Tuesday 29 December 2009

50 Trends for 2010

(Source: the Times)

1) VIDEO

Get over your camera phobia: the next decade will be “video, video, video”, declares Zoe Lazarus, trend analyst at Lowe Worldwide. Prepare to move from words to images. If the Noughties was the decade we forgot how to spell, will this be when we forget how to read?

2) GOING LIVE

Hold on tight: modern life is moving into the “now”, says the ad agency JWT, with a constantly updated stream of real-time information and virtual interaction. Think Twitter buzz, vlogs (video blogs), breaking news and rapid, mobile response. Do keep up.

3) TWINDUSTRIES

Twitter is going to clean up, with social transport (a phenomenon that started with Tweetbike — tweet for a pick-up), bespoke Twitter gigs (Frankmusik’s latest tour, in fans’ bedrooms, was guided by their tweets) and alerts on everything from bread straight out of the oven to asthma warnings (see MediClim).

4) MOBILITY

Let’s hope Santa delivered a smartphone. Your mobile will serve as entertainer, currency, friend-finder and informer, says Yannis Kavounis, of The Futures Company: “Our phones will take us away from our screens and get us out there.”

5) AUGMENTED REALITY

The Minority Report has arrived: according to Trendcentral, AR will allow consumers to view digital content (local stockists of your fave brand, restaurant reviews or nearby houses for sale) overlaid onto the streets before you.

6) TRANSMEDIA

Interactive storytelling across film, comics and gaming (remember, pictures are the new words). You can also connect with friends on screen — so as you read/view your story, you can comment on it with friends. Check out the Amanda Project for young girls.

7) INTELLIGENT SHOPPING

Favourite websites will already know your shape, preferred brands and, of course, credit-card number. Tobi.com has virtual fitting rooms (using webcams and motion sensors) and posts your image to Facebook for friends’ opinions. And with a smartphone and the ShopSavvy app, scan an item’s bar code to find cheaper versions.

8) EVENT SHOPPING

To get consumers offline and into the store, shops are working up the experiential quotient. Expect in-store events, “rock-up” spaces (even more guerrilla than pop-up) and designer collaborations, only “IRL” (in real life).

9) PARASITIC SHOES

Already in prototype, shoes that harvest energy as you walk, generating electrical power for charging your pods and mobs.

10) PLASTIC PAPER

Print won’t die, it will become electronic, with the arrival of paper replacements such as Plastic Logic — flexible electronic sheets that allow books and mags to be read as if on paper.

11) SURVEILLANCE SOCIETY

With GPS devices (such as the Buddi) to track wayward kids/pets/grannies, anti-cheating software to infiltrate your partner’s call log and texts (Mobile Spy), and biometric recognition in, like, everything, you’d better watch your back.

12) SMART HOMES

Think electronic, mood-managing walls, a robotic house help that cleans and entertains pets, washing machines to calculate detergent levels and energy metering as standard by 2020.

13) CLOUD CONTROL

Cloud-computing means your PC, networks, email and mobile are connected. “Organise a dinner party on Facebook — your radio-tagged fridge, which knows its contents, will order from Ocado, and the robot maid will do the rest,” Lazarus says.

14) 3-D TeleVisions

How television-makers are fighting the computer’s domination. You may be watching the World Cup next year from behind the sofa as the ball flies through the room. (Sky will be broadcasting in 3-D; silly specs still required.) Also hotly anticipated are 3-D mobile phones.

15) THE END OF CABLES

You can already beam television around the house without having to run a cable under the Persian rug, and wireless charging pads exist that can power up multiple gadgets. Eventually, phones will feature solar panels, just as calculators used to.

16) THE DIGITAL PA

Voice recognition grows up (and gets better). Many gadgets — phones and satnavs, for instance — already respond to voice commands, but soon they’ll be able to talk back, with up-to-the-minute, local recommendations. Bad news for real-life friends.

17) TOMORROW’S TRAVEL

With no icecaps, try outer space for holiday top trumps. Since Virgin Galactic’s inaugural commercial flight, with only six £121,000 seats, is already full, head instead to Spain, when the high-speed Paris-Madrid link opens in 2012(ish).

