Autumn / Winter 2027-28
Trend webinar by Lidewij Edelkoort
Online - Tuesday, September 29th, 2026
New York 10:00 – 11:45 AM
West Coast 7:00 – 8:45 AM
London 15:00 – 16:45
Paris 16:00–17:45
General admission $230 per person
Current Trend Union subscribers $115 per person*
*Please contact your Trend Union agent to receive your discount code or email ticketsnyc@edelkoort.com.
Programme (Paris CET):
16:00 – 16:05 Welcome
16:05 – 16:45 HABERDASHERY: A/W 2027-28 Colour Forecast
16:45 – 17:25 TRADITION: A/W 2027-28 Fashion & Textiles
17:25 – 17:45 Q&A with Li
HABERDASHERY: A/W 2027-28 Colour Forecast
It seems today that most design details are on the edge: trimming a world-famous jacket, piping a modernist grid, pleating an iconic shirt, smocking a childish bloomer. Metallic hardware has its own role to play as a harder shade in this otherwise hedonistic domain, yielding diversion between the same-old luxury looks and creative debauchery, from gilded buttons to razor blades and safety pins. Buttons are a category all of their own, designed to express culture and couture equally, welcoming materials such as mother-of-pearl, wood, leather, bakelite and even ceramics, in true arts and crafts tradition. All these haberdashery extremes are now the most vital ingredients in fashion, defining heritage, describing pedigree and designing the handwriting of a brand. Haberdashery will drive the major colour and style movements, co-designing trends that are functional and emotional, bringing back codes of dressing up such as button-down collars, buckled belts, pleated rosettes, woollen pompoms, knitted mittens, felted hats and soft leather gloves. A shop full of wonder hidden in multiple drawers and displayed in an enticing cabinet of curiosities — at our disposal to bring a playful charm back to fashion and colour.
TRADITION: A/W 2027-28 Fashion & Textiles
This forecast is a quest to understand our times and read the chaotic, barbaric, irrational turmoil we are living through. Gradually, the world is shifting to the right, and then to the extreme right, almost unnoticed sometimes. The Silicon Six* are planning the overhaul of democracy and the founding of feudal provinces and city states, to literally divide and govern society while avoiding paying taxes. To overrule we the people; a moment when we will have to abandon our sovereignty to the hegemony of AGI. Yet, the reason the world is turning to extremes and why governments are becoming authoritarian must have other reasons than purely political and economic ones. This is possibly the result of the long loss of traditions that have left us bereft of emotions, of celebrations and rituals, of religions and spiritual practices, of family and even friends, of social cohesion. The digital age has already exacerbated our ongoing lack of purpose and managed to turn people into introverted citizens, unable to meet and flirt, uninterested in having sex and unwilling to congregate. We therefore must design innovated traditions and curated conventions that are at once steeped in historic mores and manners, yet also completely contemporary and irreverent, blending periods, mixing ages and merging ancestral knowledge with intelligent technology. Something able to bring us together again. Inviting us to bond. As always, fashion is proposing several answers to make people confident and self-aware, through perfected style insights. With a vengeance, we will embrace conventional clothes and spiritual garments, nostalgic outfits, magic crafts, ritual robes and outdoor outfits that can withstand wear and tear and time. This urgent desire to give form to innovated traditions might introduce an amazing fashion revival in its own right, igniting a wish to dress up and play the part.
Lidewij Edelkoort is arguably the world's most renowned trend forecaster, working in industries from fashion to food, design, architecture, tech, communication, automotive and retail. Founded in 1986, her company Trend Union produces trend tools for strategists, designers and marketers at brands from Zara to Prada. She is also a publisher, humanitarian, educator and exhibition curator. Edelkoort has been named one of the Most Influential People in Fashion and one of the Most Influential People in Design. Written in 2014, her much-talked about ANTI_FASHION Manifesto was the first to raise awareness about the shifts and upheavals currently experienced in the global fashion industry. From 1998-2008 she was Chairwoman of Design Academy Eindhoven before moving to New York from 2015-2020 where she was Dean of Hybrid Design Studies at Parsons, establishing an MFA Textile masters and New York Textile Month. In 2020, in response to the covid-19 pandemic, she co-founded the World Hope Forum as a platform to inspire the creative community to rebuild a better society. Edelkoort's latest publications include Proud South (2020), Uxua Utopia (2022), and Proud South Craft (2025), each of which celebrate the creative talent of the Global South.