Underwater travel, vegan fashion and personalised TV: all hail the hottest trends of 2018
Are you ready for 2018? According to futurists, an interesting new year awaits.
Trend-forecasters may not be able to predict what will happen with the Brexit talks, but they are predicting that next year we’ll be wearing vegan leather grown in a lab, applying cannabis-infused beauty products and using Augmented Reality to visualise your new sofa while your walls will be painted with mood-aligning colours and your appliances are fitted with facial recognition cameras. Oh, and you’ll be booking holidays under the sea too.
Many turn to The Future 100 report, to be released next week from the Innovation Group, part of the J. Walter Thompson marketing consultancy, as the definitive guide to the year ahead. This time last year they predicted the rise of voice-activated home hubs, more politicised consumers, gender-neutral beauty and a feminist economy.
Here’s a sneaky peak of just some of the things we can expect in next year..
Interactive / Personalised TV
TV and movie consumption “has shifted from a public pastime to a private one,” says Innovation Group worldwide director Lucie Greene. The next step is personalised television, like Netflix’s interactive Puss in Boots where viewers decide where the plot goes. Director Steven Soderbergh also released Mosaic with HBO, an interactive murder mystery on an app that lets viewers control the investigation. Designed to watch on your phone, Wired magazine predicts Soderbergh may have “found the magic moment.”
Cannabis in beauty products
The big news in beauty is cannabidiol, or CBD, a non-psychoactive substance found in hemp plants, reputed to have anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and anti-ageing benefits. Lush and The Body Shop both stock hemp-based lines. Last month Perricone MD launched skincare range for men, CBx, powered by cannabidiol. “We chose phytocannabinoids as they are known to help stressed, oil-prone skin,” says Chris Caires, chief innovative officer.
Underwater travel
High-end travel is going to new depths, with a wave of underwater hotels and restaurants opening. Under, Europe’s first underwater restaurant, opens in Norway next year, joining Ithaa undersea restaurant in the Maldives, a region also home to the Huvafen Fushi underwater spa. And Dubai has announced an underwater resort Floating Venice, complete with restaurants, bars, spa, shops and accommodation. And a once-in-a-lifetime voyage to explore the Titanic departs in 2018 by research company OceanGate and Blue Marble Private, a snip at $100,000 per person.
The colour of 2018
Forget Millennial Pink, now it’s Gen Z Yellow, a mix of “buttercups, sunshine and lemon zest”, according to Greene. Popular with Gen Z celebrities like Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown, the colour apparently embodies the generation’s optimism and gender neutrality. “Gen Z Yellow is both nostalgic and modern. It has zest, energy and optimism,” says Haley Nahman, digital editor at Man Repeller fashion site.
AR Shopping
AR – or Augmented Reality - where computer-generated images are superimposed into real backgrounds, came to prominence through Pokemon Go, but futurists believe it will pervade all areas of retail next year, with Apple and Facebook developing AR applications. From virtual changing rooms, like Gap’s DressingRoom app where you can try on outfits to Sephora’s Virtual Artist which allows you apply make-up, technology is about go mass market. “AR is going to transform the way we shop. It will become an information tool when walking around a shop and at home, it will allow us to visualize furniture in place, or virtually try on garments,” she says.
Vegan fashion
The trend for all things vegan knows no bounds and now there is a real alternative to leather, with the recent invention of Zoa biofabricated leather. Stella McCartney announced a partnership with San Francisco-based biotech company Bolt Threads, which develops fabrics like vegan “silk” from yeast. “I just feel like there is finally a new opportunity to bring so many industries together and for them to all work as one for a better planet,” Stella McCartney said in a statement.
Wellness interiors
It’s not enough to eat well, now your home needs to be healthy too. Enter biological living, where designers are creating furniture, interiors, and whole homes around wellness. “Biological living is the next revolution in real estate,” Deepak Chopra told Forbes. He has designed the Muse apartments in Miami with circadian lighting systems, state-of-the-art air and water purification and mood-aligning paint colours. This year’s Milan Furniture Fair included spaces that featured biological lighting, air-purifying walls and sonic pendulums which play calming noises.
Vertical farms
Vertical farms are tipped to go mainstream next year as a viable alternative to food production. Growing Underground is a farm 33-metres underneath Clapham, which grows herbs and salad by LED. And San-Francisco-based indoor vertical farm start-up Plenty recently attracted a multi million dollar investment – the largest to date. Even Ikea has invented a hydroponic kitchen system to grow greens and herbs.
The walls have eyes
While voice-activated technology has become the norm, it’s about to give way to facial recognition as household objects are outfitted with smart cameras. “The Internet of Eyes enables all inanimate objects to see by leveraging computer vision analysis,” says Evan Nisselson, general partner at venture fund LDV Capital. The iPhone X debuted facial recognition and Facebook is reportedly developing a facial recognition tool linked to cameras installed in shops that will feed information to floor staff about customers based on their user profile. Which will presumably put an end to the shop assistant’s query of ‘how are you today’. They will already know.
