IDS Toronto 2020

There is always a buzz around the end of January in the design industry. It’s not just because a new year has begun, it’s because the hottest designers, newest trends and one of the biggest parties of the year has arrived; the Toronto Interior Design Show. Taking place January 16th to 19th this year, our Tasco Pros braved the cold and ventured out to see what this years show would reveal.

Overall, we found the show to be pretty cool this year. Focused on technology and sustainability, there was a different vibe throughout the hundreds of booths – many of which were designed in creative and thoughtful ways. The Monogram booth for example was made of glass, eliminating the need for cupboards and focusing attention on appliances. Caesarstone collaborated with Johnathan Adler to create an instagrammable dreamland – highlighting the many ways you can work with quartz.



In terms of appliances we had a few favourites which are definitely worth getting excited about in 2020. Our first was the new Miele Dishwasher, which had what felt like an entire booth to itself. It is breaking into new territory overall and looks good doing it. The new dishwasher holds a Miele created Power Disk. This disk is loaded into the dishwasher and one holds up to 20 washes – no need for adding a new pod to each wash. The dishwasher also senses the level of dirt on the dishes and uses the appropriate level of soap from the disk. If your dishes are rinsed before or not overly dirty each time, one disk can last a month at least. There’s also a beautiful digital touch screen that makes navigation and menu option scrolling a complete breeze. It’s not launching until summer 2020 so for now we’ll just have to put up with our plain old dishwasher pods.  

Throughout the show we saw a lot of booths and products focused on sustainability. Even Volvo was there with a booth completely made out of 99% recycled materials featuring their low CO2 emission, highly efficient, plug-in hybrid XC 60. We’ve been seeing many more appliance brands expanding into energy efficiency this year especially with the Government of Canada’s Energy Saver Rebate. Dishwashers and laundry are the most common energy efficient appliances you can buy, but keep an eye on induction cooktops in 2020, as we’re seeing them start to take over the cooking industry even more.

We’ve also noticed that appliances are starting to open up to the world of colour. Last year we saw the launch of Café – beautiful appliances available in finishes like matte white and offering customizable handles. This year we’re seeing brands like KitchenAid, Smeg and Samsung launch appliances available in a much wider range of colours. Dacor is also picking up this trend with their Dacor Colour Match program. When you purchase Dacor appliances you can now send them a colour swatch of practically any colour and they will hand paint your appliances to match that colour. We’re loving this trend so much that we decided to team up with Dacor and Kitchen Crafters at IDS to show off this fantastic new option. We're excited to see designers have even greater flexibility with kitchen design as a result.

Last but definitely not least, one of our favourite trends we saw throughout IDS was minimalistic luxury appliances. Monogram had one of the most stand out booths at the show overall. Instead of having a booth featuring appliances in cabinetry, the entire booth, designed by award-winning architectural studio Partisans, was created out of glass in order to highlight only the appliances themselves. It was the ultimate minimalist statement and it was stunning. The new Minimalist Collection features luxury appliances made with incredible quality materials and focusing on simple details in the most luxurious ways. You can expect contemporary design with smart features and beautiful finishes.

Based on our experiences at the Interior Design Show, we are very excited for what 2020 has in store for the appliance industry – and this is just the beginning!