New York Trend Shop: "Take what you can use and discard the rest."

So about that excitement I was talking about . . . it was there but with a side of downer. A lot of the retailers we wanted to see were out of business or had closed their New York store. Block after block in Soho we saw empty retail spaces with big "For Lease" signs adorning the front doors. I suppose it's a expected side effect of the economic times. We didn't let that get us down for long though. We just had to create a new playbook on the fly and as a result I have decided to change format from the first posting. Rather than walk you though the places and spaces we visited, I'm going to just give it to you straight and fast! Here is what we saw that's still hot in retail.

Nature Inspired

Nature Inspired - Last year we talked about how the Natural Wood trend has evolved slightly in to what we are now calling Nature Inspired. It's lot's of literally interpreted twigs, branches and tree trunks. Throughout Soho and Upper East Side retailers we saw examples of the earlier trend with sun bleached shades and in some cases rotted and worn looks. Between the two they were balanced in representation. Maybe this is peaking.

Sack Containers

Soft Rustic - This is a bit of a spin off from last years Rustic & Primitive Object find. Where there were only hand carved tools and vessels there are now softer interpretations of the rustic life. The image on the right is an example of containers modeled after fruit and grain sacks.

Ethnic Chic - Still huge! So huge I'm not showing you a picture because you already know what it is. Plus, it's made the leap into so many broad categories I could write an entire entry on it alone. Next!

Look at the Size of that Lamp Shade!

Upsizing - This has definetley gained traction since last year. We only saw it in a few places before but now it's popping up everywhere! Oversized lamps, over sized table legs, the list goes on. I'll be watching this one to see if it's really going to stick or not. Trends like these may die quickly.

Industrial

Industrial - This is very much alive and moving in all kinds of directions. It started with found industrial objects, moved into rough industrial elements paired with polished metals and now literally knows no boundaries! Designers have really embraced this and are getting more and more creative in it's use. It's as diverse as the Ethnic Chic category and can no longer be defined in simple terms. Don't be afraid to get involved in this and put your own stamp on it. It's steam punk goes mainstream!

Hamam Bowls

All the other major and minor trends are still the same but we did see a lot more soft metal tones than usual. In addition a few high end retailers are offering brass bowls such as these Hamam bowls (left) and high quality Tibetan Singing Bowls. I'll have to do do a bit more research on this but it does play with the Ethnic Chic trend well. It just stuck out as obvious from one retailer to the next.

There is of course much more to digest and we will be doing that over the coming weeks. Analyzing, forecasting and of course mind reading are par for the course. :) To my fellow designers, artisans and crafters I leave you with the immortal words of Bruce Lee.

"Take what you can use and discard the rest."

New York Trend Shop: Day One Brooklyn

View From Brooklyn Bridge Park

I'm here in New York for a two day trend shop with colleague Erika Henderson who is the Director of Design for Woodard Furniture, a subsidiary of Craftmade International Inc. She and I are combing the city to see what we can find and bring back as inspiration for future product designs. We started in Brooklyn's Dumbo neighborhood which is an acronym for "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass". In Dumbo we found some well know retailers like West Elm, Boconcept, etc. There was definite evidence of the upsizing trend from europe being utilized but in a very cautious way. In Paris the trend we identified was focused around oversized table legs and oversized lamps. West Elm for instance was doing this but much more subdued. Bigger than you would expect as a U.S. consumer but NOT as big as the Europeans.

Cobble Hill

So we headed south towards Atlantic Ave. in search of more boutique and original stores. In order to get there we went through the neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights and into an area called Cobble Hill. This area really took me by surprise with it's beauty. It seems like time stood still for a few square blocks and you could visualize what it must have been like a hundred years ago. The huge wooden doors and carriage garages that lined the streets had me visualizing my new studio space. :) Ah, if only! :)

Reclaimed Lumber Bench and Table

At Atlantic there were two stores I want to mention. The first is Sterling Place with it's rather eclectic assortment of goods. They seem to embrace the industrial trend with a few really beautiful finishes in heirloom brass and polished chrome. In that spirit they have a lot of reproduction instruments like compasses, magnifying glasses and the like. We saw this in Germany earlier this year at boutique stores there as well. I bought my son a compass. Too cool. :) Warning: The website isn't nearly as cool as the store. I didn't see a lot of the items I'm mentioning here.

