US TAB

Homo has been a project in the works ever since the dawn of humankind. Officially launched in May 2018 the inclusion and possibility conversation goes back much further. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, the brand is led by Nicholas Komor and has a twofold mission: to reclaim and reframe the word “homo” and change the way we perceive each other.

Operating in a world thick with pop-up social causes aiming to change the status quo, “Homo” goes further than clicktivism. As Komor explains, “We aren’t a cause and we aim to evolve as humans do. We feel strongly the most important thing for humans right now is the need for unity, and so we want to provoke a human conversation. And what that means right now is just trying to get a handle on the word so we can start the healing process.”

Komor continues, “We chose the word Homo for this brand, because on its own it serves as the single-most unifying, lowest common denominator term for all of us who inhabit this planet together. We created Homo as a medium to remind people that we are all human, Homo sapien, and that everyone is Homo. It’s an absolute outlook.” The legacy of the word homo has hybrid roots in both Latin ( homō for man ) and Greek ( homos for same ), with the binomial classification Homo sapiens coined by Carl Linnaeus in his 10th edition of Systema Naturae, 1758. The first appearance of the term homosexual is found in an argument by Karl-Maria Kertbeny in 1869 against an anti-sodomy law. And in 1886, psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing published the widely popular Psychopathia Sexualis coining “homosexuality” as a sexual perversion, making him ultimately responsible for guiding people towards today’s pejorative slang-term “homo.”

Why hasn’t there been a Homo yet? Because of its negative connotation, the word homo remains blacklisted in many databases due to its ability to be used maliciously as slander. Because of the Lanham Act provision prohibiting the registration of trademarks that may “disparage . . . or bring . . . into contemp[t] or disrepute” any “persons, living or dead,” the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) reluctantly granted trademarks for “Homo” and “Everyone is Homo” in November 2016.

“Meditation is governing our creative emotions just as yoga is stretching our imagination. Switching off becomes a survival mechanism, producing altered states of consciousness, empowering people to exist. Stillness is said to have healing qualities while quiescence is believed to enhance our creativity, facilitating emotional growth. The benefits of diligence are related to slowing down and feeling a sense of peace, learning to be here and now.” As today’s lines between work and home blur, increases in stress, demand a slowdown. Artists and businesses understand society’s growing need for silence, creating spaces around the world that allow for temporary escape from the chaos. Brands have increasingly started investing thoughts into the new movement of “Silent & Sanctuary”.

Lebanese designer Nathalie Harb partnered with an architect for Beirut Design Week in 2017 to provide local residents access to silence, escaping the chaos of everyday life. “The Silent Room”, a pink shed-like structure located on the side of a busy highway in Beirut, was designed to provide visitors with “cocoon-like” silence that allowed them to be embraced in their sought-out comfort. The color pink was carefully selected for its calming effect and relation to tones of the skin. The warming calm usually associated with cool colors was meant to connect with images of the embryo, the plush walls of textiles meant to embody the closeness of an embracing womb. A soundtrack whispered in the background, thoughtfully arranged to block out noise pollution and city sounds to emulate silence of the mind.

In New York City, Inscape is a space that merges traditional practices with modern technology to create an immersive meditative experience in the center of the city. When Khajak Keledijan, designer of the Intermix stores, started meditating through a period of personal chaos, he was inspired to apply his mix-and-match philosophy of design to his meditation practices. At Inscape, audio guides lead sessions in mantra and mindfulness in a studio with warm-toned LED lights, allowing New Yorkers to free the clutter of their minds and drown out the sounds of the city while wrapped in alpaca blankets. The space was designed with an app so visitors can immerse themselves in meditation from their homes.

The fashion industry has taken note of society’s need for stillness, as LuluLemon has offered a space of calmness within their immense store location on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The athleisure brand opened their “Mindfulosophy” center on the top floor of their store, complete with “zen pods” paired with headphones to provide consumers with a moment of silence through audio meditations. As the brand advocates for an understanding of the difference between thinking and feeling, it has fully adapted into becoming a wellness lifestyle brand that facilitates mindfulness as well. With looking to LuluLemon as an example, retail spaces should consider becoming more of a sanctuary for “bringing people in rather than pushing product out”.

In this sense, fashion companies that are able to connect with consumers mentally and spiritually form deeper, more meaningful relationships. Retail brands can build emotional relationships through creating spaces that evoke a responsive reaction every time someone uses a product of theirs. Companies can rouse feelings of calmness through using sensory stimulation, creating retail spaces that use light and scent that lead consumers to connect with particular essences. In using light and scent throughout a retail environment to simulate calming emotions, companies are creating retail sanctums that allow visitors to feel a sense of meditative peace while they shop.