18) LOVE IS THE NEW HAPPINESS

The self-help gurus herald love as the next holy grail. But this isn’t about smug, coupled-up bliss — more a big-hearted approach to work, money, family, community, even politics. The happiness guru Robert Holden leads the fray, with workshops on how love can be applied to all.

19) CUL-DE-SAC COMMUNES

No need to get crusty to save the world. This kind of commune — aka co-housing — sees you in your own home, but with shared laundry, tools, cars and WiFi to reduce waste. Springhill, in Gloucestershire, is Britain’s first.

20) SHARING

Spread that love with pot-luck parties, where everyone brings a dish. This is the American trendspotter Marian Salzman’s tip for the future. Borrowing from neighbours is about to get much easier, she anticipates, as the NeighborGoods model (a kind of lending Freecycle) picks up here.

21) MASS MINGLING

Social networking goes hypersocial: “Popular online services are all about tracking, connecting to and meeting interesting people,” Trendwatching.com says. Try meetup.com.

22) WE-COMMERCE

Cutting out the middle man, pooling resources and starving those fat cats is the new growth area, Kavounis says. It could be “so long” to Tescopoly if Arthur Potts Dawson pulls off The People’s Supermarket, run by the people for the people (www.peoplessupermarket.org ).

23) EMOTIONAL SPACE

You’ll yearn to retreat from the modern buzz to “safe spaces”, Salzman says — empty your head by the sea, camp en famille, get low-key.

24) SOCIAL LUXURY

Seeing as we’ve exhausted conventional luxury, the new consumer high will come instead from social enterprise. For example, Chocolate & Love employs people with Down’s syndrome to pack the choccies. It’s about feeling good, not guilty.

25) LEARNING

Brace yourself for swotty holidays — Salzman predicts that we’ll all be up for educational self-improvement to overhaul our lives and reinvent our shallow Noughties selves.

26) THE OLDIE INDUSTRY

As 90 becomes the new 70, so new gaps in the market are swiftly filled: the Thermador hob with auto shut-off, Whirlpool washing machines with pedestals to stop the stoop, and Samsung’s Jitterbug mobile, which rings (loudly) at meds time.

27) TRICARE

An ageing population means a rise in “sandwich” families — with children and elderly parents to look after. Tricare to the rescue: childcare, elder care and pet care in one happy space. And nobody to mind the noise.

28) LITTLE BROTHER

It began on Twitter, with the Iranian elections and the campaign against that abusive London Underground guard. The virtual lynch mob is perma-armed with video cameras and can mobilise in minutes.

29 THE DEATH OF BULLS***

After a decade of cover-ups and nondisclosure, it will all be about transparency, accountability, unrestricted access to information and a deluge of honest, user-generated feedback. You, too, may find that there is nowhere to hide, with open-salary practices and an internet that never forgets.

Hail the age of consequences — the Future Laboratory predicts calorie and carbon counts on menus, fat taxes on airlines and bossy traffic-light stickers on products, berating you for harming yourself, animals, farmers and the planet.

31 PIG ARKS

Home-farming chard and chickens is child’s play. Now prove yourself with pigs: pig-arcs.co.uk . And, according to Lazarus, the Grow It Yourself (GIY) movement will, um, mushroom as processed, packaged convenience foods fall from favour.

32) NOSE-TO-TAIL EATING

This erstwhile foodie fetish, popularised by Fergus Henderson, will be the new vegan, says Maude Standish, of Trendcentral: “It’s how carnivores can enjoy meat in a green and holistic way.” Also, steady yourself for in vitro meat — yup, grown in test tubes.

33) KIDDY MOBILES

Bright pink, plastic and pleasingly tacky to children aged 4 to 12, the Firefly (£85) has only five buttons, including the folks on speed dial.

34) SURI SYNDROME

Eat your 13-year-old heart out, Tavi: the adultification of kids will hit way younger. Six-year-olds are already creating bespoke outfits on the online playground Kidzui.com.

