The Trend Lab: if you know it, you avoid it |

In the 80s there was a very popular advert aimed at teenager to raise awareness about Aids in Italy that stated: “Aids: if you know it, you avoid it”. The "if you know it/avoid it" part of that slogan suddenly came back to my mind while I recently sat through a trend lab.

These seminars/workshops are usually silly events organised by specific trend companies that try to forecast what will be popular in the next few months. What kind of people usually attend such events? Fashion journalists with no ideas, a lot of time on their hands and no writing “implements” (that’s obvious from the fact that, as soon as they enter the seminar room, they grab the free pen/pencil and notebook from the young woman/man standing at the door, as if they were a free designer bag…).

I was recently asked to attend one of these trend workshops and, though the idea scared me a bit, I thought I would have found something interesting in it all the same. Despite living a cynically negative existence, deep down in my heart I’m an optimist and I’m the sort of person who decides to read a book till the very last page even if it's a bad one thinking it is possible to find even one sentence worth reading in it. Yet, obviously, in the case of the trend workshop I was absolutely wrong.

The event started by showing how specific juxtapositions could generate interesting ideas: urban inspirations Vs countryside, for example, or art Vs science. Further examples (not all exactly intelligent and also including bohemian dandies Vs mystic travellers…dear oh dear) followed, but after 5 minutes the whole thing entirely degenerated. The person doing the presentation began reading it without looking anybody in the eye, because time was tight and, you know, it’s better to respect a rigid time frame than make eye contact with the people in the audience (doesn’t matter if at marketing class they taught you the opposite, be efficient, forget about your humanity).

A slide show featuring assorted images from catwalk shows and random pictures – from paintings to generic un-copyrighted materials showing woods, houses, pieces of furniture and so on – was in the meantime projected in the background to support what the speaker was saying.

According to the speaker, inspirations can be found a bit anywhere: hardware inspired studs and unusual finishes on clothes; rebel Americana brought into fashion biker styles and motorcycle jackets; architecture, interior design and Scandinavian furniture provided us with wonderfully designs characterised by clean and calculated geometrical lines. The list was simply randomly endless. In fact it was so randomly endless that it just annoyed me: what makes you say that a building by Le Corbusier will inspire the next season collections more than a building by Frank Lloyd Wright (or viceversa…)? What makes a Victorian cabinet of curios more fashionable than the contents of my great grandmother’s wardrobe? I had the impression somebody had lazily been going through different archives and pilfering pictures here and there with no reason in particular.

The torture wasn’t over yet and the presentation went on with some demented definitions (such as “holistic design approach”…whatever that means), created by putting together decontextualised words and using them in semantically improper contests, and a final analysis of different consumers that listed all sorts except one, the alienated consumer (me) and that suggested that a cosy environment can convince consumers to spend money (as if by adding a kitchen or putting up a new vibrant design in a shop could convince an unemployed consumer to buy).

There was no chance to ask any questions at the end of the trend lab, after all the strict 30 minutes had expired and maybe the person doing the presentation may have turned Cinderella-style into a pumpkin. I had a few questions to ask and one dilemma remained unsolved in my mind: how can trend forecasters promote their services as tailor-made and individual if they sell the same products, inspirations, news and ideas to everybody?

As a whole the event made me realise one main thing: essentially, creating something is a very poetical act, after all the word “poet” comes from the Greek poieo that means “I make”. Unfortunately, there is nothing poetically creative in these supposedly trend labs, but there is that quick capitalistic superficiality that has been feeding the entire world in the last few years.

Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos

http://www.boxxet.com/my/badgeBN.80.15.js?boxxetId=u23036

Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos

http://www.boxxet.com/my/badgeBN.160.30.js?boxxetId=u23036

Add to Technorati Favorites