“The benefits of diligence are related to slowing down and feeling a sense of peace, learning to be here and now. Mindfulness programmes increase the strength of the hippocampus that controls learning and memory; watchfulness deflates the cells, which are in control of fear and anxiety, thus restoring a balance in the brain.”

nathalieharb.com

www.inscape.life

lululemon.com

Abigail Bowen, Chloe Sos & Molly Otteson

For young designer Delsey Ruel Bilodeau, everything started with the idea of self-actualization. Her collection, titled “^”, studies this last step of the hierarchy of needs. Subsequently, the conundrum of cost to reach the top was implicit given her desire to have a realistic point of view. As the main inspiration for the direction of her collection, she was inspired by the iconic work of Robert Longo called “Men in the Cities”, a series of graphite and charcoal drawings from 1980 and printed in 1998. Of the drawings, her favorite piece was a man subject to the upward pull of his noose-like tie, as if what made him glorious was stifling him. Therefore, she wanted to illustrate clothes that give people a sense of confidence and lightness, to make one feel as though they were floating to replicate that upward transaction.

Another main idea of the collection was to create unusual yet still classic basics to be used as professional uniforms. The wardrobe includes bras and puffy jackets, and also consists of a lot of white shirts, tailored pants and structured t-shirts. All the garments have many openings to liberate the body. The balance of different volumes joins the idea of a minimal body where the focus remains in the shapes and outlines of the structure of the garment, rather than the body itself.

As Delsey developed her collection, she chose to select many natural fabrics for their comfort and breathability. Her use of Latex for its dimensional structure allowed the formation of perfect undulations, symbolizing the struggles in reaching a goal. One crisp vinyl joins the wool, cotton and silk, which are either worked to be inflated or pressed, and arranged to create a rigid structure. Last but not least, the poses in the photographs are meant to represent going from feelings of hope to euphoria to the demolition of fantasies, the emotional responses ranging from pride to shame.

Abigail Bowen, Molly Otteson, Chloe Sos

delseyrb.com

With society in such transitional flux, it comes to no surprise that people look towards anything that provides comfort and well-being, and today, that could include insurance. Insurance has historically been considered to be one of the least trusted industries within the United States economy. High premium prices combinedwithfailureto pay claims have led many Americans to think of insurance companies as greedy and deceitful. Especially today, with the American society in constant conflict, people want to be able to turn to insurance for exactly what it is supposed to do—providing a sense of security and comfort. Lemonade is a New York City-based insurance company that does exactly this by designing a new set of values based on transparency, providing an entirely new experience for home and rentals insurance. It was founded just in 2016 with the intention of becoming “a social good for members of the community to take care of each other,” transforming the traditional model of insurance companies by integrating technology and transparency. This trending type of relationship between brands and customers, which is not necessarily based on spending more, is essential for new business models to gain the trust of the American people within society while continually building brand loyalty. With rising companies like Lemonade, consumers canfeelcomfortin the fact that they are being taken care of while also caring for others.

Lemonade is based online and in an app, truly playing to the consumers’ emotions by donating unclaimed premiums to a nonprofit of the customer’s choice at the end of the year through its Giveback initiative. By branding emotionally, companies can effectively meet the expectations of consumers, especially within the millennial age group. In markets under the age of 35, an element of “giving back” has become more and more important in the way consumers shop for any type of product. In a society consistently revolving around conflict, consumers want to feel as though they are doing good when they shop. Adding an element of charity might feel trendy in the world of business, but it is essential that all actions are carried out with authenticity to create true value and true connections. Brands which incorporate an element of charity are building a lifestyle that makes customers feel as though they are creating a meaningful impact when continually coming back to purchase their products and services. These types of lifestyle brands have been wildly successful within the fashion industry, so why not transition a similar type of branding to the insurance industry?

by Chloe Sos & Abigail Bowen

www.lemonade.com

A brand new period of using color lays in front of us, creating opportunity and inviting creativity. Now that the fashion system is out of fashion and it’s hype is outmoded, materials and colours will become the dominant vehicles of avant-gardism, the only way to discern allure and artistic vision in a collection. Therefore, the study of colours should become the priority of design studios, and will create possibilities for brands and designers to make their merchandise special and desirable, even if the shape is well known or common.

Due to the unsettling political climate in America, there is a new sense of vulnerability within the American consumer that can be uplifted by color. Creating passion amongst people in need of optimism. This group will find similar meanings between themselves and the color ways, ultimately creating a community of individuals.

Brands like Mansur Gavriel and Glossier are utilizing colors in a way that takes the product out of a retail mindset and into a movement. Known as the first successful brand to form after the recent economic downfall in America, Mansur Gavriel is molding the emerging middle market with their new approach to social media marketing.

Their use of mixed monochromatic colours and elevated store layout is always ready for Instagram, bringing consumers into a cohesive and blissful shopping experience. Built on the idea that “you give life to the products-products don’t breathe life into you”, Glossier moves away from the idea of over stimulating the consumer with excessive marking. The simple, monochromatic colours are manipulated in a way that seem to personally speak to each consumer in a way that only color can. They attract people, acting as a blank canvas, allowing the consumer to become the creative director.

In a time that is moved by the juxtaposition of commonality and individuality, monochromatic color ways act as a pendulum that changes hues as consumer’s ideas change. American consumers take comfort in groups of colours that work in delicate close harmonies while still buying single items to blend them together like nobody else, at times mixing their own monochromes into a multi-colored outfit, expressing personal taste and vision. Each item has a life of its own and will not bend for the other hues, resulting in a new way of power dressing with extravagant color encounters beyond the written rule of style. A revival of business in the making.

