S6E05 Trend Curation with Cécile Poignant

This episode is filled with information on intentional trends within a variety of industries yet with a special focus on the culinary industry. Cécile talks to us about how the the trend forecasting industry has changed with the current speed of information reaching us and how this has resulted more in trend provocation whereas there is a great need for trend curation to truly help out businesses in finding answers in a difficult economical climate. 

Cécile Poignant is French, born and raised in Paris. She is a futurist specializing in contemporary lifestyles for the past 35 years. Her expertise lies in detecting weak signals and connecting the dots to anticipate major future shifts. She has worked with international brands such as Nissan, Swatch, Philips, L’Oréal, and P&G. Always on the lookout, she observes and deciphers emerging needs and evolving behaviors. 

Cécile is also actively involved in international conferences and frequently conducts workshops for professionals. She loves teaching and sharing her insights at various institutions, including IFM, ENSAD, and the American University of Paris.

Her greatest passion is curiosity—she is constantly seeking to better understand the world around her. You’ll often find her sipping an excellent Japanese green tea, savoring high-quality dark chocolate, or immersed in a book. Nature is her ultimate source of rejuvenation; in another life, she might have been a landscape designer.

Transcript

Judith van Vliet: Welcome back to the Color Authority podcast. Today I'm going to be talking to Cecile Poignant. She was born and raised in Paris and she's a futurist specializing in contemporary lifestyles.

For the past 35 years. Her expertise lies in detecting weak signals and connecting the dots to anticipate major future shifts. She has worked with international brands such as Nissan Swatch, Philips, L'Oreal and Procter and Gamble.

Always on the lookout, she observes and deciphers emerging needs and evolving behaviors. Good morning, Cecile. Welcome to the Color Authority and I hope you're very well and pleased to talk about color with me today.

Cécile Poignant: Yeah, I'm really happy to and can't wait to exchange with you. Well, everything about colors and moods and trends and. Yeah, I mean, this is the perfect timing.

Judith van Vliet: It is, yeah. We were just talking about spring and how color is literally waking us up. You know, nature has this way of pushing us for more energy. The flower blossoms.

It's a beautiful period of time.

Cécile Poignant: Yeah, it is. It is really full of energy, of new beginnings, you know, of strength somehow. So I think, yeah, it brings up with a lot of hopes and a lot of new projects.

So, yeah, that's the idea of spring.

Judith van Vliet: Busy times and because we're obviously going to talk about color and I'd love to know what color is to you, Cecile, personally or in your work, how do you see color?

Cécile Poignant: I would say that color is everything. I wouldn't say that. I would really hate to live in a black and white world. I think we are very happy to see so many colors.

We are very fortunate.

I think for me color has so many meanings, so much importance. You know, it's a mirror of society.

Like you see how the young generation is adopting or not colors. You know, I think it's also code for culture. You know, are you well dressed or not well dressed according to, you know, the guidelines of the time, is your interior, I mean, fashionable or is it not so?

I think it means really, really so much. And I'm always interested into looking at the way people are wearing colors, what people are buying, you know, how we express. And for me, I would say that in the future I'm seeing two things maybe that are for me important in color.

I would say that we are seeing more and more companies focus on colors. Other possibility to dye and not with chemical products, you know, like plant based dyes and things like that, with seaweed or fungi.

And I think this is going to influence palettes for me. So this is interesting. And the other Thing that I see a lot in, in my radar, I would say, is the idea that,

yeah, we are using color to express our emotion, you know, whether it's in our home or in our silhouette. And what I see is a kind of the idea of the merging of neuro and aesthetic.

So an aesthetic that is there because it has a good feeling for you.

And what I say is that it's still not that much people, but obviously now it's a couple of maybe one, two years that I see in the streets, silhouette of people all dressed in white or off white, you know, and this is new and it's entering little by little.

So I think more and more people are going to choose also colors for the way this express their mood, this help their mental health and everything like that. So I think we are still discovering about, I don't know, maybe not every day, but every six months, you know, new way of using colors,

new powers of colors. We all know that, you know, your background is very colorful. Obviously, if I'm watching that, I'm watching something that is bringing me a lot of energy.

