A quick look around an electrical showroom will reveal that the term "white goods" isn't really accurate anymore. It's still used in the electrical appliance industry to describe the major kitchen appliances and it's not exactly difficult to figure out where the name came from - fridges, dishwashers and washing machines are, after all, traditionally white.
But not anymore. Stainless steel fridges have become the most fashionable option at the middle and the top end of the market and, after that, the big new trend is in coloured fridges. Forget the grim beige fridges with wheatsheafs that were everywhere in the 1980s. The new colours either have a definite 50s retro feel or are strong blues, reds and yellows. The trend towards industrial looking kitchens means that stainless steel, which started off as trendy choice for hobs and cookers, has had a strong impact on fridge finishes. Even five years ago it would have been difficult - and very expensive - for anyone fitting out a kitchen to find a domestic-sized stainless steel fridge to match the rest of their stainless steel appliances. Some enterprising people got around the problem by having their standard fridge doors clad in stainless steel. This is not completely successful as the door handles cannot be covered in the same way.
The good news is that anyone keen to go down the ultra-mod stainless steel route now has an enormous choice across a wide price range. The manufacturers have cottoned on to the stainless steel fad with a vengeance and metal fans can now choose between a finish that is genuinely stainless steel and one that is a stainless steel-looking laminate, which is significantly cheaper.
If it's not free-standing and stainless steel or brightly coloured, then let it be hidden. According to the ESB, the biggest fridge retailer in Ireland, integrated fridges are the fastest growing product. Their hide-away neatness and the sleek finish they give to a kitchen makes them particularly popular for apartments, and newly designed-kitchen extensions. With utility rooms now becoming larger and more popular, people are beginning to install a fairly modest-sized integrated fridge freezer in the kitchen and put a large free-standing fridge freezer in the utility for drinks and frozen foods.
The most exciting free-standing fridges now come in a wide range of colours and the more interesting designs are large curvy models that are reminiscent of the first big American fridges. Buying a coloured fridge is a slightly risky option - ten cubic feet of pastel green in the corner of the kitchen might seem like a good idea for a while, but what if you get tired of the colour? It is a sure sign of affluence when fridges start coming in strong fashionable colours, since it implies that buyers aren't buying them to last 20 years. Instead, they are just another kitchen accessory. While curvy, coloured fridges are still a rarity, the ultimate kitchen status symbol is the big American fridge with crushed ice and chilled water on tap. At a very cool £2,000-plus, these are certainly at the top end of the market. It seems that Irish thirtysomethings who grew up seeing these mammoth ice boxes on The Brady Bunch and Dallas are now making room for them in their kitchens - literally. One Dublin architect was instructed to factor in a separate and very visible area between the diningroom and the kitchen just for the American Fridge.
GRAINNE Knowles of Knowles Electric in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, says that the demand for these mammoth fridges, which have to be plumbed in with a separate water supply feeding the ice box, is increasing all the time. On a recent Saturday, she sold three of them before lunchtime. "So many Irish people have now lived abroad and they're used to having large fridges." she says "In America, they treat the fridge rather like we treat a larder, they put everything in it, and if you get used to living like that then you want that when you come home."
