At last month’s Sweets & Snacks Expo 2021, our first in-person food show in over a year, it was impossible to ignore how often the aspect of “personal” arose. The importance of getting personal resonated throughout several merchandising disciplines. Its influence was felt in product creation, … [Read more...]
Anticipating 2021-22 Seasonal Trends
In our year-and-a-half of quarantine and isolation so far, we 've had plenty of time to think about the people we have been separated from, and the traditions we once shared with them. To say that we now long for these touchpoints is an understatement. Whether 2021 is the year we return to … [Read more...]
Christmas Redux: Letters To Santa
Letters to Santa is a sweet, child-like Christmas theme that The Trend Curve highlighted last in our 2012 color-and-trend forecast, ‘Tis The Season. For 2022, it is making a comeback. In fact, at Christmasworld in Frankfurt and at the Atlanta Gift Market, this theme was just emerging (we posted … [Read more...]
Red or Green, Not Red and Green
When it comes to Christmas, conventional wisdom holds that the most salable color story is red and green. I’m here to tell you that while this may be absolutely true for core products—the bestsellers you repeat with success year-after-year—nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to … [Read more...]
A Mix of Horror and Fun Midsummer Scream
Because I forecast color and design trends, consumer shows are not normally on my radar. After all, the products shown at consumer events come way too late in the trend cycle to be of any use to forecasts for the industry. But I have learned that this is not necessarily true of Midsummer … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [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 … [Read more...]