Greenhouse Ceramics

The second was a store called Greenhouse. Now this place has a cool website to go with the store. The products within had the nature inspired feel with subdued tones in the finishes and sun bleached/gray wood. I particularly loved the selection of ceramic dinnerware. The color choices were spot on and the combination of textures inside and out was original. FYI, I had to borrow the image on the right from the site. My images of the store blurred for some reason. Shameful and disappointing since they had some awesome bowls inside that I didn't see on the site.

Because of our late afternoon start a lot of stores started closing on us so it was time to return to our home base at the Aloft for dinner and strategy. Tomorrow we head into Manhattan where I expect quite a bit more excitement than today had to offer. I'll keep you posted.

Local Brew. Cheers!

Oh, one more thing. It's funny when you are not used to it but we walked through three photo shoots today. The first was a fashion shoot, the second was for Gossip Girl and the third . . . well we couldn't figure it out. There was a bunch of large buses and not much else to go by. It's like every corner we turned there was something. Pretty amazing to see what happens in the fast lane. Cheers!

From Little Things Big Things Grow - The Origins Of A Chair-ity Event

This fall the artists of EtsyDallas will be hosting a charity event. But not just any charity event! A Chair-ity event. We will be auctioning off a series of one-of -kind artist creations that begin with a simple chair. 100% of the proceeds will benefit a local Dallas charity and artists are donating their time and materials. More details will follow in the coming weeks but what I want to share with you now is the amazing story of the evolution of this event.

Chair-ity Concept Prior to Artist Interpretation

I traveled to Toronto last fall to attend IRDC the International Retail Design Conference. I was lucky enough to be sent there by Chippenhook to learn, absorb, network and of course find opportunities to grow business. During the course of the lectures I attended one on "Making The Local Connection" which has a ton of relevance whether you are a huge retailer like Walmart or a small start up like me. The speaker (Joe Baer of Zen Genius) was talking about a design community in Columbus Ohio called the Short North. He spoke about a number of ways to get more involved in communities such as a lingerie company that created a series of bra's with themes based on local businesses in the area. They then created an art installation as an attraction and sold the pieces with all proceeds going to Susan G. Komen for the cure. Of all the great ideas this one stuck out as an action item for Ferrochie and EtsyDallas. I spent some time thinking about how we would go about recreating this success in Dallas with our group. However, the fast pace schedule of sessions prevailed and it was quickly in and out of my mind. In the end it took a chance meeting to really create the catalyst for action.

Natalie, David & Kerry

That same day I sat down at a networking lunch that really wasn't for me. A colleague of mine signed up for it and then changed his mind so I took his place at the table. It was meant to be a meeting of educators in retail. Two of those people were Natalie Coulter an educator from Sydney Australia and her colleague Kerry Little. After some introduction (and an embarrassing admission that I was in fact, not an educator) we quickly found ourselves talking about a variety of subjects including Joe Baer's seminar. Natalie and Kerry both had a passion for charity work which had me thinking again about what I could do back home. I explained my seed idea to Natalie and she was completely supportive. Not just supportive but offering up a ton of additional ideas too! We bounced around so many scenario's my head was swimming with possibilities.



When I got back to my room that night I had ample time to process everything. I posted the idea of us doing something to the EtsyDallas group and the response was overwhelming. Very quickly more and more idea's were pouring in and everyone was excited. Over the next few weeks we began to form a pretty good picture of what the event was going to be, how we would do it and who we would do it for. We hit a snag though . . . the holiday season was fast approaching and artist's were getting busy. So plans went on hold.

Early Concept Sketches for the Chair-ity

The spring brought new life to this event as we (EtsyDallas) formed a Charity Commitee and I got busy working on some details. I wanted to personally contribute the Chair as my main gift from Ferrochie. I will of course have my own chair design in the event but I wanted to do more to help this be easy for the contributing artists. I should also explain that the chair was to be full sized originally but we thought given the variety of artist specialties a minature chair would be more appropriate. I worked on several sketches and prototypes before landing on the final concept. You can see the final assembled concept above which is a simple two piece construction that each artist can start with.

From little things big things grow. These are the words Natalie said to me last year when all this was just talking points. Now it's easy to see the wisdom in them. It has taken a bit longer than I had hoped to get this going but it's a first for all of us. We will learn from this experience and next time it will be easier. I'm looking forward to what we are going to be able to contribute to our community this year. The members of EtsyDallas are some of the most dedicated, resourceful and creative people around. Together we can do anything.