What We Do
If you are a manufacturer, retailer, interior designer, marketing or visual display professional—or if you work with clients in these businesses—you know your future relies on staying up-to-speed on home furnishings color, pattern and design trends.
Why Become a Member?
As a Member you will be kept up-to-date on the latest trends in home furnishings through The Trend Curve™, receive substantial discounts to products in the Trend Store, special Member content as well as other benefits.
Consulting & Services
Marketing Directions’ clients include the leading manufacturers, retailers, home-interior, floral and automotive designers in the world. We offer private consulting, targeted presentations, trend seminars & workshops, articles and more.
The Trend Curve Team
When you see a name below a post, or read the name of an editorial correspondent in The Trend Curve, you might wonder who they are and why you should trust their trend perspective. Here's a brief snapshot of those people.
Are you ready to find out how we can help you succeed?
Recent Posts
Ready for Heimtextil 2019
With just a few days before Heimtextil 2019 opens at Messe Frankfurt, there’s once again optimism in a new year. That’s in spite of economic volatility and political unrest globally. One reason is the theme for the 2019/2020 design trends, always one of the most anticipated presentations at the annual international trade fair for home […] Read more...
SoCal Halloween
Since moving to Southern California from Minneapolis a few months ago, I have discovered that many elements of décor remain consistent across the miles, yet some things are different. Take Halloween decorating, for example. It turns out that kids here in SoCal love decorating their homes just as much as those in the Twin Cities. […] Read more...
Gingham? Check!
If you count yourself among gingham’s adoring fans, get ready to be wowed. A revival of these cheerful checks is emerging for tableware and décor that feel breezy and lighthearted. Assortments debuting at Dallas Market Center in June, and AmericasMart in July showed off a range of sizes, colors and applications. Ginghams popped up in […] Read more...
Smitten by Texture at GHFW
After years of focus on minimalist simplicity, consumers began to crave product designs with a different sort of character. Mixed media combinations were the market’s first response to that need. The next step was texture. And once consumers got a look at what texture could provide, they were smitten. Now textures are in the midst […] Read more...
These Ideas Are On The Fringe
For so many years fringe has been thought of (when anybody thought of it at all) as down-market. It had a reputation for being thin and scraggly, and it always got tangled in the wash. No wonder fringe faded from view long ago. But now fringe is back in a big way, and it has […] Read more...
Top Trends: Licensing International Expo 2018
Themes noted among the 389 exhibitor booths on the floor of the 2018 edition of Licensing International Expo were as varied as the product that represented them. They included the continued growth of collectible toy brands as licensed properties, merchandise with a message, properties tied to digitally distributed content (like streaming entertainment and online influencers), […] Read more...
Fancy Food Gets Ugly
The Summer Fancy Food Show is the largest specialty food-industry event in North America. Held at New York’s Javits Center, this year’s show provided a snapshot of upcoming food trends. Food and licensing expert Leigh Ann Schwarzkopf of Project Partners Network identified one of those trends as sustainability. Bringing the topics of “reclaimed” and “food” […] Read more...
Interviews at Dallas Market Center — June 2018
What do you get when you combine a floral-trends expert with a home-décor trends expert? The answer: Grow With Us, a day of education and inspiration sponsored by Dallas Market Center, which took place on June 20th. Led by uBloom’s J Schwanke and The Trend Curve’s Michelle Lamb, this session was attended by retailers, designers and product-development specialists […] Read more...
High Point Had a Lot of Dogs
Llamas may be on-trend, but dogs are not giving up their share of the whimsical-animal pie without a fight. At the High Point furniture market, dogs appeared in framed art and on trays, as the inspiration for the shapes and surface designs on rugs and embossed onto hardware for kids’ furniture. Dogs were appliquéd onto […] Read more...
Student Designers at FURNEX
FURNEX & The Home is the largest trade fair in Africa. Held annually in Cairo, Egypt, it hosts the top Egyptian furniture manufacturers, exporters and traders serving domestic, regional and international markets. This year, it was also host to a student exhibition called Soft and Hard. The challenge to students from German University in Cairo […] Read more...
Dots are On-Trend for Christmas
I just finished writing Trend Album™: Christmasworld 2018, The Trend Curve’s trend report about the Christmasworld trade fair that runs about 80 pages and includes more than 150 images. Among the noteworthy surface-design trends for Christmas was dots. Dots are trending for Christmas because they are trending in everyday décor. And they’re going to be […] Read more...
MADE/Slow at Showcase Ireland
Showcase was founded by the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland 42 years ago. Today, it is among The Trend Curve’s favorite trade fairs. Why? Because most of the products found at this annual Dublin-based event are designed and made by Irish crafters, so the quality is high. Even better, these are products you can’t […] Read more...
Lessons Learned from Halloween 2017
Those who create retail assortments rarely get a full view of what happens to products they develop and select at the fateful point of purchase. Which items really made cash registers ring? Which in-store displays actually swayed customers to buy? Not knowing the answers to these questions can feel like sending a message in a […] Read more...
The Allure of Outer Space in Décor
It seems that designs suggesting outer space can always be found in décor. But lately, they are being seen more often, and in a larger variety of interpretations. And although lighting seems to have a particular affinity for the topic, space-themed designs are also cropping up in a greater range of product types, from furniture […] Read more...
Halloween 2017 in a Few Words
I recently finished writing a retail reconnaissance report, along with my licensing-genius colleague, Leigh Ann Scharzkopf of Lookout Marketing. While we have created an entire series of these store-check reports, called Taking Stock of Retail™, the subject of this version was Halloween 2017. Scouring through thousands of pictures snapped by our team at retail to […] Read more...
The New Look For Dots
Dots started to attract The Trend Curve’s attention at the beginning of 2017. The reason they stood out was a new level of sophistication that made polka-dots look positively dated. At December’s Showtime textiles market, dots grabbed the eye again, this time because of a hand-drawn character that made them feel soft and approachable. They […] Read more...
Heimtextil 2018
Heimtextil is the biggest international trade fair for home and contract textiles, and because it’s the first trade fair of the year for its sector, it acts as a barometer for the new business year. Interestingly, however, the next edition of it (to be held from January 9th through 12th 2018) will emphasize space, as […] Read more...
Deconstruction: The Next Textiles Trend
One of the biggest trends for home décor fabrics features a hand-stitched look that The Trend Curve has been writing about for the past year. Whether woven in for upholstery or done by hand as an embellishment on items like cushions, embroidery and crewelwork looks are experiencing a pile-on of popularity, and there’s no end […] Read more...
Get Ready for More Purple
Ultra Violet may be Pantone’s Color of the Year for 2018, but a quick glance around the Showtime textiles market in December revealed that Ultra Violet is not the only purple trending for next year. From amethyst to royal and from lavender to plum, purples made surface designs look fresh. Seen in both printed and […] Read more...
Going West at Showtime
While most collections were exploring a Boho revival for décor (driven in great part by the success of Justina Blakeney’s book, The New Bohemians), an American West theme was quietly emerging at the Showtime textiles market. Showtime was not the first time a Western trend got noticed. Hints of this look were also visible at […] Read more...