Every December, Pinterest publishes a list of trends it expects to grow in the year ahead, based on what people are searching for. One of the 2026 picks is called Extra Celestial: a mix of holographic finishes, opalescent colour and what Pinterest calls the alien core aesthetic. According to its report, searches for that phrase rose 80 percent and searches for opalescent rose 115 percent year on year.
Most coverage of the trend shows bubble chairs and iridescent vases. This post is about the cheaper, easier route: getting the look from what you hang on the wall.
What Extra Celestial actually looks like
Strip away the trend name and there are four ingredients:
- Colour that shifts. Pink sliding into cyan, violet into mint, the way an oil slick or the inside of a shell changes as you move.
- Liquid surfaces. Chrome, mercury, molten glass. Shapes that look poured, not drawn.
- Soft glow. Light that seems to come from inside the object.
- Space as a mood, not a subject. You don't need a planet in the picture. The feeling is weightless and slightly unearthly.
It overlaps with Y3K hyperfuturism, which we covered in Chrome, Liquid Metal, and the Far-Future Sanctuary. The difference is temperature. Y3K is cold and sharp. Extra Celestial is softer and more playful.
An honest note about holographic prints
A true holographic surface is a physical foil that splits light. A printed poster or canvas is matte ink on paper or fabric. It will not flash rainbows when you walk past. What it does is show a picture of iridescence: the gradients, the colour shifts and the liquid highlights, fixed in place.
That is a strength on a wall. Real holographic foil over a large area is glary and hard to live with. A matte print gives you the colour story without the reflection, and it looks the same under lamplight as it does at noon. Pair it with one or two small objects that really do shimmer and you get the full effect.
The pieces that carry the look
Trippy Holographic is the most direct match: a swirl of magenta, violet, blue and teal, scattered with sharp, glassy fragments. There is no subject, only colour in motion. As a poster it works in a gallery wall; as a tapestry it can cover a whole wall for the price of a small canvas.
Liquid Metal Mist Pink is the softest piece of the group: a smooth, rippling wash of violet and blue, like light moving across liquid. On canvas at a large size it works as the single statement piece in a living room or bedroom, and it is calm enough to sleep near.
Chrome and Blue is the metallic option: swirls of liquid silver, blue and black. It fits Pinterest's separate Cool Blue trend as well, so it covers two predictions at once.
Liquid Dream is marbled pink, teal and white, like ink dropped in water. It is the palest and lightest of the set.
Electric Water is the strange one, and the most literally alien: an old computer monitor adrift on glowing teal water, under a green aurora and a field of stars.
How to style it
Give it a pale, quiet wall
Iridescent colour needs room. A white, pale grey or very soft lilac wall lets the gradients read clearly. On a strongly coloured wall the art has to fight, and the subtle shifts get lost.
One large piece beats several small ones
These are abstract fields of colour. They work best big, where the transitions have space to happen. If your budget is tight, a large tapestry gives you more area per dollar than any other format.
Add two or three objects that really do shimmer
This is where the print and the trend meet. A small iridescent vase, a chrome lamp base, a clear acrylic tray. Keep the count low. Two or three reflective objects near a matte iridescent print is a look. Ten is a gift shop.
Light it softly
Avoid a bare overhead bulb. A lamp to one side, or an LED strip set to a slow fade between pink and cyan, echoes the colour shift in the print and makes it look as if the art is lighting the room.
Keep the furniture simple
White, pale wood, clear acrylic or brushed metal. Heavy dark furniture pulls the room back toward the ground, which is the opposite of the weightless mood you are after.
Where it works, and where it doesn't
- Bedrooms: very well. The palette is soft and the shapes are slow.
- Desks and creative studios: well, especially with a matching Liquid Metal Mist Pink desk mat underneath.
- Warm, rustic rooms: harder. Next to brown leather and dark oak, iridescent colour can look like it belongs to a different house. If that is your room, pick one piece and keep it to one.
Will it date?
Trend names come and go. The underlying things, soft gradients and fluid abstract shapes, have been around for decades and will outlast the label. If you like the piece without the trend attached, it is a safe buy. If you are only buying because a report said so, start with a poster or a keychain and see how you feel in six months.
Browse all the abstract and liquid-metal pieces in the poster, tapestry and canvas collections.