Trend-spotting: What the Society of Tomorrow Will Be Like

Fifteen years ago, trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort predicted that men would change their roles in society and become more involved in the family.

Today, men are fathering their children, and making the most progress in society.

“We now entering the period of the emancipation of men”, said Edelkoort, who studies the links between design, art, fashion and consumer culture and pioneered the concept of trend forecasting.

Trends today reflect out desires and needs, she explained. In design, for example, the fashionability of long dining tables and the amount of food items sold together in bunches reflect the contemporary desire to share.

“We are allowed to be alone but we long to be together. We have long tables to share food together. More and more vegetables are sold together as a family”, said the 

In the future, we should expect the generation gap to further shrink, as grandchildren and grandparents spend time together as friends, spending money together, and doing things that go beyond the traditional family gatherings.

The challenge for humans today and still in the future, she said to finalize her presentation, will be the lack of fulfillment.

“It is a challenge to be really fulfilled, I think there will be at least eight years before we get there.”

Don’t Let Bad Customer Reviews Ruin Your Brand

A successful brand is made when its creators know how to react to a negative comment from a customer online and avoid disaster, said Bernd Beetz, CEO of global beauty company Coty. 

“This notion that we go out and we listen to the consumer who tells you what your brand should be is a disaster”, said Beetz to a packed room.

A company, he explained, needs to know what the brand stands for, what it means, and the customer will appreciate the authenticity. Companies that connect with their customers online and through social media need to learn to extract the useful information form each negative review.

“Today, you need to impact the consumer’s life in a positive way. For some its a picture, a video, a game. For a brand there are different ways to do that and you can only achieve it if you have the right corporate culture”, said Beetz.

Sharing the stage with Beetz were Diesel cretor Renzo Rosso and social media entrepreneur and blogger Sasha Wilkins, who moderated the discussion.

The power of celebrity has played a key role in the success of Diesel clothing, said Rosso.

“Celebrities are on the news, on the media, all the time”, he said.

“People don’t care if the government hass done something nice, they care if Lady Gaga has a new boyfriend”.

The Secret to the Indian Market: Authenticity

Soon after 9/11, Sonny Caberwal became the first turbanned Sikh to model for a western brand. Kenneth Cole wanted a man in a turban to remind Americans that turbans did not mean the same thing as terrorism. The ad was only shown in the US and Europe but Indians took notice of it as well. That was when Indians first looked at themselves and realised that global fashion didn’t only have to be for foreigners. 

Mr Caberwal wants to use this insight to crack the Indian fashion market. “Fashion is a good indicator of where a market is going,” he said. He conducted market research across several Indian cities and found that Indians are attracted by foreign brands.”Some Indian brands even have foreign sounding names, like ‘John Player’, because they think that’s what Indians want,” he said. Mr Caberwal decided to ignore the research and created a brand called Sher Singh: “What’s truly exciting for the target marketplace is for a brand to have all the aspirational and quality elements associated with a foreign brand but with Indian authenticity.” 

Lisa Haydon, an Indian-Australian model and actress noted that of the top 10 fashion models in India, eight had mixed Indian and foreign parentage. That represents what Indians want from fashion as well: the best of both worlds. “Indians see themselves as global citizens,” she said. “They want something global but authentic.” The key to cracking the Indian market, it seems, is to get the mix just right.