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52
FORWARD
TOTHE PAST
Portrait: Ruud Van der Peijl
Leading trend forecaster Li Edelkoort gives
Ros Weaver a glimpse of her vision of a future
in which rugs play a leading role
01
Winter 2012
53
Photo: Sabine Pigalle
Issue 29
02
04
T
03
he former chairwoman of Design Academy
Eindhoven and renowned trend forecaster
Lidewij “Li” Edelkoort, sits on a resolutely
old-fashioned sofa in a Milan hotel lobby.
Relaxed, smiling and fresh from a shower, she is
far from the imperious being I expected to meet.
Dressed in the kind of amorphous black clothes
that designers and fortune tellers prefer, the only
hard thing about her is a pair of black-rimmed
spectacles behind which her eyes sparkle with a
mischievousness that belies her years.
I’ve been reading a book set in the 17th
century, when everything from fashion to speech
trends were set by the king. But very few of us
these days are interested in emulating royal
style. I’m keen to know who Edelkoort considers
the style leaders of today. Celebrities?
“The press thinks so,” she says, “But I don’t. I
think that trends are not set by any person. I
think that ideas are just floating in the air, they
are really what you call zeitgeist. It’s the
accumulation of all our thoughts that condenses
into common ideas, which then become the
ideas of a period that artists, designers and
people like me pick up on. You see similar things
happening around the planet because there’s a
very dense layer of a sort of voiceless,
soundless, visionless communication.
“There are people who start fads; they can
come from videos, from the appearance of
someone like Lady Gaga – a star mesmerising
people – but they are always very short-lived. The
real trends are the deep movements of society
and how we react to them in terms of colour,
culture and textiles.”
Trends for hard times
So, I wonder, does she think trends are
influenced by economics?
“Yes, of course they are, but it’s not the major
motor. At this point it has become a motor
because there has been a very long period of
trouble and that shapes new trends.” Most of the
time, though, she insists, it’s the other way
round: trends are a predictor of economic
troubles. Really?
“Look at dropping waists,” she points out. “In
the Charleston period there was no waistline. The
dresses had very low waists. In our case it was
jeans; the pants were so low that they fell off.
The waistline couldn’t go lower. And when that
trend stopped, there was the crisis.”
An article in one of Edelkoort’s publications,
Bloom – a magazine that can only be described
as a mood board inspired by flowers – explains
the current trend for hand-crafted textiles thus:
01 Li Edelkoort
02 From Bloom 21:
Woven carpet sample
with its inspiration: a
peeling wall. Part of DEEP
project with Egyptian
craftspeople
03 Bloom magazine
covers
04 Body and Character –
experimental knitting for
Edelkoort’s ‘D.I.Y.Y Do it
Yourself Yourself’ project
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Winter 2012
05
‚‚
The textiles we
surround ourselves
with reveal our
relationship with
the outside world
‚‚
06
“The textiles we surround ourselves with reveal
our unconscious relationship with the outside
world. In times of crisis we seek out simple,
unadulterated materials and processes to bolster
self-confidence and self-sufficiency.” Does she
think the world is really ready to re-embrace and
nourish the skills of knitting, crocheting,
embroidery and hand weaving?
“It’s already happening,” she says. “All over
the world people are organising themselves into
groups and clubs. There’s a real revival of do-ityourself culture. Lots of designers have
rediscovered craft. And through the rediscovery
of craft, they are crafting a new image of design.
We see now that industrial design is actually
inspired by craft as well.
“New industrial processes are able to give a
‘craft’ image by using laser cutting, robotisation,
3D printing and so on. In the end we will see a
hybridisation of craft and industry. And that will
be something of our century, finally. I think that
will give an enormous energy to creation. With
these processes you are able to produce where
you want to, in small units all over the planet. It
will completely change the way we think about
industry today. Production will come back to our
regions. We are going to create an economy
where you can still be a world brand, but you will
have a scattered production system.”
A fascinating concept, but is this really going
to work somewhere like China?
“In China they are now focusing on their own
market. Production is pretty much scattered all
over the country. New towns keep popping up.
They have many people to feed new fashions and
design. Yes, I think it’s absolutely a global trend.