If the wall behind you was completely, I don't know, apple green or a very strong blue, you know, my feeling would be very different. So I think we are discovering every, I don't know, maybe every six months, new powers of colors.

So I think it's an. It's a language and we are really discovering new things every day. Quite recently I saw a kind of reconstitution of the way the bees are seeing the flowers.

The images are amazing. It's like G.E. wells, you know, the beauty of colors,

the mixing of different colors together. It's extraordinary. I mean. So I think now we are discovering that a lot of animals around us are not seeing colors the same way.

And we were not aware, for instance, if you have a look at what a dog is seeing, the opening of colors a dog can see. Well, they see a lot of gray and then they see also yellow and blue.

But I mean, there are colors that they don't see at all, you know, So I mean, it's a whole language, it's a whole field of exploration, discovery. So I think it's.

It's endless, which is really cool.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. I think we are very lucky to be working in color because even I, every time, every day I learn something new about color. And I think the most interesting thing is that I'm seeing that more people, even if they don't do what we do, they're more open to color.

Like you said. How does Blue make me feel, how's green does me feel?

What color am I wearing? And how do I get different reactions from people that I encounter in meetings or on the street or et cetera. And I think the emotional well being is even more important because generally we don't tend to feel very well in our current world.

I think this is going to be hugely, hugely important in the future.

Cécile Poignant: Yeah, I do agree with you. I think in the future the focus is really going to be on mental health, wellness, but also really mental health. And I think color is really going to be very helpful for that.

Yeah. Now, for instance, I also work with students in applied art schools here in Paris. And the more I see, the more students are interested globally in the idea of care and have been seeing in the past some students work, doing and working very close with hospital,

trying to imagine what would be a kind of waiting room or a kind of room where you can rest, you know, that would be more bringing up positive vibe to people.

So what would be the choice of colors, the choice of materials, the choice of volumes and so on. So I think people are more aware today, like you said, that color has an effect on our well being.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, but you are, you are one of the first trend forecasters here in Europe. I mean that I still do. I do see you as that first group of people and women, of course, that started to discover this work and you already mentioned it in your previous answer, like color is also a way to express yourself and it's also a way to understand where people are in society and also where they are in trend adaptation.

Can you elaborate that a little bit for the audience?

Cécile Poignant: So I must say that thank you so much for seeing me as one of the first, but there was maybe one generation before me that is maybe,

well, a bit less well known because of course, obviously at that time, I mean, we didn't have that much Internet and social networks and everything like that. But it started in France with two women, Maimie Arnauda and Denise Fayol.

And I can give you a reference of a book, so it's in French, but it's interesting. So those two women had been putting the. Inventing all the job that I'm still doing today.

So I'm parroting from them. And things have changed a lot since when I started to do that job. And now I would say that maybe the two things that are really the deepest point of change are speediness and the level of noise.

So I would say that, for instance, when I started to do that job, something like 35 years ago we needed to go and get the information. At that time it's difficult to imagine, but it was very difficult to know what was happening in London.

I was living in Paris at that time, so there was no Eurostar. So the, I mean you could just take a boat or a plane that was quite expensive.

And so the other solution was really to find in the city a small indie bookshops that were selling, you know, good London magazines coming from London. So it means that the idea of looking for the information is, was that it took you time and also you could not have so much information.

So now I would say that the very big change today is that you don't need to go for the information. The information is coming to you, but the information is coming in a very huge quantity.

So it means that you have a lot of noises, really a lot, a lot of information, a lot of misinformation, a lot of non important, a lot of non relevant.

So it means that today the talent of a trend forecaster is very much risky relation. At the beginning it was with curation, but it was also with being able to find.

So this is, this is the one thing, the second thing which is linked to it, it's the idea of speedness. It means that today if you open and consider TikTok on TikTok you have one trend about every, well two days or three days.