 
Molly Otteson, Abigail Bowen, Chloe Sos
 
Mansurgavriel

Glossier

In an age of rapid technological innovation, data privacy, user transparency, and personal security are increasingly valuable commodities. As we excitedly embrace new smartphones, wearable tech solutions and intelligent softwares and hardwares, we often unconsciously agree to give services such as Google or Facebook large amounts of personal data. With this data, we also hand over clear portraits of who we are, what we value, where we shop and how we consume information.
 
x.pose is a project by designers Xuedi Chen and Pedro G.C. Oliveira that examines the implications of our data-centric and data-driven culture. Using 3D printed flexible mesh, Chen and Oliveira have created a wearable sculpture with 20 hand-cut reactive displays. These displays expose more of the user’s skin as more data bytes are connected. As more personal data is collected, the more exposed the individual becomes – literally and figuratively. The more connected we become, the more transparent we appear. The sculpture reflects this transformation in real time, changing its opacity to expose more of the user’s skin as more amounts of data are collected and connected.
 
Chen and Oliveira leave us with the following questions:
 
By participating in this hyper-connected society, how much of myself do I unknowingly reveal?
 
To what degree does the aggregated metadata collected from me paint an accurate portrait of who I am as a person?
 
What aspects of my individuality are reflected in this portrait?

Production

"The first step was to build a mobile app and server to automatically collect my data over time. Done using Node.js and PhoneGap.
 
Second: the recorded data set was used as the basis for the generative aspects of the personalized wearable couture. The output is an abstract 3D mesh armature of my location data points collected over about a month. The dataset was fed into processing to produce the pattern and exported to Rhino to make the 3D mesh.
 
Lastly, the mobile app and server is used to provide real-time data transmission through bluetooth to an Arduino, which controls reactive displays that change in opacity to reveal the wearer’s skin. This occurs in proportion to the volume of information that is passively generated."
 
ITP NYU Thesis 2014 - Special thanks to: Nancy Hechinger, Ben LIght, Eric Rosenthal, Thesis class, Talya Stein, ITP community, Family & Friends - Photography By: Roy Rochlin - Model: Heidi Lee  - Makeup: Rashad Taylor

Beth Lauck
 
itp.nyu.edu
 
xc-xd.com

Beth Lauck contributes posts about emerging and disruptive design and communications trends, and helps forecast why and how these changes will affect market intelligence. She also maintains a blog devoted to the intersections between fashion, future studies and trend science. 
 
www.what-nxt.com

Washington D.C.’s independent coffee shop community is brewing dissidence. And it’s rather delicious.
 
In an effort to reign in the corporate reach of America and educate fellow coffee connoisseurs, a group of six independent coffee shops in Washington DC have banded together and established The Disloyalty Program. Get The D.C. Disloyal card punched at six independent coffee shops across the city and get a free cup at the end – from whichever establishment you choose. A great way to try new brews, learn about new beans and meet awesome coffee professionals, the Disloyal Program makes the most of a free market economy.
 
DC Disloyal Founder (and Peregrin Espresso barista) Dawn Shanks says, “I hope the card is a fun way for DC coffee lovers to sort of explore different shops and engage with the people making coffee.”
 
As conscious consumerism continues to make serious waves in the United States, more and more people are re-discovering the importance and power of independent artisans and local maker communities. Programs like Disloyal are redrafting our everyday loyalties and redefining the quality of consumer goods. Join me in bidding adieu to stale coffee, faceless corporations and poor labor practices.

Participating coffee shops include: The Blind Dog, The Coffee Bar, Peregrin Espresso, Chinatown Coffee Co, Filter and La Mano.
 
Beth Lauck
 
dcdisloyal.tumblr.com

Beth Lauck contributes posts about emerging and disruptive design and communications trends, and helps forecast why and how these changes will affect market intelligence. She also maintains a blog devoted to the intersections between fashion, future studies and trend science. She completed an internship with Trend Union in 2012 as the Assistant Editor and Community Manager of Trend Tablet, and considers her experiences with the Trend Union team an invaluable addition to her work as a trend forecaster and fashion theorist. 
 
www.what-nxt.com

Beth Lauck contributes bi-monthly posts about emerging and disruptive design and communications trends, and helps forecast why and how these changes will affect market intelligence. She also maintains a blog devoted to the intersections between fashion, future studies and trend science. She completed an internship with Trend Union in 2012 as the Assistant Editor and Community Manager of Trend Tablet, and considers her experiences with the Trend Union team an invaluable addition to her work as a trend forecaster and fashion theorist. 

As the world of 3D printing evolves, Francis Bitoni Studios is staying ahead of innovation's steep curve. Bitoni Studios has pioneered a three-week intensive interdisciplinary research called, New Skins, where students and professionals in the fashion, art, architecture and computing industries join forces to design and fabricate second skins for the body. Students are immersed in complex 3D modeling, and generate a wide range of geometric formations ranging from organic bone-like structures to articulated chainmail meshes. The project captures the human body via 3D scanning technology, and with the help of robotics and sensing technology, creates smart transformable garments that are as much art as they are an exercise in mechanics and human anatomy.

