The summer we’ve dreamed about
NellyRodi is going on vacation! While our Parisian teams cool down their feverish creativity on a soft, sandy beach or in the fresh grass of the French countryside, our Tokyo, New York and other global teams will be our lookouts on the changing world. And it’s a world that’s changing fast.
This year in particular, while the creative industries were especially hurt by a dramatic health crisis, we witnessed an unprecedented acceleration of social change. It came on with such speed, we already know it won’t happen without conflicts. So these vacations will be an opportunity to sift through the long-term movements that affect the rules of living as a collective (the emergence of new borders, new social and cultural conflicts, our new relationship to work) and the trends tied to the weakening or strengthening of specific sectors (the decline in physical commerce and the growth of digital distribution, the green economy boom). We suspect there will be profound repercussions in the months and years to come.
That means the fall season won’t be any calmer. COVID variants will still give us reason to worry, but even more so, the cracks that have appeared in our economic and social structures will undoubtedly increase and perhaps speed up the disappearance of the former way of life we’ve talked so much about. This new foundational shift includes both the decline and then disappearance of yesterday’s world and the extremely rapid – meaning fragile – rise of a deeply fractured, new society. These issues will be at the center of our reflections.
In our most recent studies, we’ve already explored the new rules for interacting with China, and we explained the twists and turns of the new masculinities that demand fresh ways of relating to others. In our latest trendbook, Color Intelligence Spring Summer 2023, we looked at new uses for artificial intelligence as well as the protection of intangible cultural heritages. We also examined a different connection to history, forced by a recent look at our colonial past.
The autumn looks like it will be very interesting, and we need to be strong – with the certitude that “normal” no longer exists and with the hope, enthusiasm and desire to prove that the coming world will be better than the one we’re leaving behind.
With wishes for a great summer,
Pierre-François Le Louët
President, NellyRodi