Wednesday, March 13th 2024

3:00 - 5:45 PM (Australian Eastern Time)

Tickets: AUD $250 per person

Early bird until Feb 1st AUD $195 per person

Programme:

3:00 PM INSOUCIANCE: Spring / Summer 2025 Fashion, Textiles & Trends

3:45 PM CANDY CULTURE: Spring / Summer 2025 Colour Forecast Audiovisual

4:15 PM UXUA UTOPIA: Hospitality, Wellness & Interiors

4:45 PM  AVANT GARDE: 2025 Home & Interiors

5:40 PM Q&A Discussion

INSOUCIANCE: THE CHILD IN US: Spring / Summer 2025 Fashion, Textiles & Colour

Recently, details from children’s clothes have slowly penetrated the fashion sphere, introducing ballooning sleeves, baby doll dresses, baby boy shorts and bobby socks, with baby Mary Janes to boot. This search for the naïve and the childish marks the beginning of a much broader quest for innocence, happiness and joy. Threatened by the extinction of our species (through the climate crisis and / or bots taking control) people are faced with doom and decide to sidestep our depressing times by lifting their spirits, travelling back to their childhood to recall the insouciance of being a kid. The child in us can become a powerful psychological tool; for example, when we write or draw with our wrong hand, we can become a toddler again and mentally incarnate childhood. Such liberating exercises help us reassess who we truly are and bring back a certain feeling of lightness; we feel content to be alive, curious about tomorrow. Healing major trauma and solving mysterious issues that lay dormant in our psyche and body. Brightening our days. — Li Edelkoort

CANDY CULTURE: Sweet Spring / Sweet Summer 2025 Colour

In an unexpected mood that transports us back to insouciant days to get in touch with our inner child, we suddenly crave candy for a sweet spring and an even sweeter summer. Moments of oomph in a world of anguish, fencing off the fear we have of war, climate abuse and the encroaching loss of self, when the bots take over. Design and fashion turn to fantasy and narration in order to cope, and scenarios from our infancy seem to strike a powerful chord. The need for the naïve and the mawkish quest for the colourful suggest a range of myriad hues from the palest gooey pastels to sugared florals via the tang of hard candy, while gummy bears are proud of their transparent gloopy character. The tints work together in squeaky harmonies just as all-sorts play the game and perfectly associate themselves with graphic black and white. Only some candy has the gift for providing essential neutrals, as found in liquorice and nougat, both responsible for elegant summer clothes that celebrate the comeback of formal fashion. Even more chic and stylish are the darkest ranges of réglisse black and chocolate brown, chosen for their presence in immense renderings of the spring suit and the summer dress. Adorable shoes are part of this candy craze and continue a discourse of blown-up proportions and viscous materials, giving the silhouettes a distinct Minnie Mouse allure. — Li Edelkoort

Uxua Utopia

'UXUA UTOPIA: A Very Gifted Guest House' is a visually stunning presentation based on the beautiful coffee table book Uxua Utopia, a publication that combines the lifestyle elements of design, art, food, craft and travels to explore UXUA’s achievements in establishing humanitarian values for a new world; a very local project that strives to create social impact. Indeed, this is more than a book: part trend book, part style bible, part life philosophy manual, ‘UXUA UTOPIA’ is a unique design tool for aesthetic activism that revives hope, happiness, and conscience.

AVANT GARDE: 2025 Home & Interiors

Today, one can detect a rebirth of the Avant-Garde, with a growing unease around super-rich excesses and their overwhelming governance of society, as well as a nauseating sense of waste from fast fabricate mass-produced goods. Both polluting not only the planet but also our culture, jeopardising our mental and financial health. This malaise creates a violent atmosphere where people take defence into their own hands, and where opposing parties have become unable to listen to each other. It seems that society is moving out of control fast and unrest or even civil war is to be expected. The brutal language of our politicians doesn’t help to ease the pain. It seems that we are on the brink of a cultural conflict and therefore the creative forces in the world start to unite by combatting violence with beauty. An arresting form of elaborate design and craft brings along a militant point of view that makes excess desirable and celebration a necessity. For us battle opposing citizens, culture is the best defence where the intuitive becomes the guiding principle, the instinctive the way to go, the intelligence of human origin.