Summer 1: 9 Trends (My 99th blog post!)
Puddle-jumping here. With a full soak of rain this Spring in NYC, Paris and Milan…and some testing emotional astrology… we find ourselves leaping into Summer over puddles of moods and feelings, from curbs onto crosswalks as the lights change to green.
My collage above was inspired by the chicest woman ever. Stopped in the blue grid of the city, I spotted her from my taxi window poised curbside.
The light changed. In one swoop, her hand pulled the hood of her chic little black dress forward shielding her from the blustery purple rain picking up again, she jack-knifed one stiletto like lightening over a puddle, and leapt like a cat to solid ground, “the decisive wind in her sails.”
One. Two. Three punches and puddles of tears lately with the passing of three true huge mental-stiletto icons, Bowie, Prince, and Ali…
Ali here with the wind at his “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” back.
These three!
Their inspiration as free people moving humanity forward
will live forever on.
Their wise quotes are sprinkled here among other bon mots from other towers of power in this, (my 99th post!) Along with new trends of people, places, and things I’ve spotted lately, we follow my map called Tracing The 9 Stars, as a system to link our 9 chakras of innate sense, with spaces and places underfoot and beyond to discover the trends for 2017.
Get-on-down-and-party with us this month, as we cover NYC’s annual design shows ~ the art and surface designs of the Surtex show; the objets and furnishings of the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF); to the meeting of technology and touch of Anna Wintour‘s Manus x Machina Fashion in an Age of Technology, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute ~ plus my musings at everything tiny and large of my own art, the streets, and gala events.
But first, let’s eat.
EAT: Strawberries, because it’s June.
Fruits swell in the dewy fields, the dawn air rings clear and scented, farmer’s markets swing open. Get on down, inhale a strawberry. Getting rooted is a trend. Get in alignment with the earth and the purest vibe.
Aligning with the primal, our first energy chakra of survival and connection to the Earth is basically our seat. Even to begin the day, if you haven’t yet tossed the morning coffee and carbs, prepare to be amazed how those juicy, delicious morning fruit “smoothies” everyone is so hot on will get your tail moving for the day. From the you-dedicated moment to prepare it; the touch and mess of wet fruit; the pulsing-with-life greens; the entrancing roots like ginger plus highly-lively seeds from flax to hemp…
witness the fitness, the whole affair is one sexy ROOTS Manuva.
“You are beautiful because you let yourself feel
and that is a brave thing indeed.”
Feel your first chakra foundations as we pound the pavement or plow the earth. Every spring in the sign of Taurus we build up foundations anew, towards the new mental leaps we take in Gemini in May and to June, the emotional explores we do in the sign of Cancer, towards the brights of a sunny Leo summer,
TREND: “Neutrals offer stability for brights for 2017,” said
The Pantone Color Trend Lady at Surtex in confirmation.
Contrasts spur dreams. Mirrors check foundations. Foundations check sprouts. Check in again and again step-by-step.
TREND. Solid, slow, grounded, well-fed, and rested will leap beyond and win the rat race. It’s the down-low.
Get grounded, get chilled out.
“And yes, the color tan will be de riguer in 2017,”
The Trend Miss continued, approving things like
trees, sand, dirt, and deserts.
Case in point…
Admit you find the above cabinet, not only a ‘tan” epiphany but totally dreamy! As seen at ICFF, the outstanding Skram Furniture is produced in a solar-powered factory, of pepperwood burl with mahogany detailing, and yay! roots! is proudly made in the United States.
TREND: “Orange mist is a thing,” saith the Lady Pantone seductively.
“O, ye Mists of Desire,” saith I.
Misty orange is AKA ‘peach blossom luck’ in Feng Shui, considered the transitory color of great attraction, but the kind of attraction that does not last, like blushing, peaches and peach fuzz. Like all desires and dreams it is impermanence, the only way to see everything without attachment.
“Remember your dream, it’s your only scheme,
so keep on pushin’…”
Marvin Gaye
We wear our dreams on our sleeves, right? The Manus x Machina exhibition effectively and exquisitely venerates the craft and value of dreamy couture, placing vintage and futuristic perfection side-by-side.
The nature of Desire ran amok for me in this peachy Duck Dress by Iris van Herpen. Ducks vs. Dreams on these sleeves! Excess overboard between the duck skulls and the plastic. As a statement of art, eerily powerful. As a GMO at the height of vanity, for me it represents everything at the edge of human ego overboard commanding biology and “machina.”
I am much more inclined to the man, manus, hand, or high-touch aspect. The awe of handwork is the dedication to the moment of creation as well as the implicit destruction of this fragility by Time.
