Cushioning support

Imported furniture is all the rage in India's big cities

Western culture has made the last leap from American reality shows and MTV Europe on our television screens right into our living rooms "" into our furniture.

Young couples setting up house today are letting it be known that the old sets of towering wooden furniture their grandparents received on their wedding night should finally be put out of their misery and packed off to storage, for nowadays, if it's not curved, cushioned, and covered in suede, it's just not worth it.

Imported furniture is doing a roaring trade in India's large cities, and the reason is clear: we're travelling more, which means we now know a thing or two about a thing or two; we want to be not only comfortable but stylish in our own homes, and we're willing to pay for that privilege.

Most furniture showrooms that are worth their salt nowadays will stock imported furniture; for example, at Evoluzione, a Chennai-based store owned by interior designer Vikram Phadke, the sofa sets are all imported and irrevocably plush, ranging from B&B Italia L-shaped sofas covered in Alcantara (suede's stronger, more durable cousin) worth Rs 2.8 lakh, to curved black loveseats from Ligne Roset designer Pascal Mourgue, worth Rs 1.34 lakh.

Evoluzione also stocks names such as Fontana Arte, Ingo Maurer and the plasticky designs of Kartell. (The latter's Louis Ghost chairs by Philippe Starck are particularly intriguing, and perhaps most representative of international trends, with their overtures of Louis XIV furniture).

In Mumbai, Me - Furniture & Beyond, owned jointly by designer Mustafa Eisa and Birla Lifestyles, imports contemporary furniture from manufacturers in China who supply to designers in Europe.

Some of the pieces in their sprawling showroom include a covered, metal framed, leather lounger-come-sofa worth Rs 2.15 lakh, and a three-seater, chaise and stool combination in cotton for Rs 1.05 lakh. Unsurprisingly, they stock suede and leather as well: a suede set, including a three-seater and two chaise loungers, will put you back Rs 1.17 lakh, while a leather set of two single seats and a three-seater is worth Rs 1.35 lakh.

While these pieces are no doubt incredibly stylish and come with all the right labels, most interior designers agree that the story does not end with them.

These sets will usually end up costing more than just the price of the sofa, for to plonk an incredibly expensive piece of furniture into the middle of a living room with no coordination will be, in effect, to waste the entire sum of money spent on the piece.

Most of these pieces are designed, as any air-brushed brochure will testify, for big airy flats with wooden floors and huge windows; the typical Indian home will need more than a little modification to be able to set them off in the way they should be.

According to Shaifalika Panda of Rennaissance Homes, a Delhi store that stocks imported furniture, most buyers nowadays are going for the "classic with a twist" look to overcome this problem. "Since European contemporary furniture does not blend in perfectly with most Indian homes," she says, "many people are going for a mix and match design, with a few contemporary, minimalist pieces dotted with more flamboyant pieces.

Classic pieces definitely go better with Indian households."

This is an interesting trend, and reflects international preferences as well.

With Ikea's Scandinavian severity having dominated middle class homes for years, people have only recently started to think out of the box (literally and metaphorically) in terms of their home furnishings: now, boxy sofas can sit alongside more curvaceous armchairs, and no one is afraid to mix comfortable country styles with stark Japanese.

And industry pundits predict that the trend will continue away from the current minimalism to give way, like the fashion industry, to more flamboyant, indulgent styles with the revival, for example, of art deco, and even some Regency pieces.

Some stores have thus wisely refused to jump on to the contemporary bandwagon. For instance, Hurtado in mid-Mumbai imports classic branded furniture from America and Europe.

Their collection includes, to name a few, brands such as Hurtado, Colombo, Bernhardt, Maitland-Smith, Drexel Heritage and Century. The collections include reproductions of colonial and Victorian originals in different woods.

Pieces from Bernhardt are priced at between Rs 50,000-70,000 while the Century collection would be at least three times as expensive.

Rennaissance Homes also stocks imported furniture from the US (with names such as Baker, Bernhardt and Heneredon) and Italy. They started out with mainly classic pieces, but when the trend turned sharply in the other direction, they found themselves having to stock more contemporary pieces as well.

Their pieces start from Rs 70,000 but increase according to style and fabric, going up to over a lakh for L-shaped designer sofas.

These trends in interior design are just another example of how we're becoming increasingly style-conscious as a country, of how we're not afraid to use international trends, as they are and mixed, in our own inimitable way, with Indian culture.

And if that means an increase in minimalism, and a move away from the clutter that is associated with most Indian households (with Ganesh statues peering around every corner), then it's about time too!

(Additional reporting by ARTI SHARMA)