The Soul of Retail

I've just returned from my annual trek to ICFF, (International Contemporary Furniture Fair) my overriding thought about it all is: despite the niche, niche world we live in, building brand is essential. As usual, ambling the streets of New York is so much more instructive of the trends - trends definitely come from the streets, retail is the latest instructor these days.

From the windows at Barney's and Bergdorf's that entice us to go to the Metropolitan Museum and see the Alexander McQueen show to Ralph Lauren's flagship stores on Madison Avenue, we see what is happening in the world. It is the trade shows that are fantasies today, and retail the reality. Most recently, trends came from the streets, before that from the luxury markets, today the trends are firmly in the hands of the trend-forward retailers, they have the megaphones and are using them well - they have it all - storefronts, catalogs and online presence. The biggest coupe of all, came to someone who hardly needed it, a full hour on the last week of Oprah went to Ralph Lauren. If you have anything to do with retail furnishings and didn't see this show, beg, borrow or steal a copy of this show. It is a textbook on what makes for success in this business!

In this recent trip to New York, and the aisle after aisle of soullessness that is the contemporary design world, I fully understand the success of the Ralph Lauren brand and even the dark underworld appeal of Alexander McQueen. The recent royal wedding garb aside, these two represent the flip sides of the human soul - McQueen is all uncomfortable darkness, while Lauren with this season's laces and sheer fabrics in natural materials is about the light. In our hyper-competitive world, it is possible for everyone to get the shape, line, color and texture of products relatively right. What these two gentlemen have done is superimpose their products with stories that resonate. Lauren entices us with the beauty of the familiar and comfortable, while McQueen shows us things that we think we have never even imagined as something that we would wear near our bodies - hair, feathers, horns, branches of trees; yet we do wear furs, wool, leather and sleep with feathers in our down comforters.

These men tell mythic stories that make us pay attention and that is ultimately their appeal. My bet is that the story of the comfortably familiar lightness will win, but the dark side, as always, is tempting and is influential.

The familiar: Natural fibers, leather, nostalgia and escaping to a world we create at home is the story that Ralph Lauren tells in his current home fashions.
Alexander McQueen in tartan plaid looks down on the netherworld he created in the windows of Bergdorf-Goodman.
High-end retail connects to the cultural landscape by promoting the Metropolitan's McQueen show.
Although lighter and brighter, McQueen's influence can be seen in the spring fashions in the windows of Ralph Lauren's flagship store with the Rhinelander mansion's reflection.
The streets of New York were jam-packed and as many people as were fascinated by these windows, and for those who think the middle has disappeared, ultimately the biggest crowds at retail were lined up outside the Aberchrombie and Fitch store waiting patiently for the privilege of going inside. The appeal of a beautiful human body in both image and reality trumps all. Creating a brand is all but essential in today's marketplace, and these are just a few of the success stories - examples of the soul that today is the essential component of brand and that many of the start-ups in both fashion and home furnishings would be smart to use as a how-to lesson.

Revolution or Evolution in the New Year?

Trends often change so subtly, as to be barely perceptible. Much has changed in the global culture in the past year, and as I sit inside during yet another snowstorm, I started asking myself - have last years ideas evolved enough at this point to change direction? I reviewed what I had written as important parts of the ideas inherent in hyper-authenticity and found them to be viable into the new year:

• True to Origins and Self

• True to Culture

• True to Form

• Larger than Life

• Made by Hand

• Sustainable

• Raw and unaltered

• Reclaimed, Recycled
  

What I realized is that the vast cultural changes actually create less changes in trends - people tend to stay with the tried and true as cultural changes swirl madly around them. So, the authentic and classic trends bring a sense of security and are actually reinforced by the massive cultural swings we have been experiencing. Any changes throughout this year will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. The ipad may be revolutionary, but what we use it for are tried and true tasks. Just take a look at this article about David Hockney making art on his ipad.

Fractals in the design world

Surface detail from subBlue on Vimeo.

Another followup to the "Geometric" trend in my 2010 report - the explosion of fractals in art and design. This is a fantastic video, even showing some softened edges - not as harsh and edgy as all the straight edges that we have seen up until now. The scientist/designer,Tom Beddard's website promises to offer software to create your own fractal designs soon.

