Alcantara Outlines New Trends in Automotive Interiors

Italian luxury interior specialist launches Automotive Concept Book

MILAN -- Sept. 14, 2015: With an eye to the future, Alcantara SpA, the innovative Italian automotive interiors designer, predicts a greater use of three-dimensional effects, contrasting materials, tailored details and bold color palettes in future model years.

“Our visionary and creative design offices conducted extensive research to represent a collection of stylistic visions that highlight Alcantara’s versatility”

Alcantara® Automotive Concept Book features new automotive applications for 2016-17 that will feature greater use of embossed, woven or perforated raw and synthetic materials incorporating a wide array of techniques including tone-on-tone stitching, thermo-welded synthetics and innovative electro-welding on foam bases.

“Our visionary and creative design offices conducted extensive research to represent a collection of stylistic visions that highlight Alcantara’s versatility,” said Andrea Boragno, Alcantara’s chief executive officer. “The concept book offers car makers a look into the future to help them select leading-edge Italian-made materials for vehicle upholstery and interiors.”

Alcantara design specialists currently are meeting with major automakers to share the future color and material concepts detailed in the company’s concept book.

“Alcantara’s technological know-how and its tailor-made approach and characteristic sense of fashion, captures the needs of the future, while keeping one foot firmly planted in tradition,” Boragno added. “We believe the Alcantara approach to car interior design offers a more exquisite and conceptualized look through the use of our skillful blend of innovative techniques and tailored finishings.”

Alcantara sees an emerging use of bold geometric patchwork, honeycomb accents and three-dimensional effects using contrasting materials for automotive interiors. New interiors, for example, might include crackled polyurethane or illuminated materials that embed Swarovski crystals in laser-made perforations.

Alcantara’s concept book features automotive colors and trims grouped in four stylistic moods: Hyperbolic Geometry, Continuum, Deep Blue and Augmented Reality.

HYPERBOLIC GEOMETRY is dominated by three-dimensional black and grey graphics with red accents. It offers distinctive honeycomb patterns with tone-on-tone stitching with woven Alcantara threads and piping. Other techniques include: black-on-black micro-dots; a combination of two-color materials, and geometric patchworks connected by thermo-welded polyurethane.

CONTINUUM focuses on natural tones accented with vibrant colors. It juxtaposes finished raw materials with more stylized materials to evoke current trends in fashion and jewelry design. Continuum is crafted from beige Alcantara with perforated foam, subtly highlighted with neutral tone-on-tone stitching and embossed with acid-green polyurethane details. Other techniques include crackled white laminates; polished metallic bronzes; innovative multi-level electro-welding on foamed bases, and white diluted resin in denim on beige Alcantara.

DEEP BLUE draws inspiration from the ocean and space. In Deep Blue tones, Alcantara is illuminated by Swarovski crystals embedded in laser-made perforations. Deep Blue surfaces include reflective inserts or piping and polished black star-effect laminates. Precise computer-controlled perforations are crafted into a silver background on denim with an electro-welded foam layer in black and acid green.

AUGMENTED REALITY is characterized by bold three-dimensional patterns and hypnotic graphics to create optical illusions. It represents the most artistic and provocative of Alcantara’s four moods. Augmented Reality features a vibrant color palette of orange, red and purple with contrasting white, light grey and ice. It incorporates synthetic materials such as silicon, resin and shimmering polyurethane that contrast with basic Alcantara materials. Pleating, laser or precise computer-controlled perforations and electro-welded details round off the final style.

Alcantara’s concept book will be updated and published on an annual basis.