This week we had a lecture presented by a member of the company specializing in trend forecasting - Trend Union. It’s a respectable company with over 20 years of history with HQ in Paris and branches in NY and Tokyo. There are only 20 multi-specialised people working permanently but the company is well known and does trend forecasting, branding; conduct and coordinate trade shows, presentations, exhibitions and education programs for variety of design areas (not only fashion) and lifestyle elements such as food, habits, people’s ways of traveling, etc. For instance, Woolmark, Dupon Lycra, Swarovski, L’Oreal, Bally, Phillips, Nissan, to name a few, are among their clients. Usually forecasting is done for 2 years, but sometimes prediction can be addressed for longer period.
The lecture lasted for couple of hours and there are some main points regards of future directions of the design and lifestyle development.
- Customers will by with their touches as well as with their eyes
- The border between woman and man will proceed blurring
- Fair trade will be becoming more and more important
- Branding finally will reach its humanic state
- Interior & object design will proceed occupying top sport leaving to fashion the second one
- The increase in importance of sustainable lifestyle
- Fashion will become more about “sold and used” rather then pure fantasy
- People will more and more tend to pay a bit more for products of a better quality
Regional specifics (up-to-date stage):
- Paris is not trend savvy
- The trendiest country is Japan. There is just more of everything and a better quality
- India is hard one to “break” into. They maintain their own independent approach to design as well as in lifestyle
- China is not into forecasting until it shifts from copying to creating
- Russia and Eastern European countries in regards of trends are “behind” the Western world by approximately 20 years
- Best Australian contribution to the world is (surprisingly (!)) food
That’s about it. Some food for little grey cells, isn’t it?! )))
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