Has design overplayed its Hand?

As a design professional, I have always believed inherently that beauty and thereby good design enhance our quality of life. A recent New York Times article led me to seriously question my bias, as my mother lingers with final stage dementia in an assisted living facility with cloth tablecloths and napkins and constantly changing appropriately seasonal decorative accessories.

The article describes a New York facility called Beatitudes this way: "The facility itself is institutional-looking, dowdy and “extremely outdated,” Ms. Mullan said. “It’s ugly,” said Jan Dougherty, director of family and community services at Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix. But “they’re probably doing some of the best work.” " They use common sense and the human touch to make their patients lives more bearable. That is something that "design" simply does not deliver on its own.

(For more on common sense watch Barry Schwartz's Ted talk on Practical Wisdom. He has moved on from observing the consumer in the "Paradox of Choice" to observing the current human condition.)

The backlash to the emphasis on "design" seems to have begun in a subtle way. An article entitled "De-emphasizing Design" on a hotel management website recommends a holistic approach to creating an environment rather than an emphasis on elaborate design - basically postulating that you can't put all your eggs in the "design" basket.

From the article: ". . . according to Howard Wolff, SVP with design firm WATG, people are moving past wanting things and instead crave the more tangible . . . moving from extravagance to experience, from conspicuous to conscientious consumption, from airs to authenticity, from could be anywhere to you are here, from green is good to green is gold and from trendy to timeless - waste not want not."

Aahh! Nostalgia

In 2010, as we moved into a new decade last year, I entitled my trend report "Memory Matters." The early reports this year are that memory matters more with every passing day. The New York Times Thursday home section, which has a particularly strong sense of the direction featured a Brooklyn store called Brook Farm General Store, a nostalgic home goods survival guide to today's 24/7 stressed out world.

As an antidote to minimalism the NY Times also features woven goods - the warm feel of an object matters as much as the look in creating a comfortable home environment. Judging by the antique rag rug pillows, another version of nostalgia reigns at John Derian Company, from one turn-of-the- century to another - despite today's overly connected world - many of us crave the comforts of a home connected to the past.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I admit to having a house full of rag rugs.)

Moving towards the Middle

According to an article in Furniture Today, Rachel Ashwell of the popular Shabby Chic brand. . . "also believes the recession has rekindled a spiritual quest to 'get back to the basics, the core values, family, things that people think are important. I think that people are appreciating products that have style and long-lastingness. They're reaching out for stuff they can pass on to their children.' "

Her new lower priced upholstery line and case goods appear to be a move to the middle of the market - down from her now bankrupt couture stores and upscale from the products still available at Target. Miles Talbott is offering the upholstery in the new line and Guildmaster is offering case goods.

It remains to be seen whether this portends a return to that long forgotten middle in all things home furnishings?

Salon del Mobile - Virtually

I spent some time this afternoon at the Milan Furniture Fair - virtually that is. I found much of the "much hyped" contemporary furniture to be "more of the same." I comfort myself in knowing that virtually I don't have to travel through the miles of corridors of bad Italian stuff that is necessary when you are there in person - but I'm not sure that makes up for missing the dinners in wonderful out of the way places outside of Milan proper. The most interesting thing that I found was the current issue of "The David Report" and I include a quote from that to make us stop and think and put the design business into perspective:

"Why can’t products be allowed to collect memories like
good leather chair, why don’t we accept the patina of
usage like a loved skateboard, when will we accept aging
as life’s rich story, like a prized broach our grandmother
left us, or the lines of our grand father’s face, of a life
well lived!

Whilst our perceived redemption has been our recent
passion for sustainability and energy efficiency, this has
come from the expense of surplus, and for the majority
who remain in a state of abundant denial. We have to
face the fact, that as with climate change, we are at a
tipping point when the equilibrium is lost, and like our
current economic crisis, the currency of good design is
devalued by a tsunami of rapid change when everything
good or bad is submerged and becomes equally contaminated
and loses its relevance."

He too, questions the sheer volume of new chair designs that are annually created for this fair and others around the world. Can our creative energies be better spent?

Robi Renzi shows us how - he has captured the spirit of the times in the above design called Armadiature made of salvaged parts and shown at an exhibition space at the fair. See more images and close-ups at Mocoloco.

