Another day, another blister. I walked for 8 more hours at Heimtextil, the world’s largest trade fair for home textiles, taking place at the Messe Frankfurt fairgrounds in Germany. I began my day at 8:30 by attending a lecture about the trends shown in the Trend Forum. These are trends meant to inspire future product development and innovation into 2010.
I have been coming to Heimtextil for more than 10 years, and this was the best, most trend-forward collection of themes I have seen so far. The themes all reside under the umbrella of Expect The Unexpected.
The names chosen for Messe Frankfurt’s trends are different from those I used in FutureHome™ 2010 & Beyond (shipping this week, email Janice to order), but the directions are very similar. The ones here in Germany are simply—and appropriately—related specifically to fabrics. The Trend forum featured:
Illusionist
Time Traveler
Fortune Teller
Alchemist
Witchcraft
Enchanted
My favorite two themes were Illusionist (in FutureHome, look for Real/Surreal) and Fortune Teller (match this to Bohemian Rhapsody in FutureHome).
In Illusionist, high technology for padding, layering and folding create an illusion of mass and bulk. Fabrics stretch, morph and bend a natural human beauty into surreal shapes. Sheers are key. Fortune Teller is a free-spirited collage of recycled patterns and artsy-craftsy techniques, mixing up folklore from all over the world. Color rules.
I am including a couple of images of both trends from the Trend Forum. The Illusionist images are above. Fortune Teller are below.
