The first talk at the seminar will focus on colour and style trends.

Today, most design details live on the edge: trimming iconic jackets, piping modernist grids, pleating famous shirts, smocking playful bloomers. Metallic hardware adds contrast in this otherwise hedonistic realm, creating tension between familiar luxury looks and creative audacity – from gilded buttons to razor blades and safety pins. Buttons are a category of their own, expressing culture and couture, with materials like mother-of-pearl, wood, leather, bakelite, and ceramics. These haberdashery extremes define heritage, show pedigree, and shape a brand’s signature. They drive major colour and style movements, co-creating trends that are functional and emotional, reviving codes of dressing up: button-down collars, buckled belts, pleated rosettes, wool pompoms, knitted mittens, felt hats, and soft leather gloves. A shop of wonders hidden in drawers and displayed in a cabinet of curiosities – ready to bring playful charm back to fashion and colour.

The second talk at the seminar will focus on fashion and textiles.

This forecast explores the chaotic and extreme shifts in our world. Political, technological, and social forces are challenging our sovereignty, while the long loss of traditions has left people disconnected from rituals, celebrations, and social bonds. The digital age has intensified this isolation, turning many into introverted, disengaged citizens.

We must therefore create innovated traditions – conventions that blend historic mores with contemporary irreverence, merging ancestral knowledge with technology, and inviting people to connect and bond again. Fashion plays a key role, offering garments that inspire confidence and self-awareness: from conventional and spiritual attire to nostalgic, ritual, and practical outdoor wear. This revival of tradition could spark a broader fashion renaissance, encouraging playfulness, ceremony, and the joy of dressing up.