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As I trolled the mall yesterday with an eye tuned only to trends, I asked myself if fashion still had any influence on interior finishes or any other building products. I did some homework to track some of the past that influenced today's products, and was surprised at the direct influence of fashion up until this time. The above collage is the trajectory of trends that I uncovered from my own reports of global trade shows and media over the last 4+ years.
Of course everything has changed, the September issues of the fashion magazines are terribly conservative, and I doubt that will take nearly as long to translate to interior finishes as the "metal as color" trend took.
"In the 1950s prizewinning biologist and doctor Jonas Salk was working on a cure for polio in a dark basement laboratory in Pittsburgh. Progress was slow, so to clear his head, Salk traveled to Assisi, Italy, where he spent time in a 13th-century monastery, ambling amid its columns and cloistered courtyards. Suddenly, Salk found himself awash in new insights, including the one that would lead to his successful polio vaccine. Salk was convinced he had drawn his inspiration from the contemplative setting. He came to believe so strongly in architecture’s ability to influence the mind that he teamed up with renowned architect Louis Kahn to build the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., as a scientific facility that would stimulate breakthroughs and encourage creativity."
(This tidbit of information enhances the fascinating narrative on Louis Kahn and images of the Salk Institute in the documentary, My Architect, A Son's Journey.)
An article in the April 2009 Scientific American Mind now available on line: How Room Designs Affect your Work and Mood shares the above information and speaks to how brain research can help us craft spaces that relax, inspire, awaken, comfort and heal. The article gave me insight into why I could not continue to live in a house with low ceilings.
Today's Wall Street Journal mentions that those September 2009 5-pound fashion magazines are diminished in weight and page count anywhere from 20-40% due to the reduction in advertising. I still love to peruse these magazines and noticed that the fashions shown were somewhat more conservative than in the recent previous years.
However, what stood out most for me was the P&G Pro-X ad. A skincare and anti-wrinkle product, that is actually reported to live up to its hype, uses an airbrushed 18 year-old in the ad. The screen capture from their website does not do justice to the full page face of the lovely girl in the magazine who certainly does not need the product. It doesn't exactly give me confidence in the product or make me want to run out and buy it, despite the fact that I am in their demographic. Now I do know that fashion advertising is aspirational and often way out there. But ... we all understand that is just for the fun of it. Cosmetics touted with medicinal jargon fall into another category. What can they possibly be thinking? That the consumer is THAT gullible? Ads for skin-care that "guarantees" younger-looking skin can't have it both ways - both being credible and creating fantasy.
I guess the 2006 "Evolution" ad for Dove Soap by Unilever, despite all the added publicity it garnered, was just a flash in the pan in the advertising world.
The year was 1969, and as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, today's Wall Street Journal covers the event with an editorial: By squalor possessed from their archives. Who, of the Woodstock generation, knew that "life-styles" was already considered a cliche. It is a fun read!
4 minute video has it all - art, architecture, charm, history, even tile. Enjoy!
In a recent article in the NY Times: When Creativity Diminishes Along With the Cash Nicolai Ouroussoff worries that the new diminished plans for the Parrish Art Museum on LI "suggest the possibility of a worrying new development in our time of financial insecurity. It is a creeping conservatism — and aversion to risk — that leaves little room for creative invention." Yes, conservatism and a return to the familiar is no surprise and quite common in insecure economic times. There will always be trends, but the current "trend" is to look back to iconic products that have stood the test of time and do not scream: "I brought this in the 2nd half of 2009" as we saw during the recent boom-boom times. It is simply a fact of life.
Added 8/14: Saw an ad on TV last night (am clueless who it was for) that said - and I am paraphrasing: "We are going from trends to tradition." The perfect sentiment for the times.
I picked up a copy of The Shadow of the Silk Road as soon as it was published, because the idea of the Silk Road has intrigued me since high school history class. The book languished unread for a few years, there always seemed to be more pressing matters. This summer, I finally started reading about this part of the world, so unfamiliar that I kept my laptop turned on by my side so I could google images of the places in Colin Thubron's adventures. My imagination couldn't comprehend the exotic places he was writing about, despite his beautiful descriptions. As a visual person, I spent almost as much time with his hand drawn maps as I did reading, so that now I even know exactly where the Uighur unrest is taking place.
And yes, this does have something to do with interior trends. Following trends is about observing the convergence of ideas. Today, I received my new Garnet Hill catalog and discovered another traveler along the Silk Road - the textile merchant, John Robshaw. I can't believe I previously missed this lovely collection of textiles both made and inspired by the artisans and patterns of the Silk Road of both long ago and today.
Both men stay in "funny old hotels;" while Thubron brought back words, Robshaw brings back textiles and future design inspiration. His historically inspired hand-crafted imperfect textiles speak to those of us that are tired of computer generated perfection just like the Arts and Crafts era was a reaction to the first machine manufactured goods. He may just be the new and more authentic Ralph Lauren for our "less gilded age." Trends point strongly towards "the local" and "Buy American" for interiors, but for those who want more exotic looks, supporting artisans from around the world and helping them build lasting and sustainable craft enterprises is the NEW GLOBAL. This is John Robshaw's inspiration, product source and business model. Both the media and the blogosphere absolutely adore the John Robshaw line, his influence will be felt in finishes as well as textiles - if only in the move towards less perfect, more hand-crafted looks.
