought, so you really need to put your sausages front and center. And there was far too much sizzle for my liking.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: So for next year, can we see where this is all going?
[00:17:34] Speaker C: Well, it's interesting because if I had one thing to say about this show, I don't think there was that much that was new in a way. In fact, there was more novelty last year when you'd kind of expect there to been less. There were extent. So you could call them brand extensions at this one, ranges that had a couple of things lobbed on the end, or a few new formats or a couple of new decors. There wasn't much that was revolutionary and maybe I'm expecting too much, but small times are tough, I think, and talking to buyers, they weren't looking to buy a whole load of new inventory, I think, yeah, everyone is quite nervous out there and I think that was reflected. So maybe that showed why there was so much travatine, because when times are tough, you go back to a favorite. And travatine is a brilliant thing to make in tile because you can have all the effects of the most different veined pitted travertine and make it perfectly in tile, so you get all the aesthetic benefits with none of the practical downsides. So I can see why they went with that. And there are so many people now have got the technology to do it really well. Why not? But I'm really glad I don't have to buy it because trying to choose one from amongst all of them nigh and impossible and it's going to end up going the thing that your mate isn't selling. Or it's going to be down to shaving off a few euros per square meter, I think.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: So Hannah's going to be writing lot about all the Rangers sheep tickley liked. There will be show notes attached to this podcast as well. So all the companies that have been mentioned, there will be links there and there will be more podcasts coming where we might elaborate on these ranges or discuss various themes that we've come across.
[00:19:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, we've mentioned how many steps we took. I hate to think how many photographs we've taken between us while here and we're going to have to go through that, make sense of it. We'll be putting it all up on Diary of A Talddict heading forward, but I think we have to say one thing, it was really nice to go to a show which was in terms of numbers, obviously we haven't got them audited yet. It felt really busy. It didn't seem to matter where you were, it was busy. And while it was odd to see hall 14 and 15 not being used anymore, the new big halls, particularly 37, has added something to it. I think you can really display the products well and I expect we saw three cooking surfaces here, the rack one, the ABK one and the graspanya.
And I really like what they bring to the party, particularly. I mean, ABK, we're doing it again with a saxophoneist and whatever. It's great. I think more things like that, that animate the show, the better.
It was a good addition of chairside, but very hot. Drink plenty of water, folks. So until next year, thanks very much.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: You've been listening to tilecast produced by Diary of a Tile addict. To ensure you don't miss any future episodes, don't forget to follow us. You can also find show notes and receive updates on newsfeeds articles, podcasts and videos direct to your inbox by subscribing to the Diaryoftile Addict.com website.
Get the inside track at diaryovatile addict.
It.