The Verlan Dress, shown below, was created using 3D anatomical models of the human body from the inside out. Hidden lines and vectors of the human body – muscles, veins, and arteries – were transformed into curves that could be manipulated in a 3D modeling environment. The entire design was printed on two MakerBots using MakerBot's new Flexible Filament material which allowed the designers to produce a flexible, 3D-printed garment that is able to conform to the body's movement when worn.

Watch the video below for an inside look at the future of 3D printing technology.

Beth Lauck

www.newskins2013.com

francisbitonti.com

Beth's blog

Beth Lauck contributes bi-monthly posts about emerging and disruptive design and communications trends, and helps forecast why and how these changes will affect market intelligence. She also maintains a blog devoted to the intersections between fashion, future studies and trend science. She completed an internship with Trend Union in 2012 as the Assistant Editor and Community Manager of Trend Tablet, and considers her experiences with the Trend Union team an invaluable addition to her work as a trend forecaster and fashion theorist. 

On August 27th, fashion gets a clear conscience. E-commerce site, Zady is opening its doors to the public and grabbing the helm of conscious consumerism. Zady is a shopping and lifestyle destination for consumers who care about the origins of of the items they purchase. Without sacrificing style or taste,  Zady upholds an unprecedented commitment to manufacturing transparency: each product featured on the site has been personally vetted by Zady's founders, using criteria for sustainability, including whether the product is locally-sourced, handmade, uses high-quality raw materials, is environmentally conscious, or made in the U.S.A. Founded by Soraya Darabi (Foodspotting; The New York Times), and Maxine Bédat (The Bootstrap Project), Zady offers craftsmanship with a clear conscience – from start to finish. Brands include Nashville-based denim designers, Imogene + Willie; Madrid, Spain's innovative recycled material-friendly Ecoalf; and pea coat manufacturer Gerald & Stewart.

We scored an interview with Soraya and Maxine. Scroll down for an inside look into how the company came into being, plans for a brick-and-mortar store, and what trends to expect next.

Where did the idea for Zady.com come from?

We met in high school in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We became friends back then, and bonded because we both have international parents.  Maxine’s parents are from South Africa; Soraya’s father is from Iran. After high school, Maxine moved to New York and Soraya to Washington, D.C. for college. Maxine graduated from Barnard College in New York City and Soraya from Georgetown University in D.C.

Years after college ended, while I (Maxine) was in Law School at Columbia and Soraya was living in New York, working for a startup, we reconnected over Facebook. Having read articles about each other, we were both interested in what the other was doing professionally. I (Maxine) was working on the non-profit I founded called The Bootstrap Project which helps revive craft traditions in the developing world and finishing law school.  Soraya was advising startups based in New York City. I came across the Fast Company Magazine issue with Soraya on the cover in the airport, during a 2010 trip for The Bootstrap Project.  Soraya read an article on Bootstrap’s beautiful artisanal crafts in a House and Home Magazine.

After the first coffee, Soraya asked me if I needed help with the digital strategy for TBP and of course I was happy to have the help.  Over the next few months, we both realized a few things:

We liked one another still! We had complementary skills. We both shared a growing interest in understanding how supply chain works and how beautiful things are made.

As we shared articles back-and-forth about the negative impact of fast fashion, we sent one another recommendations for newly discovered products with origins we could actually trace. From this the idea of Zady was born – a company that searches the globe for- and with- the consumer to curate a selection of products that are both beautiful and ethically produced.

The connection with The Bootstrap Project as a source of craft revival and economic development was important, so we decided that 5% of proceeds from every Zady sale would go to The Bootstrap Project to help artisans in the developing world continue to create beautiful craft and preserve their important cultural tradition.

In some sense, Zady.com is necessitating a paradigmatic shift from a culture of convenience to a culture of sustainability. How will stores like H&M and Forever 21 – pioneers of fast fashion – fit into this new model?

It’s interesting. In the early 1960s, 95% of the clothing Americans wore were American-made. Today, however, the U.S. imports more than 95% of its apparel and 99% of its shoes from other nations.  A substantial amount of imported goods are delivered to fast fashion chains, and to the major distribution chains.   So over the last generation, we saw a paradigm shift to the culture of convenience you describe, which is also part of our culture of consumption.

H&M currently buys 400 million garments a year.  And it’s not unusual for a nationwide chain to contract production for up to 100,000 garments in one style.

Zady will be part of the movement of change, to reach consumers craving an era where products were made beautifully, with an emphasis on craft and style.  It’s all part of the zeitgeist, and we want to be a helpful part of it - for people who already know the origins of the food they eat, they exercise regularly to feel good and healthy, and now they’d like to feel equally healthy about the products they place on their bodies.