I mean we have a level and a quantity of what people call trends. I would not call them trends, but never mind. So you have a quantity of things at a level of speedness that is not really human.

This is why we all have problem with that.

So these are the main difference and what also appears between all those years of course is the power of Internet good and bad. It's also the power of socials good and bad.

So quantity, speedness and the fact that I would say I started to be a trend forecaster when trends were not trendy. Now trend are super trendy, maybe a bit too trendy.

So this is also the difference and what I need very often to explain when I'm starting to explain what I'm do. The job that I'm doing is that I'm very interested and very focused on long term trends.

And so those are not just like the new, I don't know the new color that is going to be the color of 2025 which will not be anymore the color of 2026.

I'm more interested into the way people are living. What does it mean the direction in which they are going,

the Huge. Maybe questions they are asking themselves, you know, and not just if we're going to have orange in our house or if we're going to have, I don't know, tweed cushions and not denim cushions, you know, so.

But I mean, so you have different kind of trends, you know, but you know that better than me. You have things that are lasting for years and then you have really just flash, you know, that are just there for, I don't know, for fun or for just couple of months and.

And they are gone. So it depends at what level you are more interested of focusing.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, I think this is very important because just like you said, there's so much information and I think sometimes consumers and also companies and brands, they're confused.

Cécile Poignant: Sure.

Judith van Vliet: There's too much happening. And it's our job to filter what is the good trend for them, because not all trends work for everybody. And this is something I think a lot of people need to understand.

Cécile Poignant: Yeah, you're right. Exactly. I mean, our job is really, I would say more than ever is really to make a curation. So to map the possibilities and then to select. I mean, if you don't do your job well, then your clients is getting, you know,

the client don't know what to do. So you need to help people. You don't need to put people in a kind of loop of questions. So it means that depending on the company, depending on the market, depending on many different things, you going, you or me, we going to select what is right,

what is interesting, what is relevant, and we're not going to show all of it. You know,

it's a question of, I think also somehow it's a question of being more professional, being more respectful to your clients.

To my opinion, if you come to a client with something like, I don't know, 25 trans, you're going to lose them. They're going to be, you know, lost completely. And this is the feeling you don't want a client to have.

I mean, today business is already very difficult. So if people like you or me, we bringing more questions than answers. That's not good.

Judith van Vliet: It's like going to a restaurant that has like a wine cart or a menu with, I don't know, 30 pages. I always ask, please give me what's fresh, what's your day?

You know, what do you recommend? Because also when I'm going somewhere, I'm focused on the conversation, I'm focused on the experience. It's the same for brands. They want an almost ready solution.

They don't want your book with 400 colors of the whole rainbow.

Cécile Poignant: Yeah, sure. Because I mean, you know, for about every business now, you have a professional fair. Sometimes you have even multiple professional fair because you have them in different big cities.

So I mean, if clients want to have global information, they go to those kind of fairs where they see everything. But this is not made for them, it's made globally.

So the things that. If you have someone that is asking for help, I guess that the minimum we can do is to give them help and select and choose and recommend and explain as well.

I think a large part of the job we are doing for me it's also very much about education and explanation. So why this? Why now? Why is it important? You know, you need, you can't take for granted that what you or me understand and think is, okay, that's obviously we do that.

No, okay, that's my point of view. But then I need to come with explanation with some kind of a kind of rationality or also, you know, because like I said at the beginning, yeah, colors are for me, the next move in color for me is really in mental health and in,

in mood, in, in neuro. Aesthetic and all that things. Okay. But anyway, I need to explain, I need to justify, I need to, I need to come with good reason.

Not just, oh, I like it, that's really not good.

Judith van Vliet: That's a far, far moment in the past that we could just do that. Part of your job obviously is to analyze behavior, which is quite subjective because every person has different behaviors.

But how do you do this analysis of behavior? You just talk that you look at how people are dressed in the street, for example, what they do in the interiors and what that says about them, what are.

So how do you do this? And what are also perhaps the best moments to this? Is it, you know, sitting at a cafe in Paris, people.

