Brand expert to speak at VCUarts Qatar event

Virginia University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUarts Qatar), a Qatar Foundation partner will hold a lecture by Luca Marchetti (pictured), a brand expert and semiologist as part of its Crossing Boundaries’, lecture series. The online lecture will take place on October 28 at 12.45pm, Qatar time.

The lecture will provide the audience with an understanding of how research processes and prediction methodologies are crucial not only to fashion and design, but to businesses in general. Participants will be able to learn more about analysis and foresight methodology developed by the trend forecasting agency ‘The Prospectivists’, co-founded by Marchetti in 2019. Their approach decrypts emerging signs, cultural relevance and manifestations to forecast what they will mean for brands, in the future. Marchetti will explain basic methodological principles to discover the key evolving challenges that impact people’s lives, habits and behaviours. He will give real life examples from the industry through various case studies related to art, pop culture, luxury and retail space design.

Isabelle St-Louis, manager, Exhibitions and Lectures, VCUarts Qatar, said, “Trend forecasting is becoming more and more relevant in business practice, especially in the fashion sector. Its importance in decision making cannot be overlooked by brands and designers.” Marchetti is a senior lecturer at the Institut Français de la Mode in Paris since 2004, at the University of Bologna and at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris in the context of the Master on “Creative industries” co-directed with the luxury group LVMH. He also works internationally as a brand consultant and event curator for brands or museums and regularly collaborates with magazines such as Vogue and Revue.