The Milan fair has become so important that even the Wall Street Journal has their say on what is hot at the fair this year.

Cloud Computing begets "Cloud Design" ...???

It's a stretch...a rather tenuous connection, but Interni has a feature called Designing Clouds in their March issue. The Italian tile manufacturer Caselgrande is celebrating their 50th anniversary with a "Ceramic Cloud" designed by the Japanese designer, Kengo Kuma. Or...is this design's preparation for THE END heralded to come in 2012 by an assortment of fanatics?

From the Casalgrande website: "The first event is the “Casalgrande Ceramic Cloud”, a combination of architecture and land art, designed by Kengo Kuma and made by Casalgrande Padana, under an agreement with the Municipality of Casalgrande. The work, the first one to be made by the great Japanese architect in Italy, is well under way and will be finished before next summer.

Set in a communal green area of over 2,8000 square metres, the installation is located on the new Strada Pedemontana next to the company’s production site, with such spectacular landmark acting as the Eastern Gate to the regional ceramic district.

The work is an unusual three-dimensional construction that experiments with innovative applications of the latest-generation ceramic units. Entirely made of special, large glazed stoneware tiles mechanically anchored to a specially-designed metal frame, the construction is over 40 metres large and 7 metres high and looks like an architectural object of refined elegance intended to symbolically mark a traditional productive region which is deeply bonded to the culture of design."

Immerse yourself in pictures

Tracking trends is all about filling up that hard drive with impressions and one of the ways I have discovered is to "watch" the pages of Interni magazine flip by. Since I don't speak or read Italian, I let the images intrigue me and they are stunning. I have way too many bookmarks on my computer to track, so these pages keep me up to date - so that I can factor in the influence of the Euro-sector on our marketplace.

How long does it take for design ideas to travel?

Like anything else in life, the travel of design ideas and products can be rather serendipitous. Luck, timing and the right alignment of people play a great part. I revisited this thought because I just ran into my favorite product that I discovered in the Passagen section of Design Week in Cologne in the winter of 2002 on 3rings a contemporary product blog for design and architecture. The original designed by Tilo Gnausch, that I saw in a gallery was shown free-floating directly against a mirror. The "Ammonite" sink is indeed a magnificent piece of sculpture, I’m surprised it took this long to make it across the pond.

The sink is made of concrete and distributed by Bagno Sasso. In Cologne, the original design was in basalt and was paired with a simple but stunning basalt shower. While the sink took 8 years to be noticed in the American market, basalt became an important interior finish material within just a few years. Currently, the sink is also available in what appears to be Blue Jura Limestone, but it is hard to tell from the pictures. Actually it is not clear to me that it is even available, as the supplier is Swiss - maybe someone just saw a picture of it and wanted to blog about it.

Basalt took off here within 2-3 years, but the sink - I still don't have an answer to my own question of "How long?"

"The Long Tale"

Led by Anita Elberse over at the Harvard Review websites, an inconclusive debate has been raging over the existence of "The Long Tale" precipitated by the book by that name by Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine. The discussion and rebuttal research is much about the music and book marketplaces.

Despite the economic downturn, marketers continue to cater solely to the young demographic. With boomers still in control of of 1/2 of all discretionary spending, the Long Tail has to happen - it is just a matter of putting customer and product together, and as Anderson states, the Internet does that well.

Large corporations - particularly in music, movies and fashion, no matter what the age of the executive, continue to produce promotions and products that appeal to the under 40 set. Movies are a succession of chase scenes and formulaic chick flicks. Even the venerable Bond brand has been turned into one long incomprehensible chase scene. The boomer demographic has "been there, done all that." Again, a Long Tale has to appear, but how is it possible, if nothing else is being made by the major players.

I have finally witnessed how this will work in movies - in the same old-fashioned way that indie films have always been made. The long tale doesn't need studios or big budgets to make delightfully entertaining movies - after a lifetime of viewing subtitles, now they are even in English. Last week I went to see Béla Fleck, Throw Down Your Heart, the famous banjo player's search for the roots of his instrument in Africa. Although Sony had originally committed to the film, they wanted star power, so Fleck ended up self-funding his film. With today's technology self-funding is more possible than it has ever been in the past, allowing for a personal story to be told without corporate compromise. Every seat in the theater was taken, mostly by boomers, with only a few young groupy musicians in the crowd. I am happy to discover that the Long Tale holds the potential to entertain boomers for years to come.