Cécile Poignant: Yeah, I would say that the best moment is, is. Is all the day, is during all the day. Because I guess that it depends really what you're looking for signals. But for me, I'm really interested in a lot of things.

I'm. I'm working for companies doing food designs, beauty, perfume, hair product, fashion,

car. So I'm really interested, I would say at large. So I think if you, if you for instance, are looking for what the vast majority of people are consuming, then my, my suggestion would be to go to public transportation.

It's always very interesting to see what people are doing in transport. You know, how they are dressed, what kind of shoes, what kind of hair combs, you know, do they do they.

Do they have devices? What kind of devices? Are they still reading books or just, you know, I don't know, Kindle or on their phone? What color? When you see, you know, when you are in the metro in Paris and you see, obviously in Paris, globally, the metro is very black.

But I mean, it's interesting, you know, to go to public transportation. Then it might be also, if you're looking for mass direction, go to supermarkets. That's also very interesting. Then I would say for myself,

yeah, I'm really interested into. I think this is one of the things that we know very well how to do in Paris is to sit down in terrace and watch people walking in the street.

And that's really very interesting. If you sit with intention, not just, you know, looking at people, but intention. So you see, wow, so many people have dogs now, you know.

Yeah,

the dog market, the pet market, you know, it's a huge market.

So you really have an intention looking at how many people are doing cycling. Okay, so what does it mean if I'm a woman wearing a skirt or a dress and if I do have a bicycle, you know, so you're looking with intention.

So I would say that I'm really always happy to look at the street. I'm always also happy I'm lucky enough to teach or to share with students. I think it's very interesting because it's people between their 20, 25.

It's a very interesting age where a lot of things are possible. But also you are very much inhabited by the zeitgeist,

what we call in French, l'air du temps. You are really l'air du temps. So I think this is. It's always very interesting to have access to this generation.

And then depending on the research I'm going to do, I might go to department store, to indie stores, to coffee stores, to also.

How do you say that in English? Bricolage. You know, stores where you can buy. Yeah, a lot of stuff, you know, to DIY your house. I spend also a lot of time, unfortunately on socials.

I think it's interesting to see also what is trending, like more and more people,

young people doing crochet, young people going on offline retreat, trying to avoid connections with socials. People are starting to speak about buying an old phone. Just a phone, not a smartphone, just a phone.

So TikTok is also a place where you can find a lot of things, but it's a loop, you know, it's like in Alice in Wonderland. So be careful.

I didn't install TikTok on my phone because I knew that that was not good for me. So just for research.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, the thing.

Cécile Poignant: So these are observation, you know, these are things that you see. And then a large part of the job I do is also a lot of desk research which means also looking for papers, looking for thesis, looking for books, looking for.

I don't analysis of people so that you can read. And I mean I'm very interested to everything that is images and that I can see by myself. But I mean taking time to read is also very important.

And the third thing is also interviewing experts, people that have expertise that I don't have depending on the project. So I think with those three things like what I can see by my own eyes, what I can read and analyze and the knowledge that I can have with interviewing or speaking with experts,

for me this is how I do it.

Judith van Vliet: You talk a lot about weak signals because this is, I think the whole observation, like you said, with intention is to look for weak signals and see if they can possibly in.

We work with multiple future scenarios, of course, how they can become something bigger. Can you give us an example of what, what has happened that you saw as starting very small and then you know, got, got, got really important.

Cécile Poignant: Okay, so maybe, maybe I can speak of what I'm seeing. Actually that is not completely there but where you have, you know, little like beginning of flowers. So I would say that for me is the rise of how could I call that healing dressing.

The fact that your own wardrobe is giving you power and good emotion. I think the future is going to be really very much focused on wellness and also on mental health.

So this is for me linked to mental health. So we have a lot of people that are now studying science and said that depending on the color you don't have the same response.

Have been doing some research about beauty brand and I saw some young startup beauty brands that are launching beauty products that are related to mood, like mood boosting product for beauty.

So it's not just herbal tea because before it was herbal tea or essential oil. Now we have it with beauty and I think for me next step is that we're going to have it also with wardrobe.

