Every April, the design world converges on High Point, North Carolina for the largest furniture market in the world. From emerging materials to shifts in color and silhouette, High Point Market is where the next chapter of interior design begins.
This spring, a clear story emerged across the showroom floors: after years of restraint and minimalism, craftsmanship is making a dramatic return. Couture upholstery details — quilted leather, bullion fringe, contrast cable stitching, boxed skirts — were everywhere. So were warmer, earthier palettes, sculptural stone surfaces, and the kind of considered layering that signals a room has been designed rather than assembled.
Below are the fifteen trends Katie Hooper, General Manager at Cabot House Rhode Island, came home thinking about most — and that she’s already planning to bring to our clients, as well as our Cabot House showroom floors.
Materials & Surfaces
1. Luxurious Stone and Marble Surfaces
Stone and marble have moved well beyond the kitchen into living rooms, bedrooms, and entry halls — appearing on cocktail tables, side tables, consoles, and case good tops in ways that feel genuinely sculptural rather than merely decorative. The introductions from Adriana Hoyos this season are standouts: the stone surfaces were integrated into the furniture design rather than applied to it. This is a trend worth incorporating if you want a room that reads as permanent.
Arrangement from Adriana Hoyos
2. Rich Coastal Textures: Rattan, Woven Detailing, and Rope
Natural texture is not going anywhere — but it is refining. The rattan, woven detailing, and rope accents Katie saw this spring from Palecek and Bernhardt felt elevated and architectural rather than casual or coastal-cliché. The key shift is in the context: these textures are appearing alongside rich upholstery and stone surfaces, lending warmth and contrast rather than carrying the entire design direction on their own. For New England homes especially, this is a highly livable trend.
Color & Palette
3. Warmer, Earthier Palettes: Greens, Tans, and Clay
The palette this season leans decisively warmer. Layered greens, earthy tans, and clay-inspired tones dominated collections from Baker Furniture, Eichholtz, Lee Industries, and Vanguard Furniture — and the effect is grounded and sophisticated. If your home has been living in the grey-and-white palette of the last decade, this is the moment to consider a warm-neutral reorientation. These shades work especially well in the coastal New England light that Katie sees in many of our clients’ homes.
4. Crushed Velvet
Crushed velvet is back. Rather than feeling maximalist or retro, the crushed velvet pieces Katie saw, particularly from Lee Industries, used the textile in restrained, tailored ways that felt current. The depth and subtle sheen of crushed velvet adds richness to a room without requiring bold pattern or color. It is worth considering as an accent chair or as a custom upholstery option on a more architecturally conservative frame.
Silhouette & Form
5. Split-Back Upholstery Silhouettes
One of the more unexpected silhouette trends this season is the split back. Rather than a continuous upholstered back panel, seating designs from Hickory Chair, Antonia, and Rene Cazares featured divided back sections that create an architectural, almost tailored look. The effect is visually dynamic. It works beautifully in rooms where you want seating to function as a design element rather than disappear into the background.
Sofa by Antonia
5. Softly Shaped Upholstery and Graceful Curves
The softly shaped upholstery trend that has been building for several seasons continued, but with maturity. The extreme rounded forms of two years ago have been replaced with graceful curves that feel organic and elegant rather than fashionably exaggerated. Sofas and chairs with gentle curves, sloped arms, and considered proportions appeared across nearly every showroom and represent the most broadly livable version of this trend. This is a direction we can recommend with confidence across nearly any interior style.
7. Oversized Sectionals
Comfort-driven luxury continues to drive sectional design. The oversized sectional introductions from Adriana Hoyos, Rene Cazares, Bernhardt, and Vanguard this season emphasized generous scale, high-quality upholstery, and flexible configurations — pieces designed to anchor a room and define how a family gathers in it. For clients with open plan living spaces or large family rooms, this is a category worth exploring with a custom configuration. Many of the sectionals can be tailored to your specific dimensions and fabric preferences. Schedule a design consultation to get started.
Couture Upholstery Details
This was the category that felt most significant to Katie at this spring’s market. Four separate upholstery details — bullion fringe, quilted leather, boxed skirts, and contrast cable stitching — were showing up across multiple brands and price points, signaling a genuine directional shift toward couture-inspired craftsmanship in furniture design.