What does this have to do with interior finishes? While it is true that the bulk of the marketplace will continue to want exactly the same thing -ie. cherry cabinets and verde granite one day, the "As Good as it Gets" look in kitchens the next - these very items quickly become commodities with hyper-competitive prices offered in the marketplace. It continues to be important to find those niche Long Tale items that fit your customer base and marketplace to appeal to all your potential customers.

PS: While leafing through a July shelter magazine, I realized that we have moved on from the "Good as it Gets" kitchen - painted cabinets with black granite top to the impossible to maintain white painted cabinets with white carrara marble countertops. Every single kitchen featured in the July issue showed that exact combination. Even I, who saw this coming years ago, am surprised at how strong this trend towards the use of carrara marble on kitchen counters has become. I put carrara marble on a bath vanity 20 years ago and have regretted it ever since. One knife cut into the best of sealers combined with one spill will leave quite a mess. I can't recommend it to anyone that would be upset by stains on a counter. For a similar look use Corian® Rain Cloud instead, (Image above top) a product that I had recommended for several years before its 2008 introduction.

Story Trumps

With the down economy and continued proliferation of product, at this year's Coverings, I presented the importance of telling "your story." Today, I found the perfect "story" for a finish product - Interiors and Sources Magazine has a story about the design of Parterre Flooring Systems' product called "Scrapyard."

The story told may or may not be the way the product "happened" but it works as both a believable and memorable story. In the product cycle, it is a catch-up product, as I remember making one of my clients walk back through the full length of CERSAIE in 2004 just to see what would become one of the most popular and trend-important porcelain tile looks - Tau's new product "Corten." We had seen numerous real metal floors in the booths, and I wondered several times, when the tile equivalent would show up - and of course, there it was in the Tau booth. Italy may own the technology for the entire tile industry, but Spain is always a step ahead on gorgeous finishes. They have a history of glazes that harks back to the centuries of Moorish influences.

The New Defined Edge

In the new era of frugality, creativity will appear in new guises...not that the Libeskind pre-fab house on the right is frugal.(The house is energy-efficient, manufactured in Germany and can be shipped anywhere in the world for $2.8-4.2M.)

It is the new "edge" aesthetic that is more in tune with the times than all those swooping curves and undulations that we have seen recently in both architecture and furniture. Exemplifying simplicity in the best sense of the word, the exquisite table with eased edges on the right is called "gorge" and is made from a single piece of powder-coated steel. Designed by Korean designer Ramei Keum, it is - at once elegant and child-like.

Man Space continues to take on more importance

I recently discovered The Smart Set, an independent online magazine generously supported by Drexel University."The Smart Set is published for people who enjoy reading, and enjoy thinking about what they read. The Smart Set feels that what unites its readers is their intellectual curiosity, and this cuts across age, gender, income, and education level."

I have found quite a few amusing pieces to contemplate there. This week there is a piece called "A Room of one's Own" about those all-important man spaces that have found their way into our homes and culture. This is a trend that will continue to grow despite the current economic climate.

I wish that I were half as clever as Paula Marantz Cohen, who writes regularly. My favorite piece is her take on the International Contemporary Furniture Fair: "Perused Furniture." While I never miss this show, as it is important from a trend perspective, I have often had some of the irreverent thoughts that she expresses so well. At this year's ICFF, I though about her article as I gingerly dropped myself into a clever looking chair - with trepidation and instant regret. How the hell was I going to get out of this thing? Getting out turned out to be about as attractive a proposition as my trying to get on a horse. Definitely not a pretty sight!

Past Imperfect

I have been trying to understand my obsession with my LENSBABY, (a lens that distorts images leaving only a narrow window of focus.) After seeing the Blow Away vase introduced by Front Design at the Milan Furniture Fair, I am finally beginning to figure it out. Perfection without artistry is now easy to achieve with even the simplest Point and Shoot camera. The LENSBABY takes us back to pinhole camera days with almost no automatic controls. (Yes, you can control the exposure time, and you do get instant feedback with a digital camera- after all we are not Luddites.)

