Our Fall Trend Report covers local, regional and international trends with a focus on music, food and fashion for early 2013. The full report includes analysis that highlights primary shifts in culture, as well as each trend’s adoption by counter, pop or common culture. After identifying emerging trends in each area of culture, we use people, places and products to illustrate the cultural shift and inspire readers with how each trend comes to life. Every business and category can tap into these trends to uncover unique opportunities and insights to fuel its brand’s future.
We believe trends are about culture, and culture is about people. So we are constantly working to connect ourselves, and our clients, to the emerging influencers, ideas and events that are changing our cultural landscape. This enables us to inspire meaningful participation with culture, whether through ideating for product innovation, leveraging changing consumer behavior to inform brand strategy or sparking conversations with growing social communities.
Three trends from our Fall Report you need to know about to stay ahead of the curve in 2013:
1) Urban Dandies
Urban Dandies Exemplified by:
Brush Factory Fashion & Woodworking — Located in the still-fringe Brighton
neighborhood, the Brush Factory blurs the lines between design studio and cultural change-makers. Each of its bespoke fashion garments and housewares — such as its wood-bottomed canvas Buster tote — places an emphasis on the balance between innovation and tradition by crafting products that are truly unique and intended to last for generations.
What is new about this trend:
Highly trained and highly averse to conglomeration, Urban Dandies thrive on chaos, making their own flexible design ecosystem that operates outside of the traditional business model.
What to do now about this trend:
Engage with influential urban taste-makers in your area.
What to do next:
Create systems that allow urban taste-makers to inspire your process and your consumers.
2) Gourmand Gatherers
Plate curators and ingredient orchestrators join forces to create culinary compositions that highlight seasonal bounties, with protein playing a supporting role.
Gourmand Gatherers Exemplified by:
Trencherman — Described as casual elegant, Trencherman restaurant in Chicago presents a menu of European classics by way of Japan — seen in such dishes as the fried chopped liver with egg yolk jam, apple, kohlrabi, wasabi and yuzu. Trencherman’s larder is full of both the familiar and the fantastic, bringing together diverse references in imaginative harmony.
What is new about this trend:
Protein making a cameo, as opposed to starring in, highly-crafted culinary masterpieces.
What to do now about this trend:
Connect the ends of the Earth through inspired global flavor combinations.
What to do next:
Expand vegetarian, or vegetarian-esque, offerings with focus on high impact flavor and texture.
3) Dark Sport
Fifty shades of sport styling, championed through athletic silhouettes and sculpted from subversive fabrics, are suitable for gladiator and spectator alike.
Dark Sport Exemplified by:
Alexander Wang — Both menswear and womenswear collections subverted traditional sports uniforms (this season baseball, last season motocross) with leather iterations of classic gaming gear. The pieces are made of floating, high-shine fabric panels supported by invisible thread, creating a collection that is at both graphic and illusionistic.
What is new about this trend:
All American sportswear with a sculpted, dark twist.
What to do now about this trend:
Find simple silhouettes crafted from nighttime fabrics and incorporate them into your daily wardrobe.
What to do next:
Go from minor to major league through a suggestion of subversion, transforming even the most tame style game.
Want to see the full report with customized implications and recommendations for your brand? Email me at emily.worstell@powerhousefactories.com.