This blush Dior dress below, L’Elephant Blanc or ‘White Elephant,’ is from Yves St. Laurent‘s first collection with Dior in 1958. The name is a double-entendre for the name of a hot Parisian nightclub as well as referring to the outrageous effort and expense of all this handwork.
I loved the housing for the show, ephemeral mesh between structures, a perfect techno-nest for these garments of dream and desire. Here Dior’s quote opens the door to the show.
Blooms, the fluff of birds, and tiny fairy stitches, find more and the most excellent images and details of the show on the fab blog, Style Bubble.
Consider this 1928 Boué Soeurs court presentation ensemble, as proof that…
Stirred emotions at delicacy can be the epiphany.
TREND: Blushing, tenderness and humility are virtues.
“…blushing at all the Afro-sheeners.”
David Bowie
As one of two pale-faced members of my high school’s Black Culture Club, circa 1975, I wasn’t ever blushing over Afro-sheeners. I grew up on soul music and soulful people, it was my connect to deep and authentic emotions where I felt most at home.
However, gingerly blushing like a white peach at the record store counter, I handed over my dollars for Young Americans, intrigued by the orange-haired David Bowie…it was the first rock-n-roll album I ever felt inclined to purchase. Like ‘Peach Blossom Luck,’ it hit me right in my teeny-teen second chakra at age 15, as I began to know loss, detachment, and the ephemeral like a Young American.
“The genius thing we did was, we didn’t give up.”
Jay Z
What does LOVE have to do with it?…with dishtowels? Why am I posting this zesty image below from Helmut Newton?
TREND: “Lemon Zest. Zis col-leur is haute,” panted the Pantone Trend Lady.
(French accent is mine, just for the zest of “zest” itself)
“Kiss someone who makes you feel
their magic in your bones,
who makes you wonder how can someone
who looks like witchcraft at midnight taste so holy?”
Nikita Gill
“Zesty” Love, by Helmut Newton, above and below, dish towels, handwoven, Fresh Yellow, from Stephanie Seal Brown, a 2016 NYCxDESIGN Awards Honoree. She gets the eco-zest prize from me. Her small batch production, high-quality European linen and Egyptian cotton yarns dyed in a Swedish dye house that creates exceptionally rich colors, while adhering to very high environmental standards, all make wiping up very Slow Luxury.
Yellow is everything bright at the center. The Sun, our Manipura chakra, is one layer more zesty than our solar plexus, our digestive fire, and the lemonades of summer.
TREND: Tenderness is Power.
Small batches intrigue, low impact heals.
And a golden moment, below at Manus x Machina with Hussein Chalayan‘s Kaikoku floating dress. A gold cast fiberglass dress hung with Swarovski crystal and pearled paper “pollens,” allowing a wearer to enter from the rear-via a radio-controlled digital handset.
Here is a digital print of the dress, a meditation on art, desire, nature, and technology and architecture.
A film loop displayed by the dress speaks to how we desire and “fish” for the manifestations of our wishes and then embody them. I call this a heart trip, especially poignant with the recent Mars (ego) retrograde and creating new beliefs about ourselves and the world.
I am always intrigued by journeys, especially maps, the abstraction of physical territory, in particular the vintage 1950’s tourist map scarves I am obsessed by. At the Surtex show, archivial design houses made me swoon, tripping over variations like this fishing lure map.
This scarf of Seattle gets me for the happy mid-century color scheme, the silly naive drawings and fishnet reference, like capturing what the heart felt on the trip.
TREND: “We were the first design consulting team to recognize American vintage design as a trend and folk art.”
The Showoff ladies, Joan and Robbie,
who were beyond-kind to let me snap some images.
I also found ‘Design Heaven’ at the Baxter Mill Archive, with over 400,000 designs of the past *gasp* 16 centuries.
TREND: 2 and 3-D maps still intrigue as artifacts, as we now operate at 4-D and next level 5th Dimension. Timeless tools of the heart for higher, abstract trips like Astrology, Feng Shui, and I Ching, which chart the cycles and impermanance of this dance of life, will grow in popularity.
“Life is just a party and parties weren’t made to last.”
Prince
How to move from off-the-map grids to tender communes of touch?
Follow these tangent tendrils…You may know of my obsession with Italy…from Italian pulp movies of the 60’s, to Lake Como, to our sister agency in Milan, who graciously tolerate my ‘Young American” non-Italian speaking ways.
So no surprise at my mind-meld commune with two Italian-based surface design companies thrilling me at the design shows, with these trends I call ‘BLEND.’
TREND: BLEND was seen at Designer #1: Imagine Rococo velvety raised brocades mixing traditional florals, computer pixel patterns on top of metallics in 70’s wallpaper/an acid trip patterns…and Designers #2, two girls with the best designs from AA Design Studio which I noted as: ‘reconstruction collage.’