As more and more people gravitate to conscious consumption, the fast fashion pioneers will have to change or risk getting left behind. Much in the same way that Walmart, the apex of all things mass, now includes organic food choices (something that would have been unthinkable a decade ago) fast fashion will have to fundamentally change their structure to convince customers that their clothing is both ethically produced and can stand the test of time.

Zady.com's commitment to manufacturing transparency is almost unprecedented in the fashion industry. How else do you hope to change the landscape of fashion in years to come?

Zady will bring prosperity and give a voice to great brands that value quality of material and production – both large and small.  We particularly want to help our community discover those special products that they would not otherwise be able to find. We want to help preserve techniques in manufacturing products that may have been lost overtime in the fashion industry.  We want to use modern digital tools to tell stories that deserve to be told.

Fast Fashion has made billions of dollars selling the idea that by pushing poorly made product on the cheap, they are “democratizing fashion.” But what they have really done is pushed people to believe that in order to be stylish, they have to buy clothing every week. And it doesn’t matter that it won’t last because they can just throw it out. Our hope is to turn fast fashion on its head. It’s a huge challenge, of course, but the buying public is ready. We’re tired of closets full of sub-standard.

Do you have plans for personalizing search results for returning customers?

Yes. The first iteration of Zady.com will launch on August 27. Over time, we have plans for dramatic personalization and customized features for our audience.  We intend to enhance our geo-located map of the world, for instance, to default to the city or town our customers happen to be in at their moment of search. Eventually, we will show customers items their friends liked on Zady.  It’s all in due time.  At the moment, we are discovering the possibilities of the social-web and creating communities for @zady on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram - asking our community what features they would like to see on Zady will be key to creating our project pipelines of the future.

Zady.com addresses a new generation of conscious consumers; people empowered by the collective intelligence of their social networks and resources. What other lifestyle features and stories can we expect from Zady.com ?

One of the most profound aspects of Zady that we know will connect with our customers is the storytelling for each brand. This will involve interviews with each brand owner and creator so that our customers can develop a deeper relationship with the products when they shop on Zady. There will also be features that may tie directly or indirectly to a product on Zady. For instance, a denim brand will be accompanied by an original article that illustrates the history of denim manufacturing in the US.

So Zady will not only be a destination to purchase products, but also serve as a resource for the reader and shopper who wants to learn more  - a lot more - about the products they buy.

We have a section on our website called “Origins” which begins as a dynamic map of the world, highlighting products on different spots of the map.  Those product icons represent products ZADY sells.  If you click on a product, information then appears on the map, detailing where the brand that sells the product is headquartered, where the raw materials that comprise that product come from, where the product was designed and manufactured.  It’s data we collect and input into our own database, because we feel it is so important to detail and share.

As we hear from our community we want to report back on topics that interest them. The lens of timeless style can be applied in many assets of our life. Profiles of people with interesting careers, unique and inspiring travel destinations, investigative pieces on the fashion industry, and those pieces that strike a chord with where we are culturally, these are all the kinds of subjects we are excited to cover going forward.

Do you have any plans to grow a brick-and-mortar presence for Zady.com, or will you operate exclusively via e-commerce?

We are really focused on making the Zady.com experience compelling, exciting and seamless. Once Zady.com is launched and fully established, our goal will be to open a brick-and-mortar presence with all of the Zady products curated in one place.  We are working to have something smaller scale in place for the holidays this year.  Further down the road, we will launch a line of Zady-branded products…  but we are focusing on one step at a time.

What fashion and lifestyle trends do you see on the horizon in 2014?

We think stylish, sustainable clothing is going to be a huge trend in 2014.   It just feels like the moment has arrived, and trend and forecasting data only seem to back up our intuition. We think Americans buy roughly twenty billion garments per year. Given the recession, given our nation’s growing interest in understanding how and where their products were made, we think the timing is right to launch Zady.

Beth Lauck

 ZADY

Beth's blog

Beth Lauck contributes bi-monthly posts about emerging and disruptive design and communications trends, and helps forecast why and how these changes will affect market intelligence. She also maintains a blog devoted to the intersections between fashion, future studies and trend science. She completed an internship with Trend Union in 2012 as the Assistant Editor and Community Manager of Trend Tablet, and considers her experiences with the Trend Union team an invaluable addition to her work as a trend forecaster and fashion theorist. 

Currently on view at Rice Gallery in Houston, Texas is Soo Sunny Park's latest installation, Unwoven Light. Rice Gallery has been transformed into a shimmering world of light, shadow, and brilliant color. Suspended from the walls and ceiling, thirty-seven individually sculpted units are arranged as a graceful, twisting flow of abstract form.

Unwoven Light continues Park's ongoing experimentation with the ephemeral qualities of light and how light shapes our perceptions of architectural space. Though immaterial, light is a critical structural element in each of Park's works. Here, she has utilized both the gallery's lighting and the natural light that enters through the front glass wall. Park notes, “We don’t notice light when looking so much as we notice the things light allows us to see. Unwoven Light captures light and causes it to reveal itself, through colorful reflections and refractions on the installations surfaces and on the gallery floor and walls.”