35) BRAND ME

Your own brand starts with your public profile (such as Facebook) — which must appeal to employers, mates and dates — and finishes with the “me-conomy”, says Reinier Evers, of Trendwatching.com. As respect for multinationals plummets, so the independent revolution arises.

36) KIDZBOOK

Yes, that’s Facebook for kidz, predicts Jenny Dyson, contributing editor of Teen Vogue: “A disturbing and genius idea, but how to keep it sacred to children?”

37) DIY PUBLISHING

MagCloud (magcloud.com ) can publish one copy, or one million, of your magazine. Blurb (blurb.com) does the same with books. As new rules make blogs more transparent, they’ll get more credible.

38) CONSUMER FACING

Even Mary Portas will be this, when she starts selling direct on Maryportas.com next year. We’ll all be commercialising our wardrobes and shopping from friends, reckons Salzman. Supermarketsarah.com was there first.

39) REALITY TV

“Fame will become infamy,” Salzman warns. Citing recent examples such as Octomom, Balloon Boy and the White House reality-TV couple, she predicts we’re entering an anything-goes universe. Take cover.

40) THE PRIVACY INDUSTRY

Roman Abramovich is on it — his superyacht has an anti-paparazzi laser shield to zap digital-camera images. Also expect anti-WiFi paint and companies to clean up your digital dirt. Phew.

41) MEMBERS-ONLY FASHION

To avoid that doppelgänger effect, apply to Vonrosen (vonrosen.com), a shamelessly exclusive Berlin label — only those approved by the company are permitted to purchase.

42) REAL MODELS

Six-foot glamazons are all very well, but nothing gets people talking on Planet Fashion like using a real woman. Remember Mark Fast’s spat with his stylist over plus-size models, and US Glamour’s — gasp — belly roll?. Dress down for those street casters.

43) YOU, THE DESIGNER

It’s the decade of creative collaboration, asserts Trendwatching.com, as brands move away from a transactional, us-and-them mentality. Where Nike ID led, others will follow. Selfridges hosts frequent customising events, such as Louis Vuitton monogramming. Create your own heirlooms.

44) BIOMECHANICAL (AND PARANOID) YOU

Seven calories per yawn? Forty-three per star jump? Remove the guesswork with Fitbit, a watch-like device that measures calorie output, distance travelled and sleep quality.

45) VAIN BRAINS

Forget about cup size — a high IQ will be key in finding a mate, Salzman says. A healthy brain, boosted by exercise or supplements, will be the new six-pack, she predicts. We’ll post our IQs on Match.com, and neurologists will be the new surgeons as we queue for our brain nip/tucks. No, no, you first.

46) A BAN ON SUN BEDS

The consultant dermatologist Dr Nick Lowe predicts a UK ban on tanning beds, given that 100 people die from melanoma every year as a result of overuse.

47) SNORTING STEM CELLS

According to New Scientist, stem cells could be used for treating neurological conditions such as Parkinson’s, strokes and Alzheimer’s. To get them to the brain, you might have to inhale them.

48) COSMETIC DEVICES

The beauty industry is moving on to gizmos, or “integrated application tools”, according to L’Oréal, which next month launches Perfect Clean, a cleansing range with the detachable “scrublet” pad. (See also Maybelline Pulse Perfection Vibrating Mascara, Neutrogena Wave vibrating cleanser and Garnier’s massaging Eye Roll-On.)

49) INTELLIGENT MAKE-UP

“We’ll be seeing skincare morphed with make-up, such as foundation resembling well-moisturised skin,” says Terry Barber, of Mac. He forecasts powder-based products that imitate real skin, spelling the end of excessively groomed “Waginess”. We also welcome the predicted demise of short-term celebrity fragrances.

50) EXTREME INGREDIENTS

Mintel predicts the use of ingredients from extreme environments, such as the Arctic, deserts and deep seas, in the beauty industry. Clarins is working with — wait for it — watch lubricants to help skincare stability, while L’Oréal has been studying genes: its Youth Code range with “Pro-Gen technology” launches next month.


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