Front gave a traditional Royal Delft design a simulated gust of wind to create the Blow Away vase for Moooi. It looks like a vase that slumped in the kiln and the effect is similar to the out-of-focus range in LensBaby photographs. Perfection is now easy, creativity is the new capital. (According to Daniel Pink's "Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future.") As artists and designers, we are all trying to play the Wizard, make a connection to the past and put heart into today's soulless and "perfect" technology.

This trend is taking hold quickly, HOW - the graphic arts magazine focused on "Hands-on guide to creativity" this month - literally taking its readers back to such imperfect and almost forgotten tools as screen printing, stencils and block printing to "jump-start" their creativity when their return to the computer.

With charm to spare: The Vegetal Chair

Vegetal Chair from Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec on Vimeo. Designed for Vitra and introduced at the Milan Furniture Fair 2009.

Coverings 2009/ Best Sustainability Statement

Having missed Coverings for a few years, I looked at everything in a fresh way, and found some new "favorites." This year one of them was BRIX, with an offering of truly classic design. They showed a highly-tactile 5mm x 5mm x 5mm mosaic, "I Frammenti" designed by Claudio Silvestrin (who designed the previous generation of Armani stores - but now Armani has a new look-for fashion sake, no doubt.) They also presented a natural neutral series designed by Andree Putman in large format sizes that allow the creation of an interesting variety of pattern called "Powder." From extremely small to large scale, no one can beat the Italians at design in the world of ceramic tile.

Ceramic tile is inherently a sustainable product that offers a long life-cycle at great value. Based largely on Italian technology there is little waste in the manufacturing of a product that is made of dirt and fired to a temperature with no possibility of off-gasing. Brix takes the sustainability of the product to an entirely new level with the classic sustainability of their "designs" and their brand statement which attests to this:

The aim of Brix is not to diversify and create short-lived trends. Brix produces materials for interior design following its own coherent style, a direction that's completely independent of trends, and doesn't follow the principles of fashion. Brix presents products from two points of view: US and YOU.

The perfect sentiment for these economic times.

Something for everyone at Coverings 2009

From tone-deaf bling-bling to the latest news in sustainability, Coverings 2009 had it all. I generally enjoy what Swarovski has done with their products from tatoos to chandeliers, but sometimes it is simply too much to bear or should I say "bare." Nature's most gorgeous granites do not need the embellishment of crystals - they just make the granite look over-the-top tacky. In the quest to have products noticed, have we lost all sense of propriety and good taste? And what can one say about the fans of Donatella Versace's taste, only that they too could find products at the recent Coverings 2009 in both tile and stone.

But the key to this show is that there is something for everyone - from beautiful artisanal hand-crafted tiles to inexpensive copies of copies.

How the Zaha Hadid look arrived

Now that the "Zaha Hadid look" has become a part of the American design vocabulary, I dug through my image file to find how the look became a part of our language. Despite the fact the we don't have any of her buildings in the US, the New York Armani store staircase mentioned several entries ago shows how her influence is being expressed. In 2006, she designed a "Futuristic Kitchen" in conjunction with Corian® for the Milan Furniture Fair in April. At the end of that year she was the first woman to be honored with the most prestigious prize in architecture - the Pritzker Award. In 2007 she showed a collection of tables at Art Basel Miami in her signature shapes. With the Pritzker comes the status of starchitect and she has build for major clients in Europe such as Vitra and BMW.

Corian® Europe has an uncanny way of picking winners, the following year they worked with Jean Nouvel for the Milan Fair and he later that year also won the Pritzker. Architecture and design are truly global arts and as both companies and media are global, both European and Asian influences will continue to be felt, however the time span of influence to implementation will continue to be as unpredictable as ever.

Giorgio Armani Opens 5th Avenue Store

We may be past the Bilbao era, but there is always something new around the corner. The opening of the new Armani store in New York heralds the landing of the Zaha Hadid era on U.S. shores. Armani stores have previously been clad in limestone from top to bottom, so this store marks a visible change in aesthetic for Armani. Keeping the opening simple in the spirit of the times, Armani donated $1M to New York public schools instead of having a splashier event. The exterior is clad in the oft-mentioned LED's, that now frequently replace other materials as exterior cladding in the retail environment.