“THE END OF FASHION, AS WE KNOW IT”

Lidewij Edelkoort, often called Li, is one of the world’s foremost trend forecasters. Born in the Netherlands, she advises fashion and consumer brands around the world. In 2003, Time magazine named her one of the 25 most influential people in fashion. She was director of Design Academy, Eindhoven, from 1998 to 2008, and helped found the School of Form in Poznan, Poland, in 2011. Since 2015, she has served as the dean of hybrid studies at The New School’s Parsons School of Design, US.

Last year, you said it was “the end of fashion as we know it”. What did you mean?

The system of fashion has become obsolete. It is not working any more.

How do you rate Indian fashion?

I was very happy with some of what I saw in Bengaluru and Delhi. There is real revival of ‘Indian-ness’—in the use of colours and crafts—but in a contemporary way. In this, India is ahead of China.

What do you see as the role of technology in fashion?

Technology has not really touched fashion yet. I think it will do so when it comes to textiles. I see technological fibres being merged with natural fibres to create futuristic yarns. Sensors will be woven into clothes. We will no longer need ‘wearable gadgets’; technology is integrated into the textile. I am working on this at Parsons. We are looking to try and merge Silicon Valley [California] and Hudson Valley [New York, hub of fashion].

How do you predict trends?

My process is based on intuition and fed by observations. I observe continuously; I call it the archaeology of the future. There is so much information... in conversations, in meeting people, or visiting fairs and reading about art. Most people store such information without even realising it. Sometimes, you find key fragments. After you collect these fragments and put them together, you can project into the future the same way that an archaeologist who has dug up fragments of information can project into the past.