Developed by two masters in trend forecasting, David Shah and Anne Marie Commandeur, the MarediModa Spring/Summer 2023 Trend Book supplies creatives all over the world with a true sextant for the preparation of any beachwear, intimates or athleisure collection. “The aim of this ambitious project is to provide a valuable tool able to trigger creative sparks, enlighten new visions and stand side by side of the creative process from social scenario until the upcoming fashion trends,” underlines David Shah, publisher and trend forecaster.
Our vision for climate positivity seems unlikely to be linked to fashion. But fashion is powerful because everyone sees it: it’s a way of communicating. Scientists, chemists, fashion designers and activists must work together to write this new chapter in fashion history, with science its vital collaborator. Instead of sitting back thinking the planet is changing because of us, the fashion industry can be an intellectual and emotional leader in the climate conversation.
Engineer
In betting on a more optimistic future, we acknowledge the positive synergy between nature and technology, exploring the boundaries of what science, technology and design offer to help us create hypernatural textiles to outsmart reality, animate static matter and disrupt our perceptions.
- Colours: deep nocturnal shades alternate with acid and luminous hues. Colours glow with a hazy, ethereal aura as if overlaid with semi-opaque diffused filters. Shades show full saturation, as well as blends and blurs, through vibrantly bleeding pigments. The ice and heat clash, as the palette shows a deep ocean aqua, an icy surf blue, and glowing rose and pink.
- Fabrics: new textile techniques weave biotechnology, tissue engineering and nature imitating living systems into cloth. Designers are engineering nature by growing their materials and replicating natural processes while collaborating with mycelium, algae and kelp. They are creating textures and surfaces never seen before that are glossy, fluid and liquid, foamy and firm, or translucent and ethereal. Reflections are sparkly and dazzling through crinkled, veined and pore-like reliefs. Liquid and luminous gloss finishes are present on translucent gauzes. Colours are deep and dense through butterfly wing, velvety surface effects.
- Patterns: generative design creates immersive and magical, dynamic, organic patterns and gradients. Patterns of nature are wonderfully wavelike, sensuously spiralling, curiously cracked with fractal formations. Surfaces show mineral patina, marble effects and crystallised compositions with traces of fins, scales and skin-like veins with metallic gloss, enamel, multi-coloured iridescence and lucid and luminous sheen. VR and UV photography reveal futuristic nocturnal florals, natural growing root systems and intricate venation patterns.
- Silhouettes: glamorously elegant, as well as minimalist, simple garment cuts complement these complex motifs and materials. They accommodate intricate patterning and shading as well as fringe, braiding and weaving. Organic irregular surfaces intensify using plissé, shibori, and pleated detail. Animal feathers, botanical frills and fringe inspire decorative finishing and trimming. The extravagance of oceanic inhabitants inspires glamorous ‘couture’ silhouettes, details and adornment.
Curate
The curation of indigenous and ancient textile making and folkloric craftsmanship as part of the design process is a continued offshoot of the ‘Slow’ movement. The desire for crafted objects reflects people’s desire for physical connections and community in an overwhelmingly virtual world.
- Colours: shades appear to have been touched by time, sun and wear, with warm hues slightly faded and washed down. Rich mid-tones, honey, warm blush, deep cherry and chocolate top the main fundamental shade – a pure, raw and unbleached warm ecru.
- Fabrics: this theme has a natural, cotton appeal. Looks are matte and muted, pure and honest, rooted in traditional textile culture. Organic kinds of cotton, textiles from forgotten crops like linen, hemp, nettle, jute, and ‘good’ stretchy cellulose knits with basic matte surfaces. Rugged fine knits with natural irregularity use bouclé yarns, or show brushed pile, chunky terry or fluffy loops. Nostalgic detailing and finishing show fine plissé, quilting and smocking, decorative lacing, crocheted trims, plus wooden and bone buttons.
- Patterns: a mix of nostalgic references, embracing traditional craft patterns reminiscent of folk art, surfaces and patterns embedded with cultural values and narrative. Garments tell stories via embroidered and tufted patterns. Interest in heritage, story and provenance drives a renewed celebration of indigenous culture and culturally specific patterns. Folk ornaments, tapestry inspired patterns, plaids, stripes and an abundance of flowers and blooms.
- Silhouettes: the theme unfolds in more ornate traditional lingerie, swim and loungewear styles as well as casual, relaxed basics. Simple or embellished with colourful trims, embroidery and lacing. Uncomplicated and comfortable, with some rare romantic touches.
Regenerate
Designers bring the boundlessly diverse textures and colours of nature into play. They foster a biocentric perspective out of admiration, awareness and wider ecological consciousness. This approach generates a positive inspiration, a renewed interest in indigenous resources and primitive nature forms.
- Colours: an enduring colour range rooted in earthen hues, with an eco-centric aesthetic due to naturally procured dyes. Green remains a key directional colour, from the weighty earthen greens of forest, moss and algae to fresh, light and herbal shades, complete with greige, maroon brown and sun- bleached clay.
