Colorful, Bohemian Ikats Take Center Stage This Season

These trending picks were chosen by VERANDA's editors for Style Report.

Ikat has energy. It evokes motion and incites one to travel with its exotic patterns and vibrant hues. As perhaps the most time-consuming textile ever to be created, it has become mystic in the design world. Cotton yarns are laid atop a sketched pattern and then groups of threads are bound tightly to resist dye. Then, this process has to be unwrapped and repeated for each color in the fabric, creating hundreds of hours of work before the threads are even warped onto a loom. The resulting pattern has a fuzzy edge to even the most intricate designs, making each yard of fabric completely unique to its maker and wildly different depending on the culture.

While the word "ikat" is derived from the Malay-Indonesian word for "tie," the technique traveled the Silk Road and built creative hubs in areas such as India, Uzbekistan, Persia, and the Ottoman Empire, and even inspired 17th century European warp painted textiles. No one waxes more poetically about ikat fabrics than the great Robert Kime. He says, "Ikats aren’t just patterns, they are almost a style from the place which is the melting pot of textiles.”

Many fabric houses have introduced their own creative interpretations of this worldly textile for Spring/Summer so often left to the haute bohemians in taste. But why the resurgence now? When no one could travel, there was a mass move to redecorate one's own space, adding a well-traveled flair when they couldn't pass outside their front door. Textiles began to reflect our desires, our lust for the outside world.

A wave of maximalism has made a spot of ikat in the home an easy layering tool. Ikats tend to be so loud with color or so busy in pattern they almost become the neutral that goes with everything. Kime advises, "When I started using my ikats in projects, I thought 'not too much, not too big or small'. I try to let it have the force it has and have found they lift a room so easily, suggesting something original and wonderful from the East."

Ikats in recent seasons have also inspired item's like Emily Morrison's hand-painted plates or Marie Daage's ceramic collaboration with Veranda. Whether you add a bit of flair with an ikat-inspired lampshade or opt for a big punch of color with ikat wallpaper, you really can't go wrong with this timeless textile. Here are our favorite ways to include ikat in your space this season.