Park employs the grid-like structure of chain link fencing to "unweave" strands of natural and artificial light. Wired into each open cell of the chain link is a cut-out shape of iridescent Plexiglas. Park explains, “Like a net, the sculpture is a filter that is meant to capture the light that is already there and force it to reveal itself. Now we can see it, the light, in purple shadows and yellow-green reflections that both mirror the shape of the fence and restructure the space they inhabit.”

Each visitor's experience of Unwoven Light will be unique, depending upon the time of day, ratio of natural to artificial light, precise angle of viewing, and even the number of people in the gallery.

Beth Lauck

soosunnypark.com

www.ricegallery.org

Beth's blog

Beth Lauck contributes bi-monthly posts about emerging and disruptive design and communications trends, and helps forecast why and how these changes will affect market intelligence. She also maintains a blog devoted to the intersections between fashion, future studies and trend science. She completed an internship with Trend Union in 2012 as the Assistant Editor and Community Manager of Trend Tablet, and considers her experiences with the Trend Union team an invaluable addition to her work as a trend forecaster and fashion theorist. 

The Ghurka story begins in 1970 at an antiquities market in the U.K. Fueled by a love of history and leather craft, company found Marley Hodgson bid on campaign gear made for a Ghurka regimental officer of the British Army stationed in India during the early 1900s. Hodgson lost the auction, but he acquired the special tanning formula that accounts for the renowned durability and suppleness of Ghurka leather.

The name Gurkha is derived form the Hindu warrior-saint Guru Gorakhnath, and represents an indigenous people from mid-western and eastern Nepal.

Ghurka leather bags and accessories are handmade by master artisans committed to a tradition of superior craftsmanship, superb functionality and timeless American style. Everything that bears the Ghurka mark is designed and built to provide a lifetime of use and enjoyment. Featured in both The New Yorker and Wallpaper Magazine, Ghurka leather honors and elevates the sacred history of the warrior-saint and offers a unique response to the fast fashion culture of today's economy.

www.ghurka.com



Beth's blog 

There is something moving in the way these sofas are displayed in the American furniture section of the formidable Art Institute of Chicago. Antique pieces from the East Coast, crafted somewhere from 1825 through 1870 in New York or maybe New England it is unclear, all sitting low under a rather odd selection of paintings and portraits hung too close to them.

For one, the Grecian couch with ultra symmetrical woven dots from the 1830s invites the two overlooking portraits, an endearing gentlewoman and a romantic dandy in matching colors, to roll up the conversation onto the wavy shapes below. A not so conventional sectional.

Then there is the chubby pink 1860s sofa with a triptych backseat, ornate with cameos of Her and of Him at its tips, which claims to be made of rosewood and ... ormolu. Ormolu? Sounds like the name of some fancy bird that could drop any minute straight from the William Bradford marine "The Coast of Labrador"  onto the arms of the couch. But no, ormolu is an old English translation from French "or moulu", or ground gold, an 18th century term describing the application of gold powder as a finish on wood, precious enough like a cocotte...

And finally there is this 1855 complicated laminated rosewood, ash and cherry piece, freshly re-upholstered in a flashy green and white floral damask.

It is flanked on top by the 1881 "Study for an Aragonese Smuggler" painting by William Turner Dannat, chiaroscuro rendering of a man in shabby clothes with raised arms throwing his head back and pouring water in his open mouth.The painting is as tormented as the couch is still, as patine-d as the couch is plastic, as low-life as the couch is high life. One volunteers for humble and the other screeches pretense.One tells a story of realistically neo-poor and the other of ostentatiously nouveau-riche. How can two objects be more aesthetically opposed to each other. Yet somehow the odd tandem works, kind of creating an occupy wall street design moment. Or like an old rich lady and her much younger artistic lover, sofa and painting make strange but interesting bed fellows.

This inspires us to spark again at the visit of the forgotten furniture aisles of musea, those long shielded from the scrutinizing eyes of curators. These aisles subsist all over the world indeed, in major art establishments as well as in regional museums. Oscar Wilde himself, in his desire to educate North Americans to a House more Beautiful, would have liked the incongruous associations, I'm sure. I appreciate the naïveté and the randomness maybe of the display. A non-curated anthropological manifesto.

Emmanuelle Linard

The Textile Art Center located in Park Slope, Brooklyn, provide support for fiber and weaving professionals as well as people interested in the fiber professions, by acting as a resource facility and a creative meeting place.

The center hosts an artist in residence program where students rent a workshop for 6 months, and it holds classes in textile related disciplines such as weaving, embroidery, or natural dye processes.The TAC runs a natural garden in neighboring lot, using the dye plants in classes and providing shares to their CSA members, also using the space for workshops and lectures.

Adjacent to the TAC’ s natural dye garden is the Nomadic Farming Project  ran by Feedback Farms.Vegetables are planted and grown in large burlap bags sitting on wooden pallets, to be lifted, loaded and transported to other locations as they ripen and ready for harvest, to leave space for new planted seeds, or move indoors for the winter season, insuring a rotation for movable planters and optimizes production. Like camping for plants.

