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Photo: Jan Berg, Anna Persson (right)
Developments in textiles are advancing with fierce intensity. Application areas stretch far beyond the traditional, trained more on spacewalks than the flashbulbs of the catwalk. Tomorrow’s textiles are intelligent, interactive and in all likelihood not developed in a western country near you. The BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China stand ready to move to sixth gear and, due to enormous financial resources and increasingly higher expertise in the field, can skip development phases with which the “old” world still struggles.
With Next Textile, FutureDesignDays takes aim at tomorrow’s textile innovations and the business-related consequences born of this high-speed pioneering spirit by hosting an event on August 12, 2008. On stage stand as usual the bold, the innovative and those crazy enough to challenge the norms. FutureDesignDays’ Next Textile is an afternoon and evening of seminars and panel debates housed at the Nordic Light Hotel in Stockholm. The main speaker is Smart Textiles, a prioritized area of research in the region of Västra Götaland that brings together researchers and technicians in textile and fashion design, electronics, fibre technology, interaction design, tricot and weaving technology as well as colouring and finishing techniques. We’ll wind up the evening in the traditional manner with food, drinks and mingle. There are only a limited number of seats so be quick. To register and for a more detailed agenda, please visit futuredesigndays.com |
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And now some design gossip. Our congratulations to Syntes Studio who was awarded the Design S/Swedish Design Award for their music mobile, O2 Cocoon. The design phone for British mobile operator O2 is actually a joint effort between Syntes Studio and Shari Swan’s company Streative Branding and a direct consequence of FutureDesignDays. Shari was surfing the FutureDesignDays site in the autumn 2005 (back in the days before we were acquainted) and saw that Syntes Studio was nominated for the FutureDesignDays Award. She felt they’d made an interesting phone design and contacted them. One year later, in 2006, Shari was one of the speakers in Stockholm and the rest is history. Something always happens at FutureDesignDays. |
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Photo: Kirill Ovchinnikov
More design – more BRIC. The Russian Design Show is a Russian design venture and a Janna Bullock and RIGroup initiative that has been underway since the first of June. It will run a few more days until the end of the month (so if you’re passing through Moscow you can still make it). On an area measuring three hectares, “Ecoestate Pavlovskaya sloboda”, houses are displayed that are constructed in line with the latest eco findings and decorated with the help of some of the world’s most exciting designers and creators like the Campana brothers, Arne Quinze, Zaha Hadid, Nina Campbell and many, many more. The venture is one of many from Janna Bullock aimed at culturally uniting east and west. And don’t forget to visit the Moscow Metro and its famous crystal chandeliers and adornments. |
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Our first item of business is to congratulate FutureDesignDays’ former partner, the Swedish School of Textiles at the University College of Borås. Their Smart Textiles project took home 112 million Swedish kronor last week from research backer VINNOVA, the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems. We can also reveal that the same School of Textiles has a fashion incubator for newly started fashion companies – Factory 1.4. Tutored by a profile from the world of fashion, Jörgen Appelqvist, founder of Gina Tricot, the incubator is three students’ thesis project. We wind up our fashion city triptych with yet another round of congratulations. Shirt manufacturer Eton celebrates its 80th anniversary by unveiling a dress shirt featuring the finest Egyptian cotton and diamond dress stud set for the moderate price of 250,000 SEK. Borås has obviously returned as a heavy-weight fashion and textiles metropolis! |
Will BRIC – Brazil, Russia, India and China – be our new economic superpowers in just a few decades? That’s at least the belief held by many of the world’s leading analysts and people in the know. Consultant firm AT Kearney recently published the Global Retail Apparel Index report that pinpointed Brazil as one of the countries in which ready-made clothing answers for a significant portion of the consumption and as a country particularly open to trends and fashion. “There is great potential for global apparel retailers to succeed in Brazil. Brazil is the most attractive apparel market for reasons of demographics and demand,” AT Kearney says in a commentary about the report. Wakey, wakey fashionistas and entrepreneurs – time to look to the “new world”. |
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Sure, we knew that Shoptalk speaker Dennis Paphitis and his Aesop offer fantastic shop experiences, but you have to agree that the new Australia-based shops in Melbourne and Adelaide respectively are enchantingly luscious in their strict moderation. Both shops were designed in collaboration with Australian firm March Studio. Aesop is as we know also in the news with a new shop in London’s Mayfair for which the design collaboration involved England’s first lady, Ilse Crawford. Marcus Fairs and Dezeen report “Studioilse’s design of the shop translates the Aesop values through a loving restoration of the historic fabric with modern and clean interventions; original parquet floors left raw with patination, fireplaces reinstated, tall ceilings exposed.”
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15 May FutureDesignDays Shoptalk took place at a crowded Nordic Light Hotel in Stockholm, a session on tomorrow‘s retail. According to our speakers, we can expect a change in our shopping behavior. There will be less focus on quantity, more focus on quality. Which is the type of statement every generation wants to be remembered by, of course. But the development in the United States proves them right. According to surveys, within the next ten years 75 percent of American retail is expected
to be extinct. Read the full report in the nearest days. Read more >>> |
David Carlson, maybe best known as the founder of the Swedish furniture brand David Design, also runs the knowledge company Designboost. Designboost has just recently released their very first annual book ”Designboost 07”. David tells us about his book on his very own blog and says “It’s the first in a series of books that in words, pictures and moving media describes the work of Designboost. The book contains a range of texts about sustainable design from Designboost “boosters” and friends. Among the contributors you will find Matilda Tham, (Professor at Beckmans College of Design), Sean Pillot de Chenecey (Consumer Insight and Brand Development), Kristina Börjesson (PhD research associate at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design), Tim Power (Architect), and Jennifer Leonard (Designer Researcher and Writer at IDEO). The book also includes a DVD with a few films about Designboost and its activities. |
The San Fransisco agency Transparent House, specialized in 3D design and visualization, presents their vision of how to refine the classic flooring material concrete. They want the cold material to become warmer and more hospitable. By using fine floral ornaments the clean and hard concrete floor gets a touch of warm and live contrast to contrast the cold austerity of the material in a very tasteful way. The design concept allows for application of any pattern to the surface either when pouring or afterwards when the concrete has set. |
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As reported in FutureDesignDays News the new design concept of the Absolut Icebars is carried out in the flagship icebar in London. Here are some cool photos taken from the finalized bar, just before the opening party. 
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