And I think this is also one of the signal the fact that I see now a full silhouette of white, you know, white off white mixed together. Before it was only that kind of silhouette in black.

Now it's in white and obviously you are, you know, color like me. So when you are dressed in white, the feeling you have, the emotion you have, not only the energy that you are giving to others, but just the energy that you have yourself is not the same.

So for me, this is a kind of weak signal that there will be something like, I don't know, dopamine, fashion, healing, dressing, something that, yeah, we going to be dressed according to our moods.

We going to have products like beauty products that are going to bring us something a bit, I don't know,

energizing or something boosting or on the opposite, something that put us on a more calm down and more, you know, somehow cool mood. So I think for me this, this is for, for instance, something that is rising.

Judith van Vliet: I think we are already also starting to see it in interior design. You know, interior interiors that have certain colors that either energize or calm us down. Because we need that emotional well being, especially at home.

Because outside it's chaos, inside, we need to, you know, slow down.

Cécile Poignant: Exactly. That's why I think, like you said, we see it at home, but we see it also on the people. That's why I'm speaking about beauty things that you put on your face or on your skin, fabric, I mean, clothing that you put on your body.

So it's like this is also the way of having your own kind of small,

you know, bevel with which you can go outside in the world where it's not nice. But I mean, you have your beauty mood boosting product and you have your fabric and your garments that are giving you the same kind of,

yeah, maybe a kind of feeling of being more secure, you know, being more calm, being more protected.

So I think this is, for me, this is something that is going to be more and more present in the future.

Judith van Vliet: You do a lot of research in culinary design, which I think is also another. It's another thing that makes us feel good. It's food. I mean, who doesn't feel better when they've had a certain dish?

It pops up a lot. When I look at your work and your research, talk us a little bit about the terminology of culinary design.

Cécile Poignant: I think I need first to, to speak just one minute about food. I think food is really something that is like, we know if we try to come back to who we are as animals.

So food is essential.

If you are lucky enough, you buy food twice a day. I mean, to have lunch and dinner. Food is linked to, about everything, to economy, to sociology, to heritage, to agriculture, to savoir faire, to sustainability.

So I think food is very interesting in the way that is something we need to have twice a day if we have enough money. And that is linked with. About everything we do, with history, with nationality, with preferences, you know.

So I would say that culinary design, it's the idea that we are at the fusion of the food esthetic, the function and the experience.

So saying like, okay, food is obviously something that we need to have twice a day, but it can bring much more than that, much more than just give me a piece of bread, more intention.

What kind of bread? What is the size of the slice? How do you present the slice? So it's really about food being like a kind of message, bringing stories, bringing ideas, feelings in a much more conscious way, you know, because there are many things that we don't do with.

With conscience, you know, like very often we are in a hurry in the morning, so we dress up very quickly, we drink a coffee very quickly. We don't really have the time to.

To enjoy, to understand, to look at it, to understand it. So the idea of culinary design for me, because maybe someone will. Will describe it differently, is. Is really the idea of the aesthetic, the function and the experience together.

So it's. It's something like one world.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah. It seems again that it's again intentional, you know, it's just word that I keep, you know, when I. When the more you speak, it's all about intention,

you know, and to do something. And also in the end, mindfulness, it's not about nutrition, it's about enjoying, enjoying it and being fully present in something that literally is a beautiful experience to have for, again, as you said, for those obviously who can afford to have two, three and hopefully more meals in a day.

But it is, it's interesting how indeed culinary design is so much more than just getting your energy inside.

Cécile Poignant: Yeah. And I have an example that I really like. It's a restaurant that is called Silo. It's in London. It's the first Zero west restaurant restaurant before it was in Brighton.

Then it moves a couple of years ago into. Into London. The idea of a Zero west restaurant for me is very. It's mindful once again. So the chef that is behind this restaurant is called Douglas McMaster.