Emmanuelle Linard

feedbackfarms.com

textileartscenter.com

Aspen, Colorado, is an interesting little town. Remote from large hubs yet nestled in the heart of the United States, it hosts a tight-knitted community of 5,000 committed people, which grows to 30,000 during the ski season. The scenery is terrific; you can enjoy the views by riding up with the gondolas to a peak perched at a 12,000 ft altitude.

Aspen’s history is one of cultural heritage; it was founded around 1888 by Jerome B Wheeler, an industrial and financier who brought his wife Harriet Macy, heir to the Macy’s department store, to Colorado, in search of a place with pure air to help cure her respiratory problems.

(I can witness indeed that the air in Aspen is quite pure, at such oxygen-deprived altitude, breathing while exercising is surprisingly smooth.)

Jerome Wheeler started mining for silver and made a flash-fortune in 4 years during which he built cultural establishments and structures for larger crowds that would welcome the intelligentsia of the East Coast as well as thinkers, politicians, business people and artists from Europe.

The hotel Jerome is a witness to this glorious past, being at the heart of Aspen by its central location but also by its noble construction: large of 90 rooms and still decorated in the turn of the 20^th century style, it displays a charming obsolete European grandeur while offering the warmth of cosy winter lounges, majestuous hallways, bars and a 4,000 sqft ballroom.

Ever since that time, and even after crossing three major depressions that brought the town to its knees to total poverty, a tradition of culture and international flair persists. Aspen gathers thousands of people for world class events, the famous Food and Wine Classic event being one of them. I was attending recently there the three day Global Wellness Summit, an American venture founded in 2006 reuniting each year a growing community of spa executives worldwide, while the green energy summit was also happening at the hotel Jerome. Famous people spoke at both events, amongst them the governor of Colorado, former Davos CEO Philippe Bourguignon, or Jose Maria Figueres Olsen, president of Coast Rica from 1994-1998, now president of The Carbon War Room and an engaged activist for sustainable industry practices. Inspiring people.

What struck me during the three day- spa conference is that most speakers brought health to the center stage of the discussion; I believe that wellness establishments will become the clinics of the future, where prevention and rewards for patients in good health will prevail, in reaction to a system that has become more of a sickcare system than a healthcare one, where diseases are engines fueling chemical cures from pharmaceutical giants, for patients marketed as products.

The obesity debate also took center stage. A heavy  topic in social media as well, especially in America, where ¼ of the population is overweight, where a plane passenger recently was un-boarded for being too big for one seat, where a chain food burger costs $.99 and a salad $4.99.

The group of spa students who won the prize at the Global wellness Summit student competition this year is from California: four cheeky girls who imagined the concept of a spa for VIGs, Very Important Girls, targeting girlfriends and sisters in a  12-18 age bracket, who gather to relax, interact and receive beauty treatments in a man-free environment. A man-free environment! Wow, young girls are empowered beyond feminism these days. Interesting trend to notice next to the new father trend that Li recently mentioned in the Trendtablet newsletter: the masculine is in need of a make-over.

Aspen is an inspiring place; I will go back during ski season, to see how it feels to exercise in the snowy pure air while getting stimulated by cultural events…

Emmanuelle Linard

www.globalspaandwellnesssummit.org

www.aspeninstitute.org

Chrissie Lam, a senior concept designer at US retail brand American Eagle Outfitters for twelve years, always wanted to connect her passion for fashion, adventure and philanthropy.

After taking a sabbatical from her design position to go to Rwanda and explore clothing craftsmanship, she decided to launch The Supply Change, a network whose purpose is to alleviate extreme poverty by connecting artisans in emerging economies with the global market place.

Chrissie explains: “We are curating experiences and enlisting like-minded design colleagues in order to help them realize the potential of sourcing in developing countries. I believe change comes from within a company, and currently there is a disconnect between people in the design industry and social enterprises/artisan groups abroad. If design professionals can connect with great organizations, meet the artisans, witness the social impact and be inspired by the local resources, they are more likely to return to their companies with enthusiasm and the knowledge to advocate for a brand-social enterprise collaboration. We want to create ambassadors – ambassadors that can influence change within their companies and raise awareness and action through real stories and word-of-mouth experiences.”

The venture, she ads, is not a non-profit, for it is meant to bring resources to those involved.

The Supply Change has partnered with travel agency Extraordinary Journeys to create unique travel programs under the name of Fashion Designers Without Borders. The first program will be held in Kenya on February 16-23, 2013 and will educate and connect participants with artisan social enterprises hat work with brands like Edun, Suno, Puma, Max Mara, Whole Foods and others.  A second trip will be organized in March 2013 in Guatemala.

Even though only a few weeks old, The Supply Change is receiving great press and support from medias. The public is ready; now the corporate world is definitely in need for change, not only the merchandise but the job positions themselves have become so boring that business as usual can no longer be sustained.

Thanks to the relevance in timing of this start-up, and through the passion of its founder, this venture will go a long way; Edelkoort Inc is happy to support. Good luck!

Emmanuelle Linard

http://thesupplychange.org/

www.fashiondesignerswithoutborders.com

The highlight of New York Design Week for me was Murray Moss’s installation Midway & Mortal Stillness.

