Futurist returns to Design Indaba with green message

Lidewij Edelkoort. Image: Ivy Yin

As part of the Design Indaba Festival 2020, Paris-based futurist Li Edelkoort will host inspiring new trend seminars in Johannesburg and Cape Town. Edelkoort’s ever-popular three-hour presentations form part of the official programme for the event’s 25th anniversary celebration.

Her upcoming talks will take place in two parts.

For the first part of the seminar, the globally renowned trend forecaster will analyse why the green revolution has become such an important movement today.

“With the ecological green also comes an aesthetic green. Since brown is symbolic for the earth, it is only natural that green will start to grow from that current. The need for green is so powerful that it will turn around fashion and design without any doubt. Sprouting from different political, humanistic and survivalist sources, it is impossible to ignore,” she shares.

Sage by Lynn Karlijn

Green – both the colour and the concept – forms a pivotal part of Edelkoort’s summer 2021 colour forecast. She reflects: “Maybe the most important thing about green is its capacity to bring joy. Its energy and charisma are compelling and will help us be, combatting despair with optimism and happiness: joy seen as another form of activism.”

Edelkoort’s message for the fashion industry is that we’ve reached the critical turning point and that sustainability is the only way for the industry to go forward.

The second part of her talk will look at the connection between desig and objects, and new directions for food.

“Taste is driving every aspect of our lives from homes to hospitality, from food to fashion, and from make-up to materials. The largest megatrend on our planet today must be people’s fascination with food, which is taking over our spending and inspiring all other interests, ” Edelkoort comments.

Green Wave Couture by Adeline Andre

During the seminar, she will explain how food continues to impact surfaces and interiors:

“Indeed, kitchens are refurbished and enlarged, becoming the best place to be in the house, the room where everyone congregates to work, study, play and cook. Kitchen tools, tabletop design, pots and pans are conceived to better steam, roast, grill or bake foods that are organic, nomadic and authentic.” she adds.

Fabrics play the game as well, with darker linens and printed motifs, as if designed for the sophisticated amateur chef. Fashion starts to play a role in the kitchen and aprons come co-ordinated with shirting and watches are designed for the exact measuring of minutes and the reading of seconds – essential for any successful cake or roast. All this adds up to new shapes for furniture, new textures for materials, new needs for architecture, and new adventures for the great outdoors – all impacted by the textures, flavours and colours that define what we eat.”

Wild Apple by Lynn Karlijn

The Cape Town seminar takes place at the Artscape Theatre Centre on 29 February 2020 from 09:00.

See Facebook event page for the Design Indaba conference.

Details for the Johannesburg seminar will be announced on the Design Indaba website.

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