As usual, Ceramique Internationale directors Cameron Fraser and Peter Vann shared with us their thoughts on the recent Cersaie exhibition in Bologna.
Miscalculated forward planning meant that this year’s trip to Cersaie came in the middle of a trip to Spain – a Bologna sandwich you might say! But thankfully it was a tasty one.
Flying to Spain instead of the UK after the fair was a revelation. No air strikes, no flight cancellations and no flight delays – it was a change in proceedings that definitely paid off!
What hadn’t changed about Cersaie was the hour-long ride up to Sassuolo to see the big players who boycott the exhibition halls.
The Marazzi, Ragno and Kai showrooms revealed themselves to be bustling with their own customers. Their boycott obviously still annoys those who do exhibit in the main event’s 37 halls, and who feel that a truly international event should be all about doing just that. You decide…
As for Cersaie 2024, we loved the Gruppo Romani motto “Tiles are Sexy”. But for us, the phrase that best sums up the feel of the show would be “Play it Safe”.
The UK market has been rocky all year and the very recent failure of a major UK player reverberated around the show.
With fewer customers in UK showrooms to see, appreciate and buy last year’s torrent of Travertine, this year’s Cersaie suggest that a myriad of Portland Stone imitations, with an increase in warm colour pallets, will be heading to our shores in 2025.
Marazzi focussed on history, specifically their patented invention in 1974 of the rapid single-firing process – monocottura – which changed all tile production forever. The Terramater glossy porcelain tiles in multiple sizes with three-dimensional feature tiles, was presented in celebration of this technological milestone.
Added to the Crogiolo family were new colour versions of the much-emulated Lume metro tile – a firm favourite which now boasts over three million sqm annual sales.
Two options of three-dimensional feature tiles, across all the Lume colours, will provide value, a point of difference – and greater longevity – for what is certainly the first-and-best of its type.
The flagship Mystone collection was expanded again with Silver Root, a matt marble collection of three greige-based tones, featuring long, thin, elegant veining. A nice diversion from all the Onyx that has burgeoned in showrooms in recent times.
Casalgrande Padana’s formula for success in the UK – the multi-format, multi-purpose Metropolis and Era series – was replicated in Terrae. Like its predecessors, this warm terracotta-based pallete, and Lithos, a gentle but visually stimulating stone style, hit the spot for UK consumer trends.
Marble effects were featured in Alabatsri, in large 90mm x 180mm and slab 120mm x 278mm sizes, to bring bright Onyx tones into play.
Last year Calsalgrande showcased into own-brand upmarket Aquatio bathroom fittings, manufactured from slab technology tiles.
For 2024, this diversification was extended to include Convivialis, a complete range of porcelain dining and occasional tables featuring super-luxury marble tops.
Marca Corona had the most unusual decorative items, although they were not alone in the thinking…
Arialuce is a collection of terracotta lattice free-standing brick tiles, inspired by traditional craftsmanship but with a contemporary twist. In fired raw terracotta clay with small see-though latticed blocks in various shapes and sizes creating captivating patterns, they are a creative alternative to glass-brick interior walls.
More typically for a major ceramic tile producer, a new selection of tones and effects was added to the Longarine 7.5mm x 60mm series – a great shape and size for the highly popular herringbone laying style that is proliferating the UK market.
Pamesa’s Dorset stone offered a clever and visually interesting pale floor, with its lightly striated design and less-is-more surface textures providing a little point of difference from their inevitable Portland stone introduction.
Spanish smaller-format producers always provide eye-candy at Cersaie and that was certainly true again for 2024.
Estudio Ceramica displayed a massive commitment to three dimensional shapes, sizes and effects. These ranges employ larger brick shapes to deliver a smaller three-tiles-in-one – adding rapid fixing and seamless styles to the benefits list.
The bright, glossy, plain-coloured brick shapes of Acanto feature triangular and domed surface structures, while Argos employed heavily concave sculpted marble and stone colours and Enjoy used the same tile body but with gentle shading pastel plain tones.
Wow Ceramics kept it reet petite with a variety of tiny tiles, in 50mm x150mm oval shaped travertine stone effect, with corresponding bricks and squares, and the same little oval shape in glossy weathered/aged colours. Well… they all help us to sell more grout!
Taking Kit-Kat to a whole new dimension was Spike Bars. Their cute pre-cut wall tiles are chevrons, as opposed to the usual brick. They also showcased a very strong silver metallic Kit-Kat tile.
Fabresa, well known for their classical and time-honoured mass-market Metro tiles in 100mm x 300mm and 100mm x 200mm, showed a simple way to add perceived value to red-body wall tiles by switching tracks to a less recognised production size – 80mm x 250mm. A simple move which worked really well with the new Erso series.
Amadis definitely won the award for embracing the “small is beautiful” theme, with their Earth series of highly rugose, matt surface mini-bricks.
So, big show, small tiles is a key take-away.
But we’ll save our closing comment for an amusing example of Italian-ness proffered by a supplier well known for their delightful pressed wavy-edge floor tiles in multiple sizes. The UK loves this value-adding style, especially when it’s sold as a pre-determined opus laying pattern. And, as proper rustic edge production has become less and less available, this style has been able to command a bit of a premium.
They presented their newest multi-size flooring range with the following announcement: “We’ve removed the wavy edges to make a rectified version, which increases the price by 3€ per sqm.”
We’re still trying to get our heads around that one!
