Style & Design
The 2018 Cersaie Tile Show
The Cersaie International Exhibition of Ceramic Tile and Bathroom Furnishings is the largest man-made tile show in the world. Held in historic Bologna, Italy, the expansive show has everything related to the bathroom industry including fixtures, grout, technology and, of course, tile. Italy plays host for this yearly event because it is home to the highest quality and newest advances in tile.
This past September, The Tile Shop sent a team to Cersaie including Brandy Janke, product designer, and Rob Grosskopf, manager of product management. They brought back their observations, stories, pictures and upcoming tile trends to share with the rest of the team.
Cersaie by the Numbers
It’s hard to comprehend just how vast Cersaie is, but the numbers speak for themselves.
- 100,000+ visitors over 5 days
- 1.7 million square feet of show spaces
- 800+ vendors
- 40+ countries represented
- 18 halls
A small portion of the many Cersaie attendees.
Welcome to Cersaie!
Attempting to tackle Cersaie without a plan would be too overwhelming, so the team made 30 brief appointments each day to meet with vendors they were interested in. Before the show, Brandy worked on developing a Tile Shop lookbook to show vendors what we’re interested in seeing and the trends we’re expecting to be big in the next year to act as a visual shopping list.
“The look book is a progression of where tile design is heading based on trends in interior and product design, art and fashion. After seeing what vendors have to offer, our team decides what the market is missing and we work to develop new and exciting products to meet design demands.”—Brandy Janke
A Day at Cersaie
Appointments with vendors took place all day and were spread out over 12 massive buildings. (The team clocked six miles of walking a day!) Each vendor has a booth that acts as a mini showroom, as seen in the amount of detail and design in the image below.
An artistic and aesthetically pleasing vendor display.
In these brief meetings, the team challenged vendors to show their newest and most original products. The companies design and develop lines of tile specifically for the show, anticipating new trends and putting their best foot forward. Trusted vendors get a peek at The Tile Shop’s lookbook to see if they can fill in any of the product or trend gaps that have been identified. A close vendor partner may even offer to develop a new product based on the inspiration in the lookbook, creating an original tile.
Vendor meetings taking place.
Foliage makes this display stand out from a crowd.
Top Trends
We can’t talk about Cersaie without talking tile trends. This year, ceramic tiles mimicking the look of tin ceilings, white marble, 3-D tile and new advancements in technology were the big stories.
“We noticed a lot of experimentation with the incredible advancements this year. The whole team can’t wait to see what is presented at next year’s show.”—Brandy Janke
Deep ink technology, which gives a realistic marble veining effect to man-made porcelain tile, and nanopolish, a process that creates a high-definition glass glazed look, are two of the newest advancements on display this year. And large-format tile? It just keeps getting larger. A 10-foot tile was even presented by one vendor.
Bold and colorful tiles display a patchwork trend.
Beyond Cersaie
Another year, another successful scouting mission. Attending shows like Cersaie is important for The Tile Shop team. It’s an investment in our customers that allows us to have the most robust selection around.
“Cersaie is a scouting experience. It allows us to see what is out in the market and stay ahead of trends to ensure we bring the most unique new products to our stores. After this year, I feel very confident that The Tile Shop is ahead of the trends. We have a lot of exciting things our customers are going to love coming out over the next year.”—Brandy Janke
Cersaie has made us even more excited about what 2019 has to bring. Check back over the coming months to see what new arrivals we have in store.