These patterns go one step beyond last year’s ‘blur’ trend which continues to be hot.
Both so magnificent, futuristic and proprietary that I cannot share their designs here! However, I can share this brilliant find made here in the USA:
To my surprise at a gala this Spring, I discovered a similar beauty, right here in NYC, modeled on the famed Omega Workshops, the Weiner Werkstatte, the Bauhaus, and the American Arts & Crafts movement: Alpha Workshops.
Alpha is an artisan’s atelier which “is dedicated to creating beauty and changing lives.” They are the nation’s only non-profit organization providing HIV-positive individuals with industry specific training and employment in the decorative arts. Custom, hand-blocked prints of all intricacies for wallpaper (as in the room above) and objets…I loved the pink and orange wood above and the butterflies, here below, the best. Can you see this as wallpaper?
At their annual gala, gorgeously, rich, original prints were on exhibit, the layered beauty rivaled the new prints from Italy! This article on 1stdibs.com tells more.
Speaking of community clubs of empowerment and creativity, this year’s annual Glastonbury festival will create a secret space for “intersectional, queer, trans and disability-inclusive,” a safe place for all people who identify as women.”
TREND: Protection for the tender or marginalized actually BLENDS, extends and embraces diversity.
Go girls! Go Female Wisdom! Let’s hear your voices! Go Hillary.
(You knew that was coming!)
TREND: “Blues will turn into turquoise greens for 2017,”
purred the Pantoness.
I loved the bamboo lamps at ICFF by Andrea Claire Studio, they come as crazy-shaped chandeliers, desk, or table lamps to illuminate wisdom, plus they are made with sustainability in mind. Smart!
The company’s booth was equally Smart. Inviting community engagement via a picnic table with self-serve water and intriguing, earthy shapes for guests to conversate around was very Wise.
Yellow jump-suited workers said ‘service with a smile’, and a sense of Learning was suggested through the chalkboard and community tables.
This type of mutual engage of both the brain and emotional molocules is Wisdom! We all know ’emotional intelligence’ is a very hot trend and so this Spring, I checked into re-hab for a confab with one of my favorite wise gurus, Thich Nhat Hanh.
“In our time it’s a luxury to just sit and not do anything.
It’s also crucial to our healing and nourishment.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
“I’m the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was. I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world
that I really was the greatest.”
Muhammad Ali
If you are in the game, you are in the game to win. The seventh chakra behind the third eye is the “guru chakra” the larger, all-knowing YOU. IT represents self-confidence and fame. Clearly Ali was operating from this mind-set.
As the “support beam and spine” of a space, IT vibrates to the color red, thus these uplifting stools from design ‘Tower of Power,’ Tom Dixon, that caught my eye at ICFF.
Also note the mix of copper lamps with the clear red and the neon EXIT sign. All together duly noted by me, The Futurist, before I heard the Pantone Lady confirm and intone:
TREND: “Red moves into corals and coppery metallics, this is IT,”
intoned the Pantone color expert.
Of course, this red blossom, papasan Bloom chair from one of my favorite designers, whom I covered waaaay-back when he began his biz, Kenneth Cobonpue…is so IT too.
“Embracing the mystery and state of unknowing…is where true power comes from… and is the Alchemy of Surrender.”
Here for the eighth chakra, one’s destiny or path in life is Mechial, the designer/creator/owner of Sublime, we immediately bonded, are you surprised? Her Opulence Alchemy collection is designed for “luminous living.” I say it gives that timeless LSD vibe and the cool smooth surfaces feel like marble or deep outer space. So eighth chakra, so infinity!
Are you surprised that as a teen of the 70’s I am super-partial to this Italianate-retro-glam-hippie-groovy-Superfly-dreamy bed chamber?
“Ooooh Superfly, you’re gonna make your fortune by and by…”
Curtis Mayfield
That’s Dreamy Destiny!
Here’s my view from the audience at the Surtex Trend Theatre, the emerging “Generation Z” is mentioned here with their motto that beauty must be authentic. That beauty includes gender mixing and new inventions that make funny faces at the old guard. A re-mix and re-elation.
Another case-en-point:
I love designer, Anna Karlin‘s gemmed and gamine-legged jewelry case here for Sorellina at the Gramercy Park Hotel.
“I turned the penthouse…into a magical garden of moss and wild flowers with the cases nestling in the foliage.”
Anna Karlin
Anna, here, on the street, above and below, alchemist Anna’s ‘Juliet’ test tube vessels, blurring science by mixing it fluidly with some brassy, heavy-stopper romance. (No Virginia, this is not ‘steampunk,’ unless you want to swig turbine fluid in these…no, it’s ‘authentic beauty.’)
