January 2016 / From the Future & Past with Love


Located throughout the world, the Trendease Team continues to deliver our subscribers around the globe must-know market information and inspiration straight to their computer screens.

Food, art, design, and production techniques are all part of this edition. Dining design in a Venetian palace, found objects embellished with cross-stitches from Latvia, patterns with ethereal qualities, surface interest influenced by limestone marble and the act of marbling, digital trickery, surprising raw material for new material production, and an adventure through Venice Design Week will keep you on your toes, giving you visions into what tomorrow holds for the creative industries. Get inspired with the January edition!

We attend over 100 design events a year on your behalf to bring you trend insights and design movements to help you maintain cutting-edge knowledge of the lifestyle and design markets. Currently we keep readers within 173 countries/territories in the know! Are you reading Trendease.com?

Show us what you’ve got! For editorial consideration please email editorial@trendease.com with your latest original designs. Upcoming Trendease Market Edge PowWows and Trendease.TV scheduling can be found on the homepage.

REPORTING TO INSPIRE,
Jennifer Castoldi,
Chief Creative Director

Download our informative tri-fold brochure as a PDF file here.

Features and Articles

Jennifer's January Jots

Venice — From the Middle Ages to future technologies, a gamut of inspiration is covered in the New Year issue of Trendease. Happy 2106 everyone!!! Get a summary of it all here and a VIP invitation to attend a dinner party in the magnificent hall “Salone delle feste” in the Palazzo Pesaro Papafava, Venice, Italy. Life will be grand and full of wonder in the year that lies ahead for us all. Enjoy!

Taking Embroidery to another Level

Frankfurt — Similar to the theme of the Gotika exhibit in Venice, This Lithuanian artist is part of the revival of artisanal crafts with a twist. Her father has a past with metal sculpture and perhaps this influence combined with her acute textile skills led to her signature pieces: found metal objects augmented with the ornament of cross-stitches. Cross-stitch is the eldest form of embroidery and is found in regions around the globe.

Ghost Forests

Worldwide — Ethereal is an adjective that comes to mind when these patterns and motifs take our imaginations on a walk through a ghostly garden en route to the otherworldly forest. These prints, digital, of course, have an x-ray and overlapping quality to them, creating a layered effect that takes the viewer to another dimension.

Beyond the Quarry

Worldwide — No surprise here. Marble and marbled surfaces are still on the top of people’s interior wish list. Here are some examples we have found sizzling on the market at shows like Decorex, Tent, and Heimtextil. And if you dig a little deeper you will uncover some unexpected stories behind the patterns nature has gifted us. Shocking. Really.

Is That Floor an Impostor?

Pritzwalk — A double bang for your buck, or whichever currency you fancy. We know that digital printing has transformed the way products are designed and manufactured. We are also aware that natural stone is in high demand, so what happens when you combine the two? Well the floor has never been so deceiving with its looks. We’re going to walk all over this one!

New Materials for Production

Multiple European Cities — What do salt, nettles, fungus, ashes, insects, and waste have in common? They are all active ingredients. Designers and manufacturers are on a long-term journey of experimenting and discovering new materials to use in production. During the Trendease Team’s travels these are some of the ideas that caught our attention and that we believe have a roll in paving the way to a better, more sustainable future.

Digitally printed window coverings hide the interior of this empty shop

Design in the Floating City

Venice — I like adventure. And I am almost always up for something new. So when a designer sent me an email to check out his table at Venice Design Week, and I happened to be free that weekend, plus the airfare was decent and there was an authentic apartment to rent, I thought, “Venice? Why the heck not?! What type of design week could this be?”

Contemporary Gothic

Venice — This original cultural initiative has united the opulent and eternal Venetian traditions of glassmaking with contemporary art. Many of the 50+ international artists left us inspired with their (mainly) unpublished works. Influenced by the Middle Ages, some of the pieces included representative armor worn by the ancient soldiers of the Crusades and Gothic cathedrals, while others were more metaphoric, spiritual, and philosophical.

NEWSLETTER #535 - Heimtextil Intimate Trends

Frankfurt — It has been and eventful week in Frankfurt, Germany for Heimtextil. The show has been ripe with inspiration and Trendease welcomes you to watch the video from the floor of the Theme Park trend cocoons, listen to the podcast interview about the four trend directions for 2016/2017, and subscribers can view a detailed selection of images from the trends with a retail focus here.

NEWSLETTER #536 - Heimtextil Retail Advice

Frankfurt — In this week’s gallery we continue the coverage of the Heimtextil intimate retail trends for 2016/2017. More and more brick and mortar retailers are becoming pick-up spots for online orders. What can they do to entice the customer to spend more time on the shop floor and justify their existence beyond a glorified depot?

NEWSLETTER #537 - Cabinets of Curiosities

Paris — In this week’s photo gallery subscribers can delve into a world of curiosities. Yarns, trim, bedding, towels, tabletop, soft and hard floorcoverings, art, furniture, helmets, eye glasses, handbags, and more… European Flax and Masters of Linen were showing off the design possibilities of this eco material in a myriad of product categories at Maison&Objet.