And he decided a couple of years ago when he was back in Brighton after some travel, to have to do things with intention. So Zero Waste restaurant means that you don't have a bin in your restaurant, means that you're going to use all the part of the vegetable or the part of the animal,

that maybe you going to use the. I mean, some part to do some compost, maybe some other parts to be just the soil for mushrooms, you know. So the idea, what's happening in nature, you know, because this is exactly what is happening in nature.

It's zero waste. So if you are in a forest in spring, then you have leaves, then in autumn they fall down. Then after a while they just got back to the earth and they give nourishment to the tree that is going to be in full bloom in spring.

So I think this is very much with intention. And I think he. So Douglas McMaster started that, I think more than 12 years or 13 years ago. And it started.

The movement is starting. But I think it can even be maybe empowered by also the use of A.I. you know, maybe that could be helpful for people to really understand how to recycle, upcycle things.

It's also a question of zero waste. It's also, if you want to go there, it's also about thinking about what is the size of the plate you are bringing to customer.

You know, sometimes you go to restaurant and they give you too much food and you can't have it all, you know, so it's also a question of. And maybe this is also where technology can help, you know, being sure that, I mean, you are really serving the good quantity of,

I don't know, rice, vegetables and so on. So I think for me,

food is like an interface. You know, food is like something to help to do something else. And we are seeing, in the food at large, we are seeing more people that are trying to find to design more mindful experience.

And not just experience, you know, with light and sound and a nice decor, but something that is more mindful. And for me, the feeling I have about the future of restaurant is that, okay, now restaurants are not just a place where you can eat.

It's the place where you can have experience. But I think the future is really to go back to the idea that restaurants is also about community.

How can you bring back the whole idea of community in restaurants?

So, yeah, I think food for me is like a vehicle that is, you know, that we use twice a day. And that can bring up so many stories about. You can speak with it about technology, you can speak with food about sustainability.

You can speak with food about cultural heritage. I mean, you have all the subjects.

Judith van Vliet: No, that's very true. Even the cultural heritage part is so interesting. When we look at where heritage foods come from, there's so many banks now, you know, the seed banks that are trying to recover all those important seeds that we're losing that are going extinct.

I mean, there's even. For the future of food is so Important. And I mean, this could even be called a trend, you know, the heritage.

Cécile Poignant: Yeah, it is, it is important because I mean, our food system globally, on earth rely now on really a few pieces, you know, just a few pieces. And that's very quite dangerous.

And before, we also used to have the same species with different variation according to the land, to the exposure and so on. So we need to go back to that, you know, to have more variation, because if one have a trouble or a predator or whatever, we need to be able to have the others as solution.

And also I would say that what is interesting, for instance, in food actually, is that we have a lot of invasion. I don't know if it's positive or negative, but it's just that from time to time we have a lot of something that is just coming there, you know,

and there are some chef now that are saying that we should. They should work with that, you know, if there is an invasion of plant or animals in the rivers or a certain kind of fish or, I don't know, calamaris, whatever.

Okay, you have an invasion, so you should work with the invasive species and not say, oh, we don't want it. No, we do want it. It's protein, you know, so.

So I think it's. It's really a question of mindset, like you said, intent, intention, mindset. How do you see things?

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, do you see a weak signal in this moment in the food and design industry? I mean, the connection between food and design that you like to share with the audience and you think is going to grow?

Cécile Poignant: Yeah, I think everything that is around fermentation is really. Fermentation is something that is super important in food because this means cheese, bread, wine, I mean, so many things. Coffee, chocolate, and okay, kombucha too, but I mean so many of things.

So I think fermentation is really something that started to be quite trendy right now because people realize that it's good for the gut, your gut system, your bacteria system. And we know that the gut is linked to the mental health, so it brings back to mental health.

But let's keep this idea of fermentation. So now we are aware that fermentation is not something dirty or bad, but it's something that is really helping us as animals. So it means that you have, for instance, people now that are buying very expensive koji kit, you know, to grow it at home or to do your own miso or things like that,

but very expensive. So from time for. For some people, it's just like status symbol. You Know, so I have enough money so I can have my koji kids. Really like this is my new, you know, my new status symbol.