The Moss company left the high traffic Soho space to move into the ailing but still bustling Fashion District, on 36^th Street between 7th and 8^th Avenue.

The elected building is a new development that resembles a turn of the 19^th century construction. In the elevator taking you to the 10^th floor, the Moss team posted a warning that the installation contains strobes. Indeed: once you enter the new Moss space, re-baptized “Moss Bureau”, you find yourself immersed in an office/showroom environment where lined-up computer desktops pair with the unique vintage office chairs of the business hours personnel and play each a video of the current exhibition; the copy machine stands as a background to Maarteen Baas Grandfather Clock, the sprinkler system painted in red runs from window to window, overlooking in the back the coating manufacturing facilities in the neighbor building, all office features are juxtaposed to the strikingly beautiful “Midway” installation featuring Cathy McLure pieces.

This installation is described as a zoetropic “circus”; mechanical bronze-colored toys stripped off their fur spin on their carousel, rendered alive by stroboscopic flashes entrained by the ritournelle of a mechanical organ soundtrack. A sweet feeling of unease seizes you as you watch the carousel turn: it echoes the state of a grinding world in economic decadence that keeps turning mechanically as if waiting for its batteries to go out, in denial of its own decline.

Realistic, threatening and beautiful, a true impersonation of romanticism.

Also featured are Julia Kunin’s porcelan bronzed colored vessels.

The Moss team is making the most out of a space considerably smaller than the previous one, in blending office features and design, “bringing the back stage in the front stage”, as Franklin Getchell explains, and as Murray points, “daily computers dress up at night and become part of the fancy show”.

Necessity as the mother of invention, so true, thank you Murray.

By Emmanuelle Linard

www.mossonline.com

The Union Square Farmer's Market in the heart of New York City is still going strong. Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, neighboring farmers, fishers and producers from upstate New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania or even Vermont offer their products to the Manhattan crowd.

Besides the cornucopia of pesticide-free vegetables, roots, fruits, flowers and small trees fit for city life, meat-related products abound: a Catskill Merino Sheep farm offers lamb's legs as well as sheepskin and color-died skeins; an ostrich and emu farm sells giant eggs full or empty and diverse part of 97% fat-free red ostrich meat; a ranch from Pennsylvania offers angus & bison meat from grass-fed animals raised without antibiotics, hormones or steroids.

Various recycling programs are offered, such as clothing under the label Wearable Collections or the plastic bag recycling program for those who pledge to bring their own reusable plastic bag to shop at the market to help reduce plastic usage through the city.

The Community Compost program from the Lower East Side Ecology Center sells composting systems and  gather kitchen scraps from households in large garbage cans to compost, repackage and and re-sell as fertile soil once processed. Lavender, local beer and maple candy from Vermont are also available.

More expensive than smaller markets around the five boroughs or Philadelphia, but very eco-friendly for us city locals, still...what a blessing to live nearby...

By Emmanuelle Linard.

www.wearablecollections.org

www.lesecologycenter.org

www.unionsquaregreenmarket

Purple haze. In the US, sixteen states and Washington, DC,  have legalized medical marijuana, and 16 other states have pending legislation.  This means that pot is one thing that some Republican states like Mississippi or Nebraska and some Democrat states like Maine and Connecticut can agree on, uniting divided America in a purple haze of red and blue…

Much farming takes place in sunny California, with a value of pot crops estimated at $14 billion, and growing competition also: the police discovered last summer North of San Francisco 121 pot farms, up from 37 the year before, most of them illegal.

Since unemployment is high, more and more white former private school students choose to work as pot farmers, trimming the plants, chopping them down and letting them cure in heated warehouses for three to four weeks, after which more temporary workers are imported to cut the dried leaves and prepare them for the market. A growing state matter!

more to read on GOOD 

Building with hemp. Industrial hemp comes from Cannabis Sativa, the same plant species that produces marijuana, and therefore the production of industrial hemp has been long prohibited in the United States. Even in Santa Barbara, California, a state where medical marijuana is legalized, the authorities haven’t yet decided whether to allow the building with hemp to proceed.

Hempcrete is a mixture of hemp, lime and water, a very sustainable material that is energy-efficient, non-toxic, resistant to mold, insects and fire. It also absorbs carbon dioxide, purifying the air from city pollution inside the structure.

“NauHaus”, a North-Carolina project  by Hemp Technologies, has homes built in Hawaii, Texas, North-Carolina and Idaho, and has received the LEED platinum status.

By Emmanuelle Linard

www.hemp-technologies.com

Dear Tablet friends,

We are happy to announce that we moved our Edelkoort Inc New York quarters to the Abbey near Union Square, the belly button of Manhattan! A fresh start in a fantastic central location.

From our window we look at nature with Stuyvesant Park, at the future with friend’s school, and up for inspiration with the St. George church.

It’s all about the view. We are happy to welcome you in our sunny office.

Soon,

Lidewij, Emmanuelle and the Edelkoort Group

www.edelkoortinc.com