Trends morph and evolve like organic lava lamps, and of course, I saw several examples of the “blur trend” mentioned by last year’s Pantone lady.
Warp & Weft‘s flatweave rugs remind me of Soundcloud‘s music making for a pattern to meditate, elevate and elate to. Another design team is listed in my notes to mention “the young designers in the batiky-thingy”…translating to: you should keep your eye on Eskayel, a New York-based team creating sustainable wall-coverings, fabric, carpets, accessories and furnishings in blur-worthy and re-elatable materials and spirit.
The Eskayel kids. I joined a posse of about 5 photographers in a crowd to take this picture of the resting and elate-relational designers, which goes to show you that these kids have
“some kind of nature, some kind of gold.”
Gorillaz
A most sustainable luxury that I happily found at ICFF were Katie Deedy‘s Grow House Grow cement tiles. Known for her narrative-based and delightful wallpapers, she now offers 100% natural, water cured cement tiles. They invite you to relate with them…they tell stories too! This pattern is named for the plant nettle, full of its own stories and plant wisdom.
Here’s Katie in front of some of her papers. Wallpaper is like the 9th chakra, it is the story that holds a space.
And further incantations from my 9 Stars Feng Shui playbook, multi-color, multi-level is the vibration of the 9th bagua or gate of energy. All colors in the spectrum make up in pure light, right?
Think Rainbows. Stories. Adventures.
Case in point. Ask any woman how she feels in a wide circle skirt. It is like a bell, there is this gathering up from the earth and held in at the center. These circle skirts below from Dior at the Met show are thusly elating!
See this gossamer fabric and metallic, bright stripes up close.
Which leads us my own Man-x-Machina:
Back in the eighties, I made my first bracelet from a tin can above. The last in that series was a tin can turned into a birch tree cuff, using leather, fiber, and a lot of hand work.
Way before JP Gaultier‘s 1990-era can-cuffs and perfume cans, mind you, in the 80’s I felt compelled to make a can cuff to wear with my Madonna-esque outfits, like it was a DNA chain from Warhol to me. The Damien Hirst add came just now…as I ponder containers of all kinds from skulls to cans.
“I would like to say to people: open your eyes and find beauty where you normally don’t expect it.”
Gaultier on perfumesociety.org
Here, Gaultier’s visionary ad, a prescient nod to Pantone’s color of 2016…
Rose Quartz and Serenity.
There has never been 2 colors of the year, and I love that this togetherness essentially creates lavender, so aligned to the white light vibration of the 9th chakra and the 9th star on my map, for ‘relationship.’
Pantone was inspired by the growth of “mindfulness and well-being as an antidote to modern day stresses, welcoming colors that psychologically fulfill our yearning for reassurance and security (that) are becoming more prominent.”
Rose Quartz and Serenity together
also challenge traditional perceptions of color association.
“… gender blur… gender equality and fluidity …
less concern about being typecast or judged
and an open exchange…”
Pantone
On the building of “The Greatist” museum:
“I want a place that would inspire people to be the best
that they could be at whatever they chose to do,
and to encourage them to be respectful of one another.”
Muhammad Ali
“I don’t run, I dance.”
Ali
TREND: On the move, like Ali and my puddle-leaping woman at the beginning of this post,
I’m dancing and leaping forward until next month!
Thank you for reading, you futurist, you!
xoxo Jade
***
Art and photography by me, unless otherwise credited. If you would like credit, please poke us, we’ll gladly add. I must also add that the Pantone Color Trend Lady is actually named
Laurie Pressman, and although I played around a wee bit with her color predictions…I am her fan!
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Tags: AA Design Studio, Ali, Alpha Workshops, Andrea Claire Studio, Anna Karlin, Baxter Mill Archive, Boue Soeurs, Bowie, can cuff, chakra, costume institute, Curtis Mayfield, Damien Hirst, design shows, Dior, duck dress, Eskayel, Feng Shui, Gorillaz, Grow House Grow, Helmut Newton, Hussein Chalayan, I Ching, ICFF, International Contemporary Furniture Fair, Iris van Herpen, jade dressler, Jay Z, JP Gaultier, June, Katie Deedy, Kenneth Cobonpue, Laurie Pressman, Lemon zest, Manus x Machina, Mechial, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Muhammad Ali, Nikita Gill, NYC, Pantone, Prince, Roots Manuva, Rose Quartz, Sarah Varcas, Serenity, Shinji Moon, Showoff, Skram furniture, Slow Luxury, Stephanie Seal Brown, strawberries, Style Bubble, Sublime, Surtex, The Met, Thich Nhat Hanh, Tom Dixon, Tracing the 9 Stars, Trends, Warp & Weft, white elephant, witness the fitness, Yves St. Laurent