8. Decorative Bullion Fringe
Bullion fringe is making a dramatic and unapologetic return. The fringe Katie saw at this market — particularly from Chaddock, Hickory Chair, Lee Industries, and Vanguard — was not the dusty trim of your grandmother’s sofa. It was bold, fashion-forward, and used as a deliberate design statement. On upholstered pieces with otherwise clean lines, bullion fringe functions as the equivalent of a statement hem. It is not for every room, but in the right interior it is extraordinary.
9. Quilted Leather Detailing and Tailored Leather Welts
Adriana Hoyos is a market leader on this one. The quilted leather and tailored welt detailing in their new introductions had an unmistakably couture quality — the kind of craftsmanship you see in a well-made handbag translated into upholstery. Quilted leather adds visual depth and structural interest to a piece, and it elevates an otherwise straightforward design into something that reads as genuinely luxurious. This is exactly the kind of custom detail that separates a piece of furniture from a purchase.
Dining table and chairs by Adriana Hoyos
10. Boxed Skirts
The boxed skirt — a clean, structured fabric panel at the base of upholstered pieces — is reappearing across Hickory Chair and Lee Industries collections, and it looks anything but dated. A tailored boxed skirt grounds a sofa or chair, makes it feel finished and deliberate, and hides the leg entirely for a more formal, composed silhouette. In a room where you want upholstery to feel considered rather than casual, this is a detail worth requesting as a custom option.
11. Contrast Cable Stitching
Hancock & Moore is standout. Contrast cable stitching — a decorative topstitch in a contrasting thread color — is an understated detail that signals extraordinary craftsmanship to anyone who looks closely. It is the furniture equivalent of contrast buttonholes on a bespoke jacket: invisible to most, unmistakable to those who know. For clients who appreciate quality at the detail level, this is worth specifically seeking out.
Bedroom & Dining
12. Upholstered Beds: Sculptural Statements and Integrated Storage
Upholstered beds remain a strong and evolving category. The most interesting introductions from Vanguard Furniture, Universal Furniture, and Bernhardt this season moved in two distinct directions: sculptural statement silhouettes that function as the focal point of the entire bedroom, and beautifully integrated storage designs that solve the very real challenge of how to live in a bedroom gracefully. Both directions are worth exploring depending on what your bedroom needs.
13. Dining Chairs Upholstered to the Floor
Fully upholstered dining chairs — upholstered all the way to the floor with no exposed leg — are adding a sense of softness, elegance, and residential warmth to dining spaces in introductions from Bernhardt, Vanguard, and Baker Furniture. In a dining room that tends to feel hard or formal, this is a surprisingly effective way to shift the atmosphere. It creates a more collected, layered look and makes the dining room feel like a room to linger in rather than a room to pass through.
Dining Table and Chairs by Bernhardt
Living Room Styling
14. Layered Cocktail Table Arrangements
One of the strongest styling directions at this market: layered cocktail table arrangements that mix multiple tables, varied heights, and different materials rather than relying on a single central table. The effect — seen in showrooms from Adriana Hoyos, Bernhardt, Palecek, and Vanguard — is dimensional, collected, and immediately more interesting than any single-table solution. It also solves practical problems: different heights accommodate different uses, and the combination of materials (stone, rattan, wood, metal) adds visual texture without requiring additional accessories.
Cocktail Table Arrangement by Eichholtz
15. Game Tables
Game tables are having a genuine design moment — no longer relegated to the basement or rec room. Fairfield Chair showcased a particularly strong range of styles this season, and what struck me was how considered the designs were: pieces that function as game tables but live in a library, study, or formal sitting room without apology. For clients with dedicated entertaining spaces, a beautifully designed game table is both a functional and a statement piece.
Bringing These Trends to Your Home
The most exciting thing about this spring’s High Point Market is that most of these trends are not passing moments — they represent a broader return to craft, detail, and considered design that I believe will define interiors for the next several years. They are also almost all available as custom orders, which means they can be tailored to your specific space, palette, and way of living.
The highlights Katie discovered at this market are making their way to our Cabot House showrooms. If one of these trends caught your attention, we’d love to talk through how it might work in your home.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What are the top furniture and interior design trends for 2026?
The most significant interior design trends emerging from High Point Market spring 2026 include a return to couture upholstery details (quilted leather, bullion fringe, boxed skirts, contrast cable stitching), warmer and earthier color palettes, sculptural stone and marble surfaces, split-back seating silhouettes, and layered cocktail table arrangements. Across collections from brands like Hickory Chair, Baker Furniture, Vanguard, Bernhardt, and Adriana Hoyos, the overarching story is a shift from restraint back toward craftsmanship and considered detail.
