Trend Bible: Luxuriance

Luxuriance: This trend has evolved out of the global recession creating a newfound desire to stay at home. It is about trading up, investing in quality pieces, built to last, that create a soothing environment within the home. Introducing calming, peaceful colours and fabrics to the home creates comfort but also instills luxury and glamour.

Trend Bible: Lifestyle Trends for the Home

Trend Bible is a small trend consultancy based in the UK, specialising in forecasting home interior trends up to 18 months ahead of the season. They work with a variety of brands in the UK and USA, providing bespoke trend consultancy and ensuring their clients produce innovative, commercial ranges to excite their customers. They also sell bi-annual trend publications outlining 4 key trends per season and detailing the social and cultural events that influence design trends.

Here, Trend Bible introduce four trends for the Autumn Winter 2010/11 season. The influence of the global financial crisis is creating new spending patterns as consumers start to redefine value and make more considered purchasing decisions. Watch out for a new positive, can-do attitude, where consumers feel empowered, want more for their money and aren’t afraid to complain when standards aren’t met. Faith and beliefs are important as people seek more from life and revert back to traditional family values in times of financial insecurity and political/commercial mistrust.

Humble luxury and ecology for 2009

A slow fashion without seasons, an humble, not showing off luxury, minimal combined with eco-friendly emotions. This is the style of 2009, acoording a research by Worth Global Style Network.

If up to now fashion world decided with lines and collections the seasons, now this plan is alterated. The cause can be founded both in the fast fashion like Zara and H&M, both in the climate changes and now the major part of the products are trans-seasonal. On the one hand, there are who prefers to propose 6-8 collections, on the other hand someone elese choose the tailored clothes.

But qhat about the customers? They face the changes imposed by the crisis looking for the quality and the saving, an huge trend in Japan. The client discovers his attentionto the environment and finds answer in the gree campaign of brands and designers and in activity like guerilla gardening.

Holiday shoppers say bye to lines & buy online

Freezing temperatures led to a sharp rise in online shopping last weekend as shoppers browsed for bargains in the comfort of their own homes.

About $677 million was spent over the Internet on Saturday and Sunday, nearly double the amount spent the weekend before Christmas last year, according to comScore, a company that tracks Web traffic. "Online spending over the most recent weekend was clearly substantially heavier than the corresponding weekend nearest Christmas last year, which suggests that many consumers opted for the cozier confines of online shopping rather than having to brave the severe cold and snowstorms," comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said.
The amount spent online overall this holiday season is down 1% from last year.
And with five fewer shopping days between the end of November and Christmas Day this year, the news was not all positive for retailers.

"[It's] a positive late-season boost for online retail perhaps," Fulgoni said. "But it's ultimately not going to do much to make up for the significantly shorter shopping season this year."

Changes in fashion biz in 2008

Italian Xmas: less presents, more quality

Italian are going to make less present to relatives but pay more attention to quality. This is what emerges through a research elaborated by Future Concept Lab for American Express.

Despite the previous year, the Italian have declared that they are going to spend their money wisely. Basically, they are going to buy clothing (68,2%), secondly on books, cds and dvds (49,3%), then on food (25,2%).

The family remains the fulcrum of italian Xmas, so that over 73% of interviewees will spend the festivities at home. Moreover, the 57% has declared that is fundamental having friends to share important moments with, while the 53% is convinced that it is possible to be happy with few. If we look at the passions of italian, those pay attention to environment (58,7%) , culture (54,8%) and tradition(52,2%). To be considered is the attention to pleasant and healthy food that is a key point for 43,7%.

Strength in Emotional Design

Great design materializes emotion, evoking a connection between people, brands and experiences. It's the things we don’t see that are the most essential to creating a great design. The emotions we feel, moods we embrace, atmosphere we savor, and environments in which we exist play a large role in inspiring a design vision that becomes a great product.

The design process is deeply integrated with engineering, brand and strategy, working seamlessly to develop industrial design solutions that lead to success for firms. Through research, testing and targeted design, it has to be removed the subjectivity from the product development process and address important, yet often overlooked human factors.

Everything is in order to provide high value to strategic product development and design-driven, inspiring products. These ones pays testament to the ability to create products that fulfill human needs and solve business problems.