It's not, it's not to have a designer chair but it's to have that. So and we see that for me, fermentation is also linked to everything that is like mushroom.

You know, everything that is a bit under the soil, it's a bit like fermentation. We don't want to see it because we think that it's, it's not clean. And we are seeing that with mushroom there are so many materials that are, you know, it's, it's not perfect, it's.

But so many people are, so many designers are working on mushroom based material for leather, for packaging and they are also entering kitchen. So I think there is something that is interesting about this idea of neo fermentation, about this idea of mycophilia.

I mean the love for mushroom, you know. So I think this is for me something.

And the connection for me is with material.

I'm very fascinated with materials. I would say that for me a lot of the future is really on materials. The capacity, the sustainability.

I mean we are relying on materials. So we need new materials. We have the old one, but we don't have enough or they are in very bad condition. So we need to find solutions.

I mean, when we look around us, we have plastic everywhere and we know that it's not possible. Look at me, I have plastic here, I have plastic there already. You just have my head, you know, so it's insane.

So we need to find solutions. So I would say that for me, what I see linked between food and between material and design. It's the idea of things that are a bit in the shadow, in the soil that were before not supposed to be so clean that now are seen as more positive.

So it's the idea to, it's to go back to see what is in the shadow, what is under the soul. Accept some kind of natural process like fermentation that are very.

It is super powerful. It is super helpful for us to digest things.

So I have the feeling that there is something organic, you know, that is there. And that could mean also that if you think about shape, in design, in interior, we're going back to something that is more organic.

So for me this is something interesting.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, yeah, it's interesting how it is. It's all natural, it's organic, it is also grow it yourself.

Cécile Poignant: Yeah.

Judith van Vliet: You know, in whether it's your food, whether it's your material, it is not Depleting earth. It's not only taking, taking, it's also giving back. And what I hear again is health because fermentation in the end, just like color, just like how we dress, how we feel, it again comes back to feeling better.

Cécile Poignant: I think this is, this is what we are all looking for. And I guess also that we are living in a time that is we have polycrisis, which means that about every, I don't know, every week or every two weeks there is something new.

So it's a never ending situation. And I guess that it won't be ending.

So we have to get used to it. But it's very difficult.

And I think also this happened just after the lockdown of COVID 19, which was also very difficult.

So what we are realizing is that the vast majority, a large quantity of people have mental health problem.

I mean people with money, I mean you have also unfortunately people with no money and no food and no shelter and no interior design. But when we see unfortunate people, the vast majority of people got mental health problem.

And it's not. There are two things. You know, I would say that the lockdown was really difficult for the young people. It was really tough. Had been working with students at that time.

I mean that was really very difficult. And I think they, they were somehow marked. You know, it's like, it's like, it's like a war. It's like a time that is so, you know,

so I guess that this push more people to have more mental health problem. Then there was this idea of after the me too, the starting of the me too moment, people started also to be more talkative about the problems they might have.

So it was more possible for more people to speak loudly in public about the mental health issue. And I think globally, the way we live, with no connection with nature, with so many people on burnout,

so many young people with problem, you know, I mean, this is, this is for me,

like you said. Yeah, for me everything is going back to feeling well, to health.

Because this is also the way for us to be maintained in life and to. If you are in, in good health and if you have, if you are in good mood, then it means that you can enjoy a coffee in the sand, you can have fun by redecorating your place.

You can enjoy to, I don't know, swap with friends your dresses for another one or you can enjoy to do some DIY activity. But for all of that you need to be in good health and in a good mood.

Judith van Vliet: Yep. No, exactly.

When I look at Forecasting in general, I think trend forecasting is getting a little bit of a nasty name because it is pushing market pushing products. You talk a lot about ethical forecasting,

you talk a little bit about that. And what does it mean for people like us? You know, what is the future of our profession? In the end?

Cécile Poignant: I think the future is for me,

I mean this is my feeling, I'm not talking at large, but for me I believe that the thing is very much about education and explanation.