- Fabrics: there is a need for the creation of processes, material cycles and systems that go beyond sustainability. Research into restorative, regenerative solutions is what’s required, a search for naturally abundant regenerative crops and resources. Banana leaves, pineapple, cactuses, berries, flowers, leaves and plant roots make precious resources for novel textile developments and colouring systems. They celebrate the low-tech and the roughness of unprocessed, natural substances for textures like earth, sand, clay, soil and stone.
- Patterns: nature’s patterns inspire a conscious generation of designers, who learn from biodiversity, manifest the plant power and reject the artificial. We embrace imperfections, the organic and uncontrolled, mossy and wild surfaces. Think strained, fibrous, scattered and stained patterning, with eroded, untreated and weathered surface effects. Vegetal informed prints, untamed flora, patterns of roots, leaves, stems and sprouts. The rare figurative aesthetic in this theme show plants or animals inspired by primitive, ancient wood-carving patterns and pre-historic markings and drawings.
- Silhouettes: indigenous materials form contemporary silhouettes in design pieces with character. Garments show detail that heralds indigenous craftsmanship like weaves, basketry and lacing. Sculptural and structural garment constructions are cut asymmetric and organic. Surfaces are crinkled and plissé and, on top of that, organically wrapped and draped around the body.
Recreate
This story celebrates aesthetic freedom, genre-defying creativity and liberating individualism. In search of a positive relationship to the product, designers return to traditional hand skills via thrifting, creative upcycling, reuse and repurposing, giving discarded materials a fresh lease of life.
- Colours: opening the colour process rather than controlling it, leading to a rainbow of new possibilities. These shades are wild and non-homogeneous. Natural pigments, crafted colour processing, dye splashes and spraying. The colour is just a fun basis to be happily messed up afterwards.
- Fabrics: designers are sending a strong message about sustainability and the importance of reuse, celebrating the beauty of everyday materiality and rejecting new materials in favour of those that already lived at least one life. Challenging the value of waste and surplus materials, these textiles are engineered from a curated palette of salvaged and appropriated matter.
- Patterns: an assemblage aesthetic. Ad hoc, spontaneous, reused, rebuilt, remade and reconfigured patterning. Textiles are cut up and reassembled to become mash-up patchworks. Super-positioning print on lace and embroidery on pattern. Appropriated through screen-print, block print, dip-dye and tie-dye effects to create a playfully handmade aesthetic. Hand-drawn elements, scribbles, plus cut and torn-up pieces are collaged together. Marking the death of coordinating sets and the rise of a liberated and more creative approach to combining colour, pattern, texture, and whole garments.
- Silhouettes: a freer approach towards end uses when creating athleisure, lingerie and swim hybrids, adding romantic touches to active sports items, using lace in racy swimsuits. Lacing, gathering, draping details in tracksuits, running leggings and Ts. Bold cut-outs, asymmetric touches and collaging create rebellious tailoring. This feast of liberty includes notions of confidence, body acceptance and gender equality.
Imagine
Our world is in constant flux and needs progressive technology to catch up with the constant shifting and transcendence of desires and needs. With this theme, we imagine the hyper-functional to keep us comfortable, active and safe, protected, healed and recovered.
- Colours: a calm palette of essential and fundamental plains is illuminated with lucid accents. A surreal, luminous glow layers with plain whites, greiges and beiges. Hazy pastel hues add virtual glow, and intense screen-based blue and sunset orange add to the fantastic virtual luminescence of the palette.
- Fabrics: fabrics serve as a tool to optimise the human experience towards excellence and high performance. They work as a device to interact with reality. Intelligent materials enhance sensorial experiences and preserve health and well-being, prevent illness and discomfort. Now that smooth jerseys are being produced from eucalyptus pulp and seaweed powder, horizons for sustainable fabrics broaden. For this tech-infused theme, we consider smooth plains, from super lightweight and translucent, to thin and fluid, thick and bonded, until voluminously multi-layered and quilted.
- Patterns: primarily plain, smooth surfaces, alternated with graphic relief effects, laser-cut geometrics and grids to enhance performance, freedom of movement or breathability. Multi-coloured ribs and reliefscreate lenticular effects. Printed reliefs create nervous marls and blurs. Abstract computer- generated motives like two-tone blurs create illusionary effects. Text patterns, grids and abstract colour effects and visuals are inspired by the gaming world.
- Silhouettes: shapes are streamlined and sporty, functional and rational. From minimalist, seamless and fundamental to graphic cuts to accentuate and contour body silhouettes, enhancing fit and performance. Basic shapes of swimsuits, bikinis, bras, briefs and catsuits are bold – high waisted, long- sleeved and even collared. Maximum body coverage turns suits into high performance, protective body gloves, while padded and quilted cover-ups wrap the body for optimum comfort and protection. Multi-purpose items are layered, combined and interchanged for ultimate intimate/swim/active hybridity.