The best design is not a commodity, and will never be. It can’t be canned, duplicated or outsourced. It is an amalgamation of discipline and imagination, a marriage of skill and bravado. It possesses the strength to alter moods, change perceptions, and evoke attitude. In the end, design is the tangible manifestation of a strategy.

Shelf Appeal

Eight coffee makers— one decision. On a daily basis, the average person faces thousands of choices in the marketplace, and this reality shows no signs of relenting. Product design can make or break the bottom line.

The store shelf is a product’s last chance to trigger a purchase. It is the moment of truth. Years of experience have taught us that consumer’s purchase decisions are motivated by things more complex than what they can verbalize. It’s their subconscious evaluation of the sensory stimulus they receive there— the look, feel, sound and the associations surrounding the product and brand.

Conducting custom tailored research that delves into consumers’ underlying values and aspirations uncovers insights that lead to superior products. Constant consideration of these factors is what allows designers to create and deliver products that sell over their competition.

We design products that are not only easy to use or priced right but emit an emotional appeal in the context of the retail environment to stand out from the competitive set on the shelf. We never pass up the chance to make the best first impression possible at that moment of truth.

"80% of what people see is behind their eyes." — Dan Buchner, Vice President Innovation and Design

Retail Design:Inspiration for Beauty in AmorePacific

Retail design has become the new outlet for brand expression. By controlling everything from images, textures, sounds and in some cases smell, designers are taking the retail experience to a whole new level.

Korean cosmetics giant Amore Pacific approached Continuum in 2004 to design a series of changing retail environments for 'The AMORE Gallery,' their flagship store in the ritzy Apgujung-dong neighborhood of Seoul. The spacious, glass-fronted location provided a unique opportunity to bring the core elements of Amore Pacific's brand -- a contemporary, Asian-inspired balance of natural purity and cutting-edge science -- to an immersive environment where consumers can relax while trying out products or indulging in spa treatments.

To give the Gallery a fashion-forward relevancy that would be refreshing and inviting to passers-by, Continuum (the design studio) developed changing themes throughout the year based on the four seasons. For winter, spring, summer and fall, Continuum's designers recreated store-front graphics, display cases, wall graphics, lighting, banners and sculptured elements anew, infusing the colors and images at every level with Amore's unique naturally-inspired, contemporary look. Continuum also designed and developed the displays for a special exhibition and the Pink Ribbon 2005 campaign to benefit Breast Cancer.

Our eye-catching designs increased foot traffic and word-of-mouth, as the attractive Amore storefront became a landmark known for its modern and engaging displays.

Continuum and Amplifon to create retail experience

Since the 1983 Continuum is one of the world leading firm in the product innovation. Particularly, the name sanctions the new concept of design like an evolving connection among different disciplines that take part in the product development.

One of the key character in this firm is Valentina Ziliani, the strategy practice leader. Before working for Continuum, she did a 7 years experience in Lego Concept Lab. Now, she is in charge of discovering new connection among design, brand and business. According to her, those are to be thought as an unique value system that meets the needs of the people.

Another important employee is Fabio Di Liberto, the Product Innovation practice leader. Before arriving in Continuum, he worked for FutureBrand in New York where he used to define brand strategies even for multinational companies like Pepsi, GM, Gillette.

Recently, Continuum and they have been committed to Amplifon. In this case, they had to create a retail experience in order to unify the image of the firm all over the world and meet the customers'needs. That's wh they decided to immerge themselves in the reality of who enter a shop for deafs. For example, they made a survey among in different European countries. First of all, they have interviewed families, then observed the paths that people used to follow inside the stores.

Everything has been made in order to reduce the medical enviroment in favour of a more retail one. Not only does the shop have to answer to the requests of people, but also it has to offer a variety of products. That’s why the space has been designed as a storybook firstly, like an amount of perceptions and interactions. Then, the staff skills, interactive technologies, communications and the layout have been defined in a spacious, relaxing atmosphere. Finally, the furnish design has been created in order to facilitate the experience.

Everything has been projected in a tight collaboration between Continuum and Amplifon. For instance, Valentina and Fabio collaborated with Haluk Terzioglu, (chief Marketing executive) and with Daniela Pighini, (New Business Development) in Amplifon. In addition, they also considered the Team di Saatchi & Saatchi of London which was working with Amplifon to the new brand identity e campaign at the same time of the Continuum project.

