THEY say that if you wait around long enough, every trend returns. Coloured bathroomware is back – but forget the era of lava lamps and shag carpets, because 2023’s versions are light years away.
Ceramic Industries’ range of Gazania freestanding baths are leading the way with this trend, showing off a combination of clean lines and perfect curves that couldn’t be anything other than 21st century cool. But it’s the colours your eyes are drawn to first and, there again, the shades are contemporary. This time around, the colour trend has taken a much more measured approach, and that’s certainly the case with Ceramic Industries’ cleverly chosen palette.
Gazania is presented in a choice of 2023/4’s favourite tones. Indigo is strikingly cool, and can add an inviting intimacy and depth to an otherwise monochrome room. Sage is understated but never boring, and can pair equally well with leafy tiles or contemporary concrete. Finally, Grey is all about subtlety, and has the flexibility to work with just about any contemporary bathroom look by virtue of the bath’s striking form.
These shades give licence to really push the envelope when it comes to design possibilities. Baths can form the centrepiece to bathrooms, the object around which the rest of the room can be built, from a design point of view. These colours have been expertly to calibrated to provide real inspiration for bold design, without ever dominating, and the skirt is finished with a matt texture, which adds warmth and informality to the clean lines.
Gazania’s appealing palette is offset with a white interior, cleanly separated at the bath’s upper edge. It’s an arresting look, made all the more so by the bath’s absolutely seamless, one-piece construction. These baths are created in Ceramic Industries’ state-of-the-art Betta Baths factory, using advanced vacuum-forming machines and robot spray arms. Much of the process is automated for fine precision and to ensure consistency.
Adding to the minimal form is Gazania’s built-in chrome overflow outlet that’s sleek and discreet. After all, it would be a shame to spoil the crisp two-tone combination and modern lines of the bath with anything but a well-conceived piece of integrated hardware.
We’ve seen colour creeping into bathrooms through the use of black, rose gold and brass tapware, and multicoloured terrazzo tiles, but these new bath designs are going to add a new level of pleasure. Ultimately, it’s about choice. The bathroom can be the most functional of spaces, or – as more and more people are choosing – it can be a place designed around self-care, and given as much aesthetic consideration as the front room. And colour is of the most powerful aesthetic tools available.
