What happens when passion isn’t enough to run a small business? Gotta learn more! That’s why we booked the ticket to Frankfurt, Rome, and Paris, starting our new adventure to explore the trends, to look for inspiration, and to improve.
Our first stop, Christmas world.
Christmas world is the foremost meeting place for the international decorations industry. Attending the trade show are many suppliers all around the world to showcase their newly launched products and cutting edge designs.
Too bad they don’t allow photographs at the show without proper media credentials, so the only picture we have is of me buying ice cream for breakfast!
We looked at a million different styles of ribbon, a thousand ways to package a bouquet, various materials, textures and objects to compliment an arrangement and a mountain full of vases. Of all the products we touched and felt, a small company from Belgium had the most beautiful products.
My favourite product with an accompanying creative design.
Good thing my fiance Caley knew how to speak French with the supplier so we could find out more about their product. He was also very very nice and allowed us share these pictures and his designs with all of you.
Second stop, TREND SHOW.
According to the TREND SHOW we attended, the four trend styles are: Authentic, Optimistic, Eccentric and Graphic.
Authentic: The fusion of old and new creates original recycling chic – simple and natural.
Colours: warm grey, peridot green, petrol blue, sand grey, alabaster and linen white
Optimistic: Lively theme use of artificial materials like plastic, foils and rubber coatings combined with artisan techniques.
Colours: mocha, salmon pink, dark red, emerald green, canary yellow and aquamarine
Eccentric: Ornamental decoration, animal skin optics as well as materials like velvet, embossed leather, feathers and wooden beads create exciting effects.
Colours: gold bronze, olive, wine red, dark ruby red, deep blue-green
Graphic: this trend plays with geometric patterns in different shades of white and a velvety black.
Colours: gold and silver
We do not follow trends for the sake of following them, instead we combine our personality and what we already have to draw inspiration for our designs. After listening to the ideas and concepts discussed at the trend show, we found ourselves to fall in the trend style of ‘Authentic‘. We are in essence, simple and natural in our designs.
One of the first designs I created after returning from Frankfurt was this one:
By combining the concepts of the Authentic trend, I have created a design that reuses drift wood as a plant pot to give a natural look.
We try to reduce garbage, reuse resources, and recycle. By decorating ordinary cardboard boxes, we recreate a new natural looking pot for Hyacinth. We have sold many of these items already. I am surprised that they are really popular.
They sold out so quickly we never got a chance to take a picture, I will post some up soon once I design more!
UPDATE: Here is a picture!
To see all our most recent designs, check out our flickr page!
After reading this blog, what kind of trend style are you?