We are never told "why" the use of the word "Gamma" which is the third letter in the Greek alphabet, but we are presented with a detailed description of what makes a woman a "Gamma" by the Meredith Corporation, the leading media company that is best know for publishing "Better Homes and Garden." The company may have offices in New York City, but its heart is in middle America, where it is headquartered.
The "Gamma Woman" may be the just another buzzphrase, but Meredith's report: The Gamma Factor: Women and the New Social Currency redefines the consumer precisely for the current economy. The report identifies five key personality profiles within today's Gamma mindset.
· Connector – She believes people can accomplish more together than they can alone. She enjoys sharing her experiences, passions and recommendations with her network of friends and family. Fluent in social interactivity aspects of Web 2.0, her interest stems from a desire to keep in touch rather than simply the love of technology.
· Catalyst – She wants to impact her community, and ultimately the world at large, in meaningful ways. She finds great pleasure in volunteering her time and inspiring others to do the same.
· Family-Focused – These Gammas put their family first; work exists to serve family needs, not the reverse. She looks to family and close friends to stay grounded and considers her loved ones her personal board of advisors. She uses technology to seek out information, but relies more heavily on personal connections for support.
· DIY Creator – She lives life by her own compass and expresses herself by creating. She enjoys sharing ideas and techniques with fellow enthusiasts.
While I knew from the time that the first limestone displays showed up at building material trade shows that this was the future of interior finishes, I admit to getting bored by the idea after more than 15 years. Year after year, we would develop an interesting palette of colors to put in front of focus groups. Year after year the focus groups would select the same non-color as their preference. The product introductions became indistinguishable from year to year as did the marketplace interest in our product. A possible further consequence is that the understanding of color in the design community may have disappeared along with any semblance of a color palette.
Why do I say this? I almost overdosed on museums last week, I am apt to do that when company is in town. Art museums are usually a totally aesthetically immersive experience for me. "Prendergast in Italy" and Edward Steichen at Williams College Museum of Art presented the opportunity for a fabulous twofer. The art did not disappoint, in fact both shows were overwhelming in both quality and quantity. Or maybe it just seemed that the quantity was overwhelming because the COLOR of the background walls in the exhibits were so totally wrong that it overpowered the art and diminished the viewing experience. For years, museums have moved away from off-white walls in special blockbuster exhibits, to palettes that enhanced the artwork and the total viewing experience. As a color designer, I always have found the colors selected to be in perfect harmony with the art being shown, this time the background colors were not even close. The strong peachy apricot and aqua colors used as background for "Prendergast in Italy" were not only reminiscent of Howard Johnson's logo colors but made the subtle colors that the artist used in his watercolors look washed out and murky. The Steichen sepia prints were framed in dark natural wood presented on a background the color of photo gray paper. Just the slightest amount of warmth in the wall paint would have harmonized so much better with the prints. I have to make a guess and say that the person selecting the wall color had absolutely no understanding of COLOR.
The same focus groups also told us, that despite the fact that the competition had more exciting products, they ended up using our product because the colors were "right on." Color does matter, but it appears that some in the design community have forgotten this fact.
All that being said, the Williams Museum of Art is a fabulous place, and along with the Clark and MASS MoCA makes Williamstown, MA a must visit spot for the art lover.
Added 8/10: Sherwin Williams, the paint company, in their current newsletter to the design community STIR addresses the issue of appropriate paint colors as background to art in an article entitled: Does Art Make the Walls or Do the Walls Make the Art?
Malcolm Gladwell has written on the topic of the hour - our financial crisis in The psychology of overconfidence: newyorker.com.
The article answered a question that I had been wrestling with for years - but only answered it partially. As a female in the first wave of boomers, I was never indoctrinated into the ways of the business world - I just naively arrived on the scene. In my sales career, I understood the part about having confidence well enough, I just never understood the part about bluffing the numbers... And how did the guys all know to bluff by exactly the same percentage? Was there a set number? Did they learn it from their fathers? On the golf course? Is it industry specific?
I knew everyone's numbers, (I had my ways, that is what females know how to do -female survival instincts) bluffing the numbers never changed anything - it didn't make them any bigger in reality. Indeed Gladwell discovers that if one party to a transaction bluffs, there is some competitive advantage in the confidence that person exudes, but if both bluff there is absolutely none. That is also what my anecdotal evidence told me during my selling years - but the mystery of the percentage remains.
Added 8/13: According to research by Robert Feldman, a professor of psychology at U of MA at Amherst, we lie about 3 times in 10 minutes even in our casual conversations. Read an excerpt from his book The Liar in Your Life: The Way to Truthful Relationships that recently ran in the Guardian.
As I trolled the mall yesterday with an eye tuned only to trends, I asked myself if fashion still had any influence on interior finishes or any other building products. I did some homework to track some of the past that influenced today's products, and was surprised at the direct influence of fashion up until this time. The above collage is the trajectory of trends that I uncovered from my own reports of global trade shows and media over the last 4+ years.
