Lifestyle in 2017: Innovation and trends hit the fast lane
From food to politics, fashion, dwellings and transportation, the year ahead will reveal the mood of our times
Predicting trends is a mug’s game, but when they catch on it tells us important things about the social, political and economic mood of our times. Perhaps the most influential trend to report is that the way trends themselves work has changed. Fashion, the fastest-moving, most cyclical trend barometer, once had a perfectly well-structured seasonal pattern. You could go to the fashion shows, see what was on the ramps and know that in six months those trends would make their way into shops and onto people’s backs. Now, fashion houses like Burberry with its "see now/buy now" system have made it possible to buy items just hours after they have been paraded down the ramp. The speed of social media and its insatiable appetite for novelty defy the traditional cycles of fashion. But with that, the patterns of innovation, influence, response and resistance that characterise trends have been disrupted. The other great predictor of trends was the media. But of course the media have changed rad...
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