Plumbing and Hardware Trends from the 2025 DPHA Summit

The Decorative Plumbing and Hardware Association’s (DPHA) annual three-day summit took place at the Houston Hyatt Regency with 344 attendees and 48 exhibitors representing 62 manufacturers. The event was a fabulous mix of serious fun and serious business with a product awards ceremony; a dynamic keynote session with futurist Crystal Washington, who adeptly tailored her presentation to the attendees; and the Product Showcase where premium and luxury products, not frequently seen at other trade shows, were on display and accompanied by brand representatives and product designers.

Plumbing Trendsa
At the meeting, manufacturers focused on delivering luxury to the consumer, not just with beautiful designs and finishes but more specifically, the user experience. Faucet handles with ultra-smooth operation, hand-held shower hoses that do not tangle or twist, shower heads that deliver a relaxing experience for everyday hygiene, bathtubs and saunas that that offer health and wellness benefits and product customization all put the consumer in the design driver’s seat on the quest to make their projects unique.

Concrete fixtures were displayed by multiple manufacturers. Concrete exudes a tactile and visual presence, soothing our senses from our screen-centric world and is amenable to being crafted in a variety of shapes and sizes that are hard to achieve with vitreous china, making the material a desirable choice for an organic design style. Notable concrete fixtures displayed at DPHA included Barclay’s Krete line with beautiful, ribbed fronts; Lacava displayed Concrete sinks in a dozen colors and eighteen sizes/shape options; and Native Trails’ concrete Arcata sink took home the 2025 DPHA Bathroom Fixture Product of the Year.