Happiness Lookbook | Decorating Your Home for the Holidays
What if we reinvented Christmas? Design, bold colours, and a return to tradition with Norki
There is something deeply comforting about the return of the holiday season: the scent of pine, the soft glow of lights, the suspended moments of togetherness. Yet, Christmas is no longer quite what it used to be. Far from rigid codes, overloaded decorations, and expected colour combinations, it has become a genuine playground for aesthetic experimentation. Designers embrace it, brands reinvent it, and homes approach it with fresh intention. Christmas becomes a visual language—a manifesto of style, a play of textures and colours where every detail matters.
In this inspiration notebook, we explore a Christmas that breaks the mold: a sculptural Christmas with Gustaf Westman, luminous and delicate with India Mahdavi, before returning to the very essence of tradition—a deep, sensory, and authentic Christmas envisioned by Norki. A journey between modernity and heritage, creativity and the return to roots.
Forgetting the rules: when Christmas steps out of its traditional frame
For decades, Christmas has been defined by a fixed imagery: bright red, vivid green, snowy white, sparkling gold. A palette that became almost automatic, inherited from old stories and sometimes rigid traditions. Yet contemporary homes—more architectural, more minimalist, more sensitive to textures and lines—have gradually disrupted these references.
Today, Christmas décor is more refined, structured, almost intellectual. We no longer overload; we compose. We no longer juxtapose; we balance. Ornaments become sculptural, garlands are stylized, and table centers resemble artistic installations. Decorations are streamlined, playful, sometimes futuristic.
This reinvention of the codes is particularly evident in the work of designers: their organic silhouettes, soft or vibrant palettes, and iconic objects become a source of inspiration for imagining a more personal, unexpected Christmas. In a world saturated with images, what resonates today is what surprises—and this is precisely what the creators we’ve chosen to explore offer.
Reinventing the festive table with Gustaf Westman’s playful spirit
Gustaf Westman belongs to a new generation of designers capable of instantly transforming a space into a tender, joyful atmosphere. His universe—recognizable for its generous curves, creamy colours, and pop silhouettes—brings everyday life a softness that is almost nostalgic yet perfectly controlled. For the holidays, this aesthetic is reimagined with new audacity through WINTERFINT, the collection he designed this year with IKEA. An unexpected but extremely coherent collaboration, where the designer’s playful vision meets the Swedish brand’s functional accessibility.
WINTERFINT offers a profoundly different interpretation of traditional Christmas imagery. Objects seem imbued with a festive spirit, as if they were moving themselves. Plates feature rounded, almost sculpted edges, turning tableware into a soft, sculptural landscape. Glasses, subtly tinted in soft pastels, capture and diffuse light into a warm atmosphere. Candlesticks with organic shapes seem to converse with one another. Colour-block table centers bring a fresh, contemporary energy that reinvents the Christmas table without ever losing its convivial spirit.
This approach allows for imagining a relaxed, joyful holiday dinner where aesthetics remain refined yet playful. A Christmas that dares spontaneity while maintaining a design elegance—a subtle balance Gustaf Westman masters beautifully. His work for WINTERFINT opens the door to a new way of entertaining: lighter, more colourful, more narrative. A Christmas that doesn’t need excess to create magic because it is the forms, gestures, and materials that speak.
A luminous, artisanal Christmas with India Mahdavi’s Holiday Collection
India Mahdavi, in contrast, proposes a vision that is almost opposite: a sensual, luminous, deeply artistic Christmas. For the 2024 season, the designer unveils a Holiday Collection built entirely around hand-blown glass, crafted by the master glassmakers of Murano. A collaboration that resembles a dialogue between two cultures: Mahdavi’s chromatic audacity and narrative sophistication on one side; ancestral craftsmanship, precise gestures, and the delicacy of Italian material on the other.
Each piece in this collection seems to capture a fragment of light. Undulating shapes carved from vibrant glass recall the movement of water or the folds of flowing fabric. Glasses play with colourful transparencies, oscillating between deep pink, saffron yellow, rich violet, or garnet. Decorative baubles mix opacity and brilliance, as if they contain their own inner energy.
This work reconnects with the idea of artisanal Christmas—but with craftsmanship reinterpreted through the eye of an architect who thinks of objects as portable pieces of architecture. Hand-blown glass becomes an emotional medium: a surface that captures candle reflections, shadows from the tree, the warmth of conversation. The table then becomes a luminous stage. One no longer sets a meal; one composes an atmosphere, telling a story through colour and transparency.
With this Holiday Collection, India Mahdavi offers an opulent, arty, sensual Christmas. A Christmas where colour is not merely décor but a language, and each object is a talisman, a piece of emotion, a signature.
A return to tradition: Norki’s 2025 vision
If this year marks the comeback of angel hair tinsel on trees, it is no accident. This desire for sparkling lightness, almost nostalgic, accompanies a broader movement: a conscious return to tradition.
At Norki, this attachment to authenticity is at the heart of our vision. We believe in a Christmas that reconnects with the emotions of yesteryear—the ones that fill our childhood memories—with deep burgundy and pine green, far from metallic, black, or white decorations.
Le bordeaux
Also called Burgundy, Garnet, or Wine, burgundy is the season’s red—deep, noble, elegant. It embodies the richness of emotions, the intensity of celebrations, the warmth of an interior where every piece matters. At Norki, this colour appears in essential everyday pieces: sofas in dark, enveloping tones, chairs with generous lines, textured poufs… A palette that comforts, reassures, and signals a return to intimacy.
Le vert bouteille
Pine green marks a return to the roots. An iconic colour of nature and cozy winters, it has seen a major resurgence in premium décor. At Norki, it graces a stunning vintage sofa by Carl Malmsten—a Scandinavian design gem refurbished in bottle-green sheepskin. A deeply elegant colour for a long vintage sofa to welcome the whole family during the holidays.
Reimagined tartan
Finally, Norki reinterprets tartan, an iconic winter interior pattern. Applied to the Andante Throw, it becomes the perfect accessory for a living room, reading chair, or as an elegant gift. An essential designed to last, inspired by great English houses but modernized with Norki’s signature by pairing it with sheepskin, the Maison’s hallmark material.