Surprinsingly, Valentina and Fabio stated that the main contribution arrived from the social research. Particularly, they have verified the connection among the experience, the purchase and the aestethic of the store thanks to Milward Brown that tested this fact in Verona.

What has been mostly challenging for them was to find and communicate to the Amplifon executives the right innovation level: no technological excesses that might catch unprepared the elderly nor could be of difficult application on a graeat scale, catchy for the young folks.

Pierre Cardin fashion show

After almost ten years, Pierre Cardin decided to host a fashion show once again but at the Palais Bulles in the South of France.

YSL new scent for its shop

Paris's hottest new shopping destination is not a newly launched boutique, but a store that has been open for over 25 years. The Yves Saint Laurent Saint-Sulpice store on Paris's Left Bank has debuted a new interior, a collaboration between creative director Stefano Pilati and architects Alain Moatti and Henri Riviere.

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First opened in 1979, the store has seen a complete reinvention, described by YSL as 'functional luxe,' where even the scent of the air has been considered for the ultimate luxurious shopping experience. Taking a departure from the minimal landscape that characterises many modern-day designer boutiques, Pilati instead turned to an iconic YSL reference: Opium.

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Innovative touches include the use of ductal concrete; an environmentally friendly option, which reduces carbon emissions, and energy efficient lighting, add to the ecologically sensitive

project.

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A stunning setting to show off Pilati's designs, the store should be on the radar for any style conscious visitor to the city, whether to buy, or simply to marvel.

Two Apple store. One amazing exprience.

Flash mob examples

The first recorded use of the term flash mob was in 2003 in a blog entry posted in the aftermath of Wasik's event. The term was inspired by the earlier term smart mob. Webster's New Millennium Dictionary of English defines flash mob as “a group of people who organize on the Internet and then quickly assemble in a public place, do something bizarre, and disperse.” The press has also used the term flash mob to refer a practice being used in China where groups of shoppers arrange online to meet at a store at the same time in order to drive a collective bargain with the store owner.

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Two are the most notable flash mobs: Pillow fight and Geocaching. Worldwide Pillow Fight Day (or International Pillow Fight Day) was a pillow fight flash mob that took place on March 22, 2008. Over 25 cities around the globe participated in the first "international flash mob", which was the world's largest flash mob to date. According to The Wall Street Journal, over 5,000 participants participated in New York City, overtaking London's 2006 Silent Disco gathering as the largest recorded flash mob. Word spread via social networking sites, including Facebook, Myspace, Wikipedia, private blogs, public forums, and personal websites. Participating cities included Beirut, Boston. Budapest, Chicago, Copenhagen, Dublin, Houston, Innsbruck, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, Monterrey, New York City, Paris, Pécs, Shanghai, San Francisco, Stockholm, Sydney, Vancouver, Washington, D.C., Zurich.

The increasingly popular hobby of geocaching developed a twice/year event in 2007 called "World Wide Flash Mob", held in the spring and the fall. Players active in geocaching are encouraged to develop events that produce a quick flash mob complete with an event booth and group photo that instanly disperses after 15 minutes. A unique aspect is that these flash mob events occur simultaneously around the world at the same day and time (1:00-1:15 PM Eastern time and simultaneously in other times zones, i.e. in London it would be held at 6:00-6:15pm, in San Francisco it would be held at 10:00-10:15am, etc.).The next such event is scheduled to happen on November 8, 2008. As an example, four such simultaneous events are planned within the New York Metropolitan Area, in Valhalla, in Babylon, NY, in Edison, NJ, and in London, UK.

A brief history of Flash Mob

A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse.

Flash mobs, to use a terrible pun, were quite literally a flash-in-the-pan phenomenon. Created by a man known only by "Bill" in summer of 2003, they spread globally with rapid pace and died out almost completely by the winter of that same year. In the summer of 2005, flash mobs officially "sold out" so-to-speak, with Ford's "flash concerts" that promoted their latest model, the Fusion. This past March, Harper's magazine reflected upon the flash mob phenomenon and simultaneously revealed its inventor: Bill Wasik, who just happens to be the senior editor at Harper's.

