New Model Year

From high-end modernist kitchens to cozy condo galleys, today's cooking spaces feature appliances buyers are choosing based on their "model year." Which begs the question: Are you offering buyers last year's closeout or next year's hot release?

1. Stainless - and more stainless. Stainless steel has secured a permanent place as the third color in kitchens (black and white being the other two), confirms Marc Hotenroth, industrial design leader for GE Consumer and Industrial. What's new, though, is that stainless is taking on different hues to answer buyer demand for either "cool" or "warm" colors. "Stainless has a warm tone to it, but if you take out some of the nickel content, it looks cooler," he points out. So if a buyer prefers cooler paint tones in the kitchen, the builder can now offer appliances to match that color palette.



2. Monolithic move. Many buyers dislike the jarring black ice dispensers, handles and other plastic bits that break up the sleek lines of a stainless-steel appliance. "Color-matching of metals is a big issue," says Hotenroth, whose company is painting plastic parts with metallic paint or coloring them through other processes. Because no painted surface can perfectly match stainless, the company picks colors that complement stainless to give the product subtle variation. GE will roll out a new refrigerator next year featuring a color-matched ice dispenser.
   
   Manufacturers are also replacing black parts with white or other colors, for example Bosch's new white and stainles-steel combination. "The Bosch Titanium range better fits light, airy kitchens and white cabinetry with its white base color … allowing the owner to make a style statement with spectacular stainless-steel applications," says Michael Bohn, director of brand marketing for BSH Home Appliances.



3. Sculptural shapes. Just as car design has circled over the years from angular to rounded, and back, appliances are also reshaping. "Appliances now have definitive lines that are sculptural with sharp detail," says Hotenroth. "It's a trend out of Detroit. Just look at the Cadillac STS; where the surfaces meet, the lines between them are not blended out." Hotenroth says this "drastic" style is becoming more popular in the auto industry and is a departure from the "jelly bean blob shape" that dominated cars (and appliances) previously.



4. Gloss over it. For buyers who like black, manufacturers are giving it a high-gloss makeover. "Black in a matte finish sucks light out of the room," says Hotenroth. "We now have beautiful black glossy surfaces that show off the sharp forms. We're moving away from textured matte to high gloss on handles, too." Manufacturers are also adding glass surfaces where they can. "We use glass for visual purposes, in addition to its insulating properties," says Hotenroth. "We put glass touch controls upfront on our ranges for a high-quality feel."



5. What's next? In terms of shapes, Hotenroth predicts that "clean lines and restrained, simple designs" will continue to dominate appliance forms. As for color, while he doesn't see anything on the horizon that will make stainless passé, he predicts that manufacturers will begin offering other metallic surfaces." It's already happening in Europe, where bead-blasted anodized aluminum appliances have become popular. "It's a cool, silky silver, like you see in some car interiors." And he has high expectations for "Clean Steel," a plastic that's laminated onto cold rolled steel. It looks like stainless, but it doesn't show fingerprints, and magnets will stick to it. "The [manufacturing] process allows any color or pattern under the sun."

The just-introduced Bosch Titanium Free-Standing Range gives buyers an alternative to the prevalent black-and-stainless combo in kitchen appliances.

Along with stainless steel, all types of metallics are in vogue. KitchenAid's Pro Line microwave comes in "meteorite" finish.

Although glass has long been used in appliances for its insulating properties, manufacturers now use it for its high-quality looks. Here, a GE range features angled control panels with glass touch controls.

Textured black matte is out; glossy black is in. The handle and ice dispenser on this GE refrigerator illustrate how the reflecting quality of gloss keeps black appliances from sucking light out of rooms.

The new look in appliances is sculptural, with sharp lines and bowed elements intersecting each other.

As shown at the top of page, the GE Profile Advantium 120 Built-In Wall Oven displays the new trend favoring swooping curves and sharp details over the more bulbous designs of previous years.