Design
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1 week ago
Serenity seekers, your bathroom needs this shade of blue
Wallpaper* and The House of Rohl have created soothing new bathroom colours for Victoria + Albert tubs and sinks. Among them is the Wavelengths blue series, to infuse your bathroom with serenity and optimism
In partnership with The House of Rohl
The colours that surround us – in our dream bathroom and anywhere else – do more than just apply tone and decoration to surfaces; scientific research has proven they can also affect our moods, feelings and behaviour. Blue is especially powerful, evoking a sense of calm and wellbeing, security, inspiration and wisdom. Blue behaves as a filter for noise and interruptions, helping us relax and focus, prioritise important and mindful moments, and edit out the trivial and the bothersome.
So when Wallpaper* and The House of Rohl were developing a new colour palette for Victoria + Albert custom bathtubs and sinks earlier this year, an aquatic reference was front and centre of the collaborative mood board. For bath and sink exteriors, Wallpaper* editor-in-chief Sarah Douglas imagined a tranquil palette that sailed across deep, inky Atlantic waters to the sun-dappled Mediterranean and onto the blue-green Aegean.
The resulting Wavelengths blue colour palette endorses serenity and optimism via a measured and unshowy tonality. When applied to the interior fixtures of a bathroom, Wavelengths suggests another less obvious quality: blue’s rare beauty and comparative scarcity in the natural world (biologists report that fewer than ten per cent of flowering plants have blue flowers).
Significant to the development of Wavelengths was blue’s elemental association with both sky and water. From Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, which overhangs a fast-moving river in Pennsylvania’s lush Laurel Highlands, to the recently unveiled, all-glass Sky Pool at the Embassy Gardens development in London’s Battersea, the dynamic nature of water has long influenced architects and designers.
And in the art world, everyone from Picasso to Yves Klein has used blue to symbolise trust, wisdom, stability and confidence. Blue is simultaneously ethereal and liberating and, as any artist, architect or bathroom designer will confirm, blue is also very cool.
Victoria + Albert and the bathroom as sanctuary
The House of Rohl ventures to the ends of the earth to find the most exquisite kitchen and bath fixtures, made with quality craftsmanship and technical prowess. Its five brands, which include Victoria + Albert, create collections of modern innovation, imagination and unique beauty. Established in 1996, Victoria + Albert has showrooms in London and Chicago, as well as dedicated production facilities in South Africa. Sporting elegant proportions and opulent curves, its products are designed to create the perfect bathing experience, transforming any space into a luxurious sanctuary. §