Heimtextil: Weaving Tomorrow’s Interiors

For years, artificial intelligence has shaped the design landscape – precise, efficient, quietly omnipresent. And yet, across studios and ateliers, a counter-desire has been rising: a hunger for the handmade, the intuitive, the beautifully irregular. It is in this tension between technology and touch that the Heimtextil Trends 26/27 unfold.

Under the guiding theme “Craft is a verb,” 2026’s Trend Arena in Hall 6.1 will reveal how high-tech and craftsmanship are no longer opposites but partners, each expanding the other’s creative scope. Developed in collaboration with Alcova, the trends demonstrate how humans and machines can work side by side, producing hybrid aesthetics that neither could achieve alone.

Re-Media

Here, analogue drawings enter the digital realm, becoming jacquards and embroideries shaped by pixelation, glitches, and digital distortion. The final textile becomes a visual dialogue between hand and software.

Visible Co-Work

AI offers the framework; human hands bring the finish. Digitally embroidered linens, 3D-knit patchworks, and generative motifs blur the boundaries between code and craft, creating textiles that celebrate collaboration.

Sensing Nature

Nature is not imitated but decoded. Ocean textures become grids, lichen transforms into algorithmic patterns, with digital tools acting as translators of the natural world.

A Playful Touch

Functionality steps aside for whimsy. A neon stripe on linen, a ruffle where none is expected, a tassel placed just so – decorative details return as tiny acts of joy.

Crafted Irregularity

Knots, slubs, uneven dyes and exposed seams take centre stage, highlighting the hand of the maker and resisting the flawless sheen of machine perfection.

The Uncanny Valley

Wires, coils and circuits are revealed rather than concealed. These textiles embrace the mechanical, creating surfaces that feel futuristic, strange, and strangely compelling.

Across all six directions, the message is clear: the future of textiles is neither purely digital nor purely handmade; it is the fertile space where both converge, expanding the creative possibilities of design.

In essence, Heimtextil isn’t just forecasting colours or materials — it is articulating a new philosophy for how people will live, feel and create in the years ahead.

Heimtextil 2026 will take place from 13 to 16 January 2026 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

For more information, visit: www.heimtextil.messefrankfurt.com