We’ve never had more so-called trends and rarely so little clarity.

Substance over trends is a series we publish on Instagram, here goes the first part and a few additional thoughts. This article is not meant to offer solutions but initiate a thinking process.

With the Milan Design Week in full swing and new directions popping up, it gets harder to understand what actually matters. The issue is not a lack of information.
If anything, we are surrounded by signals, insights, reports, aesthetics, narratives. But the more we see, the less clear it often becomes what to do with it.

The challenge is not access. It is interpretation.

Many companies pay access to huge platforms such a Stylus or WGSN, which share insightful and inspiring information. They have great teams, with a sharp eye,  but translating information or trends within a brand’s department today requires more than downloading reports or inspiration decks. The question we hear often hear in our consulting is how relevant a trend really is to act upon it as it takes oftentimes two years to develop a new product line. The concern is real. Is this ‘trend’ still around in two years?

It requires understanding what sits beneath them, what they mean in context and if this insight is applicable to the brand’s core.

Most of the brands don’t know how to act upon trends that come already in bite-size formats.

What is often missing is something else: The ability and the courage to choose a direction.

Trends don’t create strategy. Decisions do.

In that sense, the role of trends is not to dictate what comes next. It is to help understand what is already changing so that direction can be defined with intention.

Substance over trends is a regular series we will publish on IG and in our newsletter.