Back to the future

Victoria Redshaw shares her projections for the future.

While the current economic climate is translating into demand for colours, materials and design schemes that are reassuring, 2010 and 2011 will see greater use of colour and an increased desire to embrace individuality.

That’s according to Victoria Redshaw, CEO of Scarlet Opus, a UK-based trend forecasting company, who will deliver a masterclass on trend forecasting at Index 2009.

“During times of instability, of course there is a yearning for something stable and soothing, but that certainly doesn’t mean playing it safe with beiges. It simply means introducing elements into interior schemes that are comforting,” Redshaw elaborated. And economic instability is not the only factor currently shaping trends.

Story continues below

Advertisement

FEATURED COMMENT Please click here to comment on this article

“Environmental concerns are having a big impact on design, manufacturing, retail, leisure and hospitality,” Redshaw pointed out.

“Our clients are working to adjust their business practices, to try to lessen their environmental impact, but they now want to design, manufacture and sell products that offer end consumers better eco options.

“They want their ‘green’ products and services to be good looking, satisfying and deeply desirable. ‘Eco-Chic’ is what or clients are aiming for,” said Redshaw.

Come 2010/11, opposites will attract. A series of seemingly contradictory influences – historical and futuristic, reassuring and challenging, glamorous and austere, ornate and simple, exotic and familiar, fantastical and traditional – will converge.

“We anticipate that the interior design schemes of the future will be a wonderful amalgamation of vintage and contemporary, repurposed and new, natural and man-made, and a melting pot of global influences that create deeply pleasing and rewarding living environments.”

Redshaw founded Scarlet Opus after spells as design manager and design director at home products and textile manufacturers.

In these capacities, she worked to develop product ranges with major high street retailers, at a time when retail buyers in the UK were still getting to grips with the logistics of working with overseas suppliers.

“As they adjusted to the longer lead times of manufacturers based in China, India etc, buyers began to take a keener interest in any trend information that would help them extend their forecasts of what would be in fashion in a year’s time,” Redshaw explained.

“This effectively meant they could plan their product collections much further in advance and these extended development schedules made their lives less stressful. So, an increasingly important part of my job became the research and presentation of future design trends, alongside new product offers,” Redshaw explained.

Identifying an opportunity, Redshaw established Scarlet Opus – but while many trend forecasting companies were tending to cater to the fashion industry, Redshaw pursued her passion for interiors.

Interior designers have much to gain from trend forecasting, she maintained, as it allows them to glean information not just about upcoming colour, pattern and styling trends but to also on anticipated changes in consumer attitudes, interests and expectations.

“Trend forecasting is a powerful tool that is increasingly being utilised by forward-thinking interior designers to provide a competitive edge, inform their decision making and inspire creativity,” she explained.

“Being well informed about the influence and impact of global events and the ‘bigger picture’ should be a priority for all designers and this is the key message from trend forecasting companies like Scarlet Opus.

“Global events, politics, films, economics, wars, environmental issues and lots of other topics all play their part in changing people’s attitudes, concerns, wants, needs and desires, as well as the general mood in society,” she added.

Trend forecasting essentially predicts the wants, needs and desires of a society and its consumers at a fixed point in the future – and then translates these into colour, pattern, material, product and styling forecasts. The Scarlet Opus creative team works approximately two years in advance and releases its forecasts between one year and 18 months ahead of time.

The company applies a five-stage process to forecast design trends. This includes reviewing previous forecasts, along with future ‘known’ events that will be influential.

“Trend forecasting is part art and part social science, which trend forecasters sometimes neatly refer to as a system of ‘informed intuition’. There may seem to be a ‘leap of faith’ required from clients, but visitors that come along to our Trend Seminars at Index will leave with a really good understanding of how we forecast the trends.”

Looking into the future, one thing is for sure – budgets will remain tight, Redshaw confirmed. “The good news is that this encourages creative thinking.

“For interior designers, the challenges of working to shoestring budgets mean that you can’t always take the easy or obvious route, and this requires a greater degree of creative problem solving. So, try to embrace the challenges ahead.”