114. Soft Adventure, Digital Brights and Rugged Luxury – WGSN’s Sports & Outdoor Trends

The holiday season is fast approaching and with it comes the annual scramble for gifts. This year, it looks like we are not quite as generous as we used to be – half of us are expecting to buy fewer goods and services and 95% of us will be looking for the best deals. This means that brands need to prioritise discounts to profit from the holiday season.Join us in this episode about holiday shopping and gifting where we also explore the importance of personalisation, delivering value and sustainable choices with WGSN’s Director of Interiors, Gemma Riberti and Director of Insight, Joe McDonnell.

How are we shopping and what informs how we make big purchases? The idea is simple – take your time to choose products you love and expect to continue to use for years to come.In this episode of Lives of Tomorrow, we’re discussing slow retail – where consumers are making more considered purchases, especially when it comes to big purchases and items for the home. WGSN Insight Director Joe McDonell, Senior Strategist Candice Medeiros and Senior Strategist Rachel Gwyther look into products, apps and how retail feeds into this ethos. Find out consumers’ top priorities and how this impacts the big purchases we make for the home.

Following New York Fashion Week, we review cutting-edge catwalk movements and how they form the wider trends we’ve been tracking at WGSN. Joining host Francesca Muston, VP of WGSN Fashion, is Kim Cupido, WGSN’s Senior Editor for Catwalks. Kim shares key trends our catwalks team captured and how brands are implementing them. We delve into the details of catwalk data, WGSN’s image recognition AI tool, and how this helps us update every item on runways globally with fast, accurate and actionable coverage and analysis.

Today marks the start of Maison & Objet 2024 – the holy grail event in the world of decor and design. The biannual international trade fair showcases the best in lifestyle, interior design and home decor in Paris. In this podcast, we explore everything from key product design trends to the latest retail trends, sharing the insights you need and the highlights of this year’s Maison.  WGSN Director of Strategic Forecasting Lisa White welcomes Maison veteran, Interiors Director Gemma Riberti and Insight Director Joe McDonnell. Listen in on the Maison Objet standout events with key designers like Mathieu Lehanneur and designer of the year 2024 Lionel Jadot to inspire your interior flair. 

What do fashion buying and Rachel Green from Friends have in common? In this episode of Create Tomorrow, we discuss fashion buying and the tools buyers have for strategic decision-making. VP of WGSN Fashion, Francesca Muston, and WGSN Director of Fashion, Monisha Klar discuss the process of fashion buying and the trends directing the future of fashion. With WGSN’s fashion buying platform launch, we discover future-proof trend decision intelligence and buying-specific forecasts following the product-to-market lifecycle. Take a break and listen in on how to make well-informed decisions, lead a buying team, and manage the day-to-day operations of specific categories.

WGSN has been tracking a rise in appetite for outdoor adventures including glamping and nighttime activities. In this episode, we discuss this expanding demand and detail key trends shaping the future of sports and outdoors. Senior Insight Strategist Cassandra Napoli hosts this chat with our Sports & Outdoor experts – Content Strategist, Caitlin Folgner, and CMF Senior Strategist, Jennifer Birch. From soft adventure to easily accessing health and wellness benefits of the outdoors for new participants, get on board the opportunities and design directions this movement presents.We’ve been forecasting the rise of rugged luxury bringing modern convenience and rich comfort to camping, where travellers can enjoy the outdoors leisurely without having to invest in new luxury gear amid a cost of living crisis. Listen in on how brands can strategise around colour, materials, and product development trends for hardware and apparel across industries.

The Olympics is not only about running the fastest, jumping the highest, and throwing the shot put the farthest. It is also about looking good while you do it. Yes, Olympic fashion is very much a thing and in this episode, you’ll learn all about it. We hear about the fashion surrounding the Paris 2024 Olympic games – discussing key trends, sustainable choices, and WGSN Olympic fashion design highlights. Lisa White, Director of Strategic Forecasting at WGSN hosts this Olympic kit fashion design special with guests Charlie Bardsley, Active Strategist, and Rebecca Saygi, Swimwear Strategist.

Hello and welcome to WGSN’s fortnightly Create Tomorrow podcast, bringing you the latest innovations impacting the future of design and product. In this episode, we discuss the dinner party. This classic culinary social situation is evolving in terms of who is being invited, what’s being served, and what gifts are being brought along if you’re invited to one. Forget about spending hours making fancy French cuisine. The new dinner party is small and more practical – as well as being more cost-effective than dining out. And don't feel bad about asking your guests for help either. Our host for this delicious podcast is Jen Creevy, Director of WGSN Food & Drink, with guests at the table, strategists Millie Diamond and Rachel Tan. Bon appetit!

Hello and welcome to WGSN’s fortnightly Create Tomorrow podcast, bringing you the latest innovations impacting the future of design and product. Surfer, filmmaker and journalist Chris Nelson joins WGSN Editorial Director Bethan Ryder to discuss his documentary The Big Sea. In this episode, we dive into a new documentary exploring the connection between the $10bn surfing industry and Cancer Alley in Louisiana in the US. Cancer Alley is a region along the Mississippi River with many factories and chemical plants. The pollution from these plants has made the air and water unhealthy, causing high rates of cancer and other illnesses among residents. The documentary sheds light on the toxic truth behind a single material, Neoprene, which is used to make swimsuits. Chris and Bethan discuss greenwashing and more about the film, because it demonstrates the crucial role designers and brands can and must play in creating a better future for people and the planet. 

Hello and welcome to WGSN’s fortnightly Create Tomorrow podcast, bringing you the latest innovations impacting the future of design and product. In this episode, we discuss the emerging styles, subcultures, consumer drivers  and aesthetics in youth fashion that we’ve been tracking at festivals across the globe. WGSN Youth Fashion Strategists Mia Jacobs and Jaeyeon Park join host Graham ‘Kraggy’ Krag, Senior Commissioning Manager at WGSN to find out how subcultures and multi-genre festival line-ups are shaking up the festival fashion scene. Hear why fandom dressing is growing in popularity and find out who the ‘Mini Tylers’ are and what the ‘Signature Lana’ looks like.