Stay ConnectedWhat’s next – and how do you act on it?
Join Cassandra Napoli, Head of Consumer Insight at WGSN, the world’s leading trend forecaster, as she talks with inspiring industry voices about emerging trends and how they become real products and services, helping designers, product developers, buyers and marketers stay ahead.
Copyright: © WGSN 2020
WGSN CEO Carla Buzasi speaks to Nanushka Founder, Sandra Sandor and Peter Baldaszti the company’s co-owner and CEO. Over the years the label has made a name for itself through its ardent approach to sustainability while staying committed to its luxury roots.
Over the course of this conversation they discuss the changing consumer relationship with sustainable fashion, how Nanushka challenges suppliers to truly deliver sustainable solutions, and how to manage the growth of a business while maintaining that “family” ethos they had established from the start.
For consumers, the climate crisis is no longer a theoretical problem that will need to be solved in the future, but rather, it is something that is urgent and happening now. Having seen the swift action from governments around the world in response to the pandemic, consumers are now expecting a similar level of drive in response to the climate crisis.
All of this is driving broad shifts in consumer behaviour as the pandemic accelerated shifts around values, with people adopting a much more frugal mindset. This week we look at the role our industry can play as part of the solution.
The DNA of an Yves Béhar project is pushing design and technology boundaries to forge new territories often light years ahead of the mainstream. From sustainable shoe packaging for Puma, to Samsung's "The Frame" TV, his studio, fuseproject which he founded in 1999, explores the nexus between design and technology with a strong focus on sustainability and always with an optimistic, punk meets freewheeling west coast attitude.
Over the past year it's felt like stalemate. In our Groundhog Day existence, rarely has fashion seemed so pragmatic. We've seen sweatpants, puffer coats, wellies and walking boots selling out across the globe, while heels, tailored workwear and dresses are gathering dust. So what does emerging from the lockdown mean for fashion from a product perspective? How do categories from workwear and partywear evolve and what happens next to loungewear?
WGSN CEO Carla Buzasi speaks to CEO and Co-Founder of beauty company Deciem, Nicola Kilner. Carla and Nicola discuss, the impact of seemingly endless Zoom calls on consumers' beauty decisions, the reasons behind creating a social activist manager role within the business and offering a simplified, uniform product range to a global consumer among many other things.
Retail is once more in a state of flux. The pandemic led to huge shifts in consumer behaviour in 2020 and this is set to continue into 2021. In the US alone 11,000 stores closed and 40 major retailers went bankrupt last year. Online spending also reached new heights accounting for 27.3% of global overall retail sales, growing by a third over the course of the year. Retailers need to adapt to a future where digitally facilitated shopping trips are the norm.
At WGSN we have been discussing the growing rental markets for fashion as well as furniture and interiors for a number of years now, this has accelerated in recent years due to the increasing consumer demand for sustainable and flexible lifestyles. Henrietta Thompson co-founded Harth in 2018, and became a pioneer of the furniture rental market in the UK. In the last six months Harth has seen a 50% increase in rental requests and a 60% increase in stock listed by private lenders.
January tends to be the time of year when many of us pull our gym kit out of the back of our cupboards and generally set goals to become the best versions of ourselves. The wellness sector is worth $4.5 trillion per year and has been growing at 6.4% annually, twice the rate of global economic growth. Petah Marian is joined by experts from across WGSN to discuss how wellness is undergoing something of a detox to become more democratic, and why we need to start thinking about it as "wellbeing".
In a special episode WGSN CEO Carla Buzasi and Senior Strategist for WGSN Insight Petah Marian unite to take a look at some of the 10 key trends in consumer behaviour and product development for 2021 and beyond. The trends reveal the future direction for business strategy, product and experience design for the fashion, beauty, lifestyle, interiors, food and drink industries.
In our final episode of the year the tables are turned as David Davies, Ascential's Chief Content Officer quizzes WGSN CEO Carla Buzasi on her high and lowlights of the year. They discuss the innovations Carla was most proud of and what kept her and the wider WGSN team going through the past 12 months.
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