In yesterday's post we looked at an exhibition curated by fashion commentator, publisher, educator and trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort. A few days ago the Paris-based company Edelkoort founded - Trend Union - presented during a seminar at The New School in New York the trends for the S/S 19 season (the event will be repeated in Denmark, Sweden, The UK, The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium in December). Edelkoort's biennial seminars usually take the form of an audiovisual presentation focused on upcoming trends and themes in accordance with her seasonal General Trend Book.
The New York seminar revealed that Goddesses will be the trending force for the S/S 19 season. The theme moves from women’s empowerment and Edelkoort thinks it will expand towards different directions in fashion, heralding the return of draped and folded garments, sack dresses but also rich and regal fabrics. As a consequence there will be a focus on real design skills and on strong professional designers, while influencers may start disappearing. These trends will mean that normcore and streetwear will also gradually fade away.
As mythology includes many different goddesses - Aphrodite, Demeter, Hestia, Gaia (that could be interpeted as a reference to earth and to sustainability as well), Flora & Fauna and Nike, to mention a few of them - individuals will pick their fave one and go with it.
The images Edelkoort presented at the seminar were borrowed from various disciplines, from art and history to fashion and nature, and the seminar also included a brief focus on the textiles from the Yamanashi Region (a theme also tackled in the latest issue of Edelkoort's "Talking Textile" magazine) and a detailed talk on interior design and homes becoming sanctuaries and safe havens.
You still have quite a bit of time to choose which mythological goddess you may be in 2019, in the meantime, for further inspirations, re-read (or discover for the first time) Edelkoort's "Anti_Fashion Manifesto" (available to buy at this link).
The essay remains a seminal work, especially for students who want to find their path in the difficult fashion industry and may feel trapped in university courses where they are told they will become superstar catwalk fashion designers, while they should be looking at fashion as a wider universe comprising other disciplines as well, going from art and design to crafts, textiles, interior design and architecture.
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