Create Tomorrow, The WGSN Podcast

This is the second in our series of episodes in which we bring you some of the key trends, insights and interviews from Milan Design Week 2023.

The annual Milan Design Week is considered the world’s biggest event dedicated to design which takes place at Fiera Milano exhibition centre located just outside the city, plus across the city as Fuorisalone in showrooms, palazzos and other venues.

Bethan Ryder, WGSN Executive Editorial Director is joined by Director of Interiors Lisa White and Head of Interiors Gemma Riberti as we explore our outdoor lifestyles trend.

We focus on an interview with Marie Kristine Schmidt, chief brand officer at the Danish company Gubi, speaking as we toured their installation at the iconic Bagna Misteriosa in Milan.

Over the next four episodes our Interiors experts will be bringing you key trends, insights and interviews from this year’s Milan Design Week. Subscribers can find a suite of six trend analysis reports covering all the trends you need to know from this year’s event, in this short series of podcasts we’ll cover four of those trends. 

The annual Milan Design Week is considered the world’s biggest event dedicated to design which takes place at Fiera Milano exhibition centre located just outside the city, plus across the city as Fuorisalone in showrooms, palazzos and other venues.

Expect to hear from innovators, disruptors and designers from Formafantasma and Danish company Gubi’s chief brand officer Marie Kristine Schmidt to German designer Markus Benesch and the makers of a compostable hemp chair. 

In this episode, Bethan Ryder, WGSN Executive Editorial Director is joined by Director of Interiors Lisa White and Head of Interiors Gemma Riberti to discuss our first trend, the overall sense of optimism at the festival, it's the first time in four years it returned to its April slot and the joy was palpable.

Biotechnology company Modern Synthesis have developed a biomaterial from bacterial fermentation that can be used to create a low-carbon alternative to traditional clothing fabrics.Modern Synthesis founder Jen Keane explains her process to this week’s host Helen Palmer, head of materials at WGSN and Lucila Saldana, Footwear & Accessories Editor at WGSN.The biomaterial was developed in the company’s London lab and in this episode of Create Tomorrow Jen Keane talks about the development, stigmas around synthetic biology and GMO materials and about fabric innovations of the future.

This week WGSN Director of Insight Joe McDonnell in conversation with Cassandra Napoli, Senior Strategist, and Brielle Saggese, Insight Strategist, they discuss this year’s SXSW festival.

For those unfamiliar with SXSW, it’s an annual festival in Austin, Texas that brings together creatives, innovators, and entrepreneurs from around the world to share ideas, showcase their work, and connect with others in their industries.

Joe, Cassandra and Brielle all attended the 36th SXSW and in this episode, they give us a full rundown on the emerging trends and major discussion topics from this year’s event.

Cassandra and Brielle share some of their most interesting highlights from this year’s SXSW including AI mental health resources, snacks being used as political signalers, and video games that help surgeons prepare for surgeries.

The virtual influencer market is booming. In fact, virtual influencers are set to yield three times more engagement than human influencers. They’re ushering in a whole new world of sponsorship potential and dynamic multi-platform entertainment possibilities for brands to be a part of over the next decade, as these characters and the technology supporting them mature. It’s anticipated that they will transform everything from pop-culture and online shopping to education and work. In 2030 the digital human market is set to be worth about $530 billion globally, which is up from just $10 billion in 2020.

In this episode Senior Strategist at WGSN Cassandra Napoli, speaks to Christopher Travers, an entrepreneur focused on the area of pseudonymity and various forms of online identity, to break down this incredibly complex and layered topic and to share his expert commentary on the constantly evolving world of virtual influencers.

In January WGSN walked the halls of Maison & Objet in Paris, one of the most important trade shows in the world for home interiors and products. We analysed the product design trends from bouclé to paper maché, sustainability to scentscaping.

Today we kick off by discussing the central theme of the show this year, which was all about Care, whether that means people or the environment,  indoors or outdoors.

This week our host Bethan Ryder is joined by WGSN’s head of Colour Urangoo Samba and Caroline Guilbert, Creative Content Lead at Coloro to discuss this year's colour of the year, Digital Lavender. Tune in to find out why are we seeing it everywhere, from consumer tech and fashion to the colour palettes in TV dramas? 

Every year WGSN produces colour forecasts for our clients in collaboration with our partner business Coloro. In this episode the team chats about what Digital Lavender signifies and why it's so popular right now, whilst touching on a few other colours that we’ve forecast as key for this year.

As we roll into 2023, we decided to discuss one of our most popular reports with the team that put it together; WGSN's "Cities to Watch 2023".

The cities we highlight are always creative hubs, but they also tend to reflect some of the bigger consumer trends we’re seeing around the world, and so this year’s choices are perhaps less obvious than usual and truly testament to the rise of digital nomads – people who have relocated out of big cities following the pandemic, or who have simply chosen to work remotely in livable, less hectic cities.