The first attempt was unsuccessful after the targeted retail store was tipped off about the plan for people to gather. Wasik avoided such problems during the second flash mob. To begin the experiment, Wasik sent a simple email on May 27, 2003 to about 60 friends and acquaintances. The email was vague, forwarded to himself by himself from an unused email address. It asked people to synchronize their watches and meet in a given location in New York. To avoid looking staged, he asked people to approach from different directions based on their birth month. Further instructions were to be given at the site by a random person via a slip of paper. The first mob failed due to the police receiving knowledge about it, but the second, which took place in the rug department of Macy's, was a success. About 200 people came into Macy's and informed clerks that they were looking for a love rug for their commune that they all lived in and that they made all their purchase decisions as a group. Wired News wrote about it two days later, and the flash mob spread rapidly to other cities. Subsequently, 200 people flooded the lobby and mezzanine of the Hyatt hotel in synchronized applause for about fifteen seconds, and a shoe boutique in SoHo was invaded by participants pretending to be tourists on a bus trip. The New York Times, in an effort to have a leg up on the story that other newspapers didn't, predicted (correctly) a backlash to the flash mob sensation. Wasik suspected as much, although the Times had impeccable timing on the story.

Wasik revealed that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, an attempt to make fun of hipster culture, and above all a social experiment designed to demonstrate the joining urge of human beings. He planned the lifespan of the flash mob in its entirety, from the first flash mob to its backlash, downfall, and subsequent commercialization. While the content of the flash mobs themselves was apolitical (the ones Wasik organized, at least, although they were definitely transformed into political protest by some), the lifespan of the flash mob speaks volumes about digital networking, the nature of the human herding instinct, and the commercialization of everything.

Get caught in a flashmob!

Sometime you can see a lot of people doing weird things on the streets in Milan. Surprisingly, you might be caught in a flashmob event.

While this mass event started spontaneously, nowadays it has became increasly a new marketing technique to launch new products.

Customer experience vs e-commerce

In relation to the previous post, here there are some more considerations about e-commerce vs real retail.

With all the investments and improvements within the last five years in redesigns, usability, analytics, multivariate testing, and the increases in broadband speed and availability, one might have expected significant improvements in bottom line. Yet, according to Shop.org, conversion rates are still hovering around 2.5%. Customers aren’t delighted.

Research by companies like Bazaarvoice, however, paints a different picture of the current “leveling off” in the e-business world. Their results indicate the problem doesn’t lie in the allure of the offline shopping experience, but in the failure of online stores to present a customer-focused shopping environment. In our experience, many of these sites also fall short of customer-focused excellence because they fail to effectively integrate with their offline counterparts.

Sam Decker, CMO of Bazaarvoice said, “According to customers, what were once ecommerce nice-to-haves are now table stakes. Easy checkout, product search and the right policies are as important as multi-channel integration and authentic user-generated content, such as ratings and reviews.The way customers research, shop and buy has evolved . Studies underscore the need for retailers to do the same and reconsider priorities.”

When a music genius meets a fashion empire

The Blason jewellery collection is designed by Pharrell Williams in collaboration with Camille Miceli for Louis Vuitton. This collection is a variation on four themes, in which the rhythm and energy of the new continent harmonize with the spirit of historic Europe.

Retail Design

Practically a lot has been said about retail experience in Milan,

but only a few theorically.

So, let's hear some experts discussing about retail design.

Someone has talked about Retail Experience in Milan

photos from Adidas'archive

Two days ago, a workshop about retail experience was organised by Ispira in collaboration with Domus Academy. Surprisingly, it sounded an upcoming marketing strategy. And what have I written about for two weeks? About retail experience- it seems to me. Actually, I’m not a foreseer, I am only someone who travels a lot and pays attention to what happens around.

By the way, this meeting was really interesting and beware of the main features of this communicational change. Before entering a shop, current customers are able to see collections in thousand ways through blogs or online stores previews. This aspect enhances not only a new relationship between the client and the object, but also between client and client. Indeed, they can leave comments and suggest eachothers. In a nutshell , this is what Luca Peruzzi explained, Ispira's excutive, an italian firm specialised in Retail consulting.

Retail experience seems to have replace the brand addiction because it allows a direct experience customer to customer. For example, main retailing chains in Uk like Topshop and Selfridges propose mottos like fun-life-fashion and have mass events in their mall every week, as Tom Ridley (top executive) stated.

These days shops have to offer an entire purchasing experience from the pre to the post retail to face the low consumption crisis.