“But nobody knows it yet, especially
governments and ministries of industry. They still
think they can create jobs by supporting and
financing the losses of big industries that have no
future as such. We are in a moment of great
transition, where there is a denial by our leaders
of what really should be done. They are
stagnating the process. Instead of giving
incentives to young entrepreneurs… they allow
the big ones to spoil it for them. We almost need
to create a new creative movement. It’s going
too slowly!”
This is revolutionary talk. I glance round the
hushed lobby, but if there are spies, they are well
hidden behind velvet drapes. Is there going to be
a revolution in fibres as well as processes?
“Yesterday I was thinking that it’s pretty
amazing that we have new sources of energy –
like plant energy – but we haven’t translated that
yet into new polyesters. Basically, if you used
55
Issue 29
08
05 Strands of wool dyed
by Claudy Jongstra (from
Bloom magazine)
06 Mardi Gras Carpet by
Moonbasket from Mohair
South Africa stand at
Maison & Objet in
September, curated by
Li Edelkoort
07 Milan interior with
nomadic rugs from Altai.
Edelkoort picked out
mohair rugs from Altai for
her Mohair stand
08 Edelkoort’s Trend Union
colour forecast for Mohair
South Africa
07
these fuels and did the same thing as you did
with fossil fuels, you should be able to make a
new kind of polyester. We have seen milk silk,
that’s been going on for a while, but there must
be others. So far it’s only student stuff, research
projects. Big universities, agricultural universities,
have all the means to formulate bio-plastics and
so on, but they don’t know how to market those
things and the design community is not curious
enough to go and do the research. They don’t
know how to find each other.
“Of course, textiles are very ancient. The
Louvre still has textiles from the time of the
Pharaohs that are knitted the way we knit today.
It’s very cool in a way that this craft doesn’t move
at all, but it’s also strange that we have never
found another way of making coverings.”
Another ancient art is that of weaving carpets.
Does she think it has a future?
“I think there is going to be an enormous
revival of carpets. We are becoming more nomadic.
This is happening because all our tools, smart
phones and pads and pods, mean that suddenly
we realise we can work wherever we want. We
are working in a hotel lobby. I can work in my bed.
I can be in the middle of the desert and pretend
I’m in New York. Nobody knows! Even in my
office, no one is sitting at their desks anymore,
the desk is just somewhere to put your bag and
coat. People move around to wherever there’s
sunlight, or where someone is doing something
interesting, and they cluster together. They are
like cats; they sit where they want to sit.”
Exploring a new freedom
Edelkoort thinks the freedom of the wi-fi world
means we will question our habits. “We are
going to ask ourselves why we are not free in
other aspects. We are going to ask ourselves:
‘Why am I always sleeping in this bed? Do I have
to go to bed at all? Or could I just take some
blankets and be on my couch? Could I sleep on
the balcony? Maybe I could try this guest room.
Should I always sleep with my partner? Maybe I’d
like to sleep alone. Do I always have to sit at a
table? Or can I sit on the ground to have food?’
Gradually, we are becoming a nomadic people
again. So, by and large, we are becoming very
archaic too.”
Rugs certainly fit into the vision of a nomadic
life. Do they represent a comfort factor in an
itinerant lifestyle? Li gazes into her internal
crystal ball.
“It’s more than comfort, I think. It’s a
landscape. It’s like a colour you can disappear
into, it’s a favourite thing to sit on. I don’t know
about you, but in my house nobody ever sits on
the canapé [couch]. They sit on the floor.
“At the same time we have the revival of
nomadic caravans, capannas, huts, sheds, tents.
There is a romantic revival of wandering, at a
much slower pace. Not necessarily going very
far, but making a real experience of it. And there
again, I think, carpets become important.
Whether we’ll still call them carpets, I don’t
know, but there will definitely be floor coverings
of some kind: carpet cushions, carpet tables,
carpet carpets, carpet mattresses. I think the
mattress industry and the carpet industry should
merge. But the mattress industry doesn’t yet
know that they are so in fashion. Strangely
enough they are still making only things for beds.
There are a lot of hybrids coming. And therefore
suddenly the carpet becomes this big thing!”
The future, then, is rosy for rug makers. We
shall roll up our mats and move on, like the
Tuaregs and Berbers of times gone by. Li
Edelkoort is living the lifestyle already, always on
the move between her offices in Paris and New
York – and hotel lobbies around the globe.
Where, I wonder, does she feel most at home?
“I feel basically at home everywhere. I’m
really what you would call a supernomad.”
www.edelkoort.com