Caroline Inchyra writes: "It's particularly beautiful here today - really sunny but with a bit of a Scottish chill to the wind so we're going by the old saying 'ne'er cast a clout til May be out'. The chickens and Seabrights are all out and about though, enjoying the sun and inviting themselves to Tracy and Dan's gorgeous country wedding, being held today in the Byre.
There was originally a plan for the ceremony to be held at the front of the house - as you can see from this photo it would have been beautiful but I don't think anyone would have thanked them for sitting through it in a chill wind. In the end it was held in the wonderfully intimate surroundings of the Stable Room in the Byre, with its stone and wood and vaulted ceiling, and afterwards, everyone blew bubbles over them instead of confetti. It was fabulous. And I can't tell you how incredible the food looked - particularly this groaning pudding grazing table.
Once Tracy and Dan were happily married and the partying had started I peeled off to do a bit of work on our next fabrics which I'm aiming to have ready to launch in September. And I found myself pondering what effect it might have that I am so far from the centre of the interiors industry, all the way up here in Perthshire. I think that what it probably means is that I am not much influenced by trends. I must say that each year when we travel south to exhibit at Decorex I look around as we're setting up and think to myself that we look completely out of place! There's an awful lot of grey and an overwhelming amount of contemporary design. We spend the set up day feeling rather out of place and then relax once the show has opened as customer after customer comes round the corner and says 'Thank God!'.
I posted something on Instagram not long ago that said 'Style has nothing to do with trends' and I think that's about right. Inchyra definitely has a 'style' and that has come about from my approach simply being to produce designs that I would like to live with regardless of what seems to be on-trend at the time.
At the same time, it seems that interiors are now very much like fashion - in that there really isn't a single trend - there are lots of trends - and these trends all overlap, merge, split off and so on to the point that pretty much everything can be 'on trend' most of the time. Possibly with the exception of shell suits and faux Tudor beams. There will, of course, always be sharp short-term trends for youth (or I hope there will be) but for things designed for people of, let's say, over 30, I think there will always be an argument that anything with any style is on-trend.
This was illustrated to me when Pantone's Colour of the Year for 2017 was introduced. 'Greenery'. Rather than being influenced by it and producing future fabrics in that colour I looked through our range and found Greenery already there. What goes around comes around."
In this month's Country Homes & Interiors magazine, Caroline Inchyra talks about living and working in Perthshire.
The full Inchyra fabric collection can now be seen in its entirety at the fascinating Cupar showroom of At The Sign of The Pelican.