I think today I don't like very much the word trend anymore because I think now we have arrived to kind of ultra fast trend forecasting system which is not even more about looking for trends, it's about provoking them.

Which is exactly what trend forecasting is not. You know, we are not provoking trends, we are watching the possibility and selecting the good, the good roads.

So I think we are, I mean as trend forecaster we are just a reflect of a global system that is getting insane.

I mean the fact that we are producing too much things we don't need, we don't have the money to pay for.

We all have seen images of the fast fashion garments in Atacama dessert or in Ghana. This is not sustainable, this is not possible. The earth cannot, we can't do that with the earth.

We know also perfectly that the Earth does not need us. You know, if we get rid of Earth, okay, the earth will still be there, but we won't. So we are just, you know,

it's insane because we are destroying the only planet we have which is somehow a kind of miracle.

When it's springtime and you see a flower blooming, you see a trees going back to be green, that's such a miracle. So I think somehow our job was very different.

Maybe 10, 20 years, 30 years ago. I would say today that we need to slow down,

we really need,

there is no other way to do things. We cannot keep doing it at that rhythm. So I mean for me it's about education with the clients explanation.

Maybe you don't need so many new references. Maybe just one is cool, you know, maybe it's in the way we going to do the display that it's going to change everything.

We don't need maybe another fashion designer, maybe we need more stylists, people that can imagine, you know, like we used to do it, I don't know, 20 years ago by buying stuff on flea market when vintage was not even a word, it was just for cars, but not for garments.

So I mean maybe we,

for me the future of trend Forecasting is really about slowing down, about trying to educate with positive, with bienvence,

with respect. Our clients trying to explain why we need to slow down, why they need to slow down as well. And I think if there are things that we should have a very close look.

And I think this could be really the explanation, a solution. It's the idea of biomimetism, you know, the idea to look at nature. Nature is an open field of research and developments working for millions years, you know, and when I explain you something very simple about the dead leaf,

you know, of a tree and the dead leaves are going to be the nourishment for the future leaves, no next spring. This is exactly the zero waste system.

So it means that we need to be more humble. I think the way we are doing things is very arrogant and with a lot of domination. I think this is not possible anymore.

It's not an option.

We really need to change and we really need to educate, to explain and to look at nature really deeply, to be sustainable.

For me. So it means that people are still going to look for advices from people like you or me,

but maybe with a bit of less references, less colors, less motif, less possibility,

be more humble.

For me this is. And maybe also we all need to go back to have more small businesses, you know, a lot of baker shop instead of one big baker shop in a supermarket, A lot of small bookshop instead of Amazon.

That would be so awesome, you know, bookstore where you can come speak with someone, you know, I mean, I'm fed up of doing things with machine, you know,

I'm taking my train ticket online, I'm buying my coffee machine at a vending machine. I'm, I'm. This is not okay. I mean, I'm happy to ask for my coffee to someone, you know.

So I think we, we, we, we, we need maybe to, I mean before, not everything was perfect, that's for sure. We had been making a lot of progress in terms of, I don't know, medicine, a lot of things.

But maybe we need to go back to having more connection with people, more connection with nature. We having,

we have been putting ourselves on a kind of, I don't know, a lonely island, you know, with no trees, with no other people. I mean, that's why we are so unhappy also.

This is also one of the reason, you know, I mean, it's nice just to say, oh, it's sunny today. Oh yes, it's sunny. Okay, have a good day. That's nice, you know.

Judith van Vliet: Yeah, exactly.

Hopefully we will be all, be able to use trends again in a positive way,

in a way to slow down and to again use them with more intention. I think that is that's what my my giveaway is is from this podcast with you. Cecile Poignant thank you so much.

Cécile Poignant: It was a pleasure to discuss with you. Judith.

Judith van Vliet: Thank you for listening to another podcast of the Color Authority. I hope you enjoyed it. Please rate, comment and feedback the show. This is now a beautiful option on most podcast directories.

On most podcast directories. So on most podcast directories. So let us know what you think and next month we will come back to you with another colorful episode.