Take a name, the Goddess of water, add vision, a great designer or two, find an industrial furnace and pile of metal flakes, model the mix, sprinkle with fashion and technology and then bake until done. Keep at it for six years, invite guests to lunch, create unexpected entertainment and encourage conversation between kitchen designers and fashion designers. This is a roundabout, whimsical way of describing an event held last week by Brizo faucets during New York Fashion week, Where I was introduced to their products and company philosophy.
 
I never imagined that so much thought – and resolution of opposing ideas – could go into the making of home hardware. Fashion and function, sitting side by side, are at the core of the design of these faucets. I love that it defies the conventionally modernist way of doing design. I now have more respect for these control mechanisms for dispensing water and realize we need intelligent taps or advanced functional faucets. (Excuse my interchangeable use of “tap” and “faucet” ; this is an example of UK and UK English at its most confusing).

 
Brizo launched three new products: Venuto with clean, modern; Virage, a fluid, gentle twist that is also quirky and unexpected; Talo, inspired by organic shapes with hints of steam punk.

All are chock full of technological features as well. SmartTouch replaces grip handles, while Magnedock is a pull-down, handheld nozzle, kept in place by a magnet. Do we really need this new technology for taps? From an environmental perspective, it is crucial way of limiting water use.
 
There are witty touches too. Talo, which is inspired by bluebell shapes, has a vase for holding fresh herbs or flowers. Who would of thought of this to include behind your sink? There is also a bathroom collection in the same style where shelf brackets and a tilting wall mirror add surprise to their faucet collection.
 
Never before did I realize I needed a education in taps and faucets or enjoy it so much, along with the twenty other design bloggers from all over the USA who flew in to share the same experience. Brizo is a company that welds fashion into implements that control water. Sound ridiculous? Not anymore.
 

I think the kitchen industry - and kitchen designers - have to own up. The kitchens most people end up with look depressingly similar. Admittedly there are different looks but we know what they are and these collections - as we like to call them - are hardly the bees knees in variety or works of great design.

We probably know why they look the same, too. ‘No time for real design and no demand for original design’. Market research is often the excuse of the unimaginative for not doing something. I experienced this during my days at Smallbone. The Unfitted Kitchen did not have a market before we created one – and now freestanding furniture is happily back in our design lexicon. We took an intuitive risk.

Think of what great product designers have done to advance design. These include Mark Newsome, Thomas Heatherwick or Marcel Wanders, or architects such as Frank Gehry and Glenn Murcutt. The big fashion houses do the same thing everyday – they create edgy designs that people love, or at the very least will wear. Details first seen on the catwalk become part of our daily design vocabulary a few seasons later.

Why can’t we kitchen designers learn a little from these guys? On Friday Feb 12, during Jason Wu’s fashion show during New York Fashion Week, I have a chance to ask him what the kitchen industry could learn from what he does.

It is possible to solve a brief well, be original and sell your ideas to a client regardless of the size of the budget. You have to do four things: take the client through an unblocking process to establish a unique and personal brief; be prepared to say ‘no’ on occasion; communicate your ideas well; and have a passionate understanding of your craft.

*Please note the title of the blog is a dialectical tribute to Ian Dury’s song Reasons to Be Cheerful Part 3.

Kitchens, houses, furniture are solid long-lasting things with an air of heritage about them. They do not have a the whiff of fast moving, responsive, mood-of-the-times fashion. Kitchen renovators might be scared off if their kitchen designer mentions cool new trends that might be short lived. They expect to be co-habiting with their kitchen for years, not changing with the latest catwalk creation.

Does home design need fashion? A need for renewal and fresh thinking is always welcome. On the other hand, the more we become aware of ecological damage and shortage of resources, the more we need to make longevity a priority. We need changing landscapes. Summer, winter and spring would have to be invented if they did not already exist.

The relationship between fashion and design is historical. Would the French Aristocratic women have come up with Recocco style – the first fashion inspired movement that affected interiors? Osbert Lancaster’s feast of send-ups in ‘Here of All Places,’ the most famous historical cartoons of interior styles, demonstrates an easy transfer of style ideas between home décor and fashion.

Fashion me a kitchen that picks up the chatter of contemporary conversations, but don’t let it take over the design. Plan the kitchen to work around our instincts, look carefully at new research coming from a solid foundation like neuroscience and then, for icing on the cake use, use objects of decor that can be changed easily. Add you own utensils, the clutter of a busy household, and the necessary accroutrements of survival,  and you will quickly be in touch with the land of now. For me that is the essence of being fashionable.