At the turn of 2020 and 2021, all discussions about an uncertain and unpredictable future – not just in design – were shaped by one global trend: SARS-CoV-2. This ominous slogan became synonymous with cancelled trade fairs, closed shops, frozen economic activity, travel restrictions, and limited purchasing decisions. From the perspective of manufacturers, designers, and jewellery makers – a product highly sensitive to economic fluctuations – it was a year of revising many business strategies, reassessing values, and experiencing plot twists, and at times, a struggle for survival.
It is difficult to determine today how profound – but more importantly – how irreversible the effects and consequences of the pandemic will prove to be. Scientists, analysts, and futurologists compete daily with forecasts and speculations about possible paths of development in the post-covid reality. The spectrum of opinions ranges from statements that „nothing will ever be the same as it was before” to the view that apart from a few minor things, „everything will return to the earlier norm, only more so.” One thing we can be completely sure of – the atavistic need for human contact will not be entirely replaced by its indirect/digital substitute, although some foreign-sounding IT solutions – matchmaking, webinars, home office – will become a permanent addition to professional routine in almost every field, especially in the creative industries.
The sphere of education is the plane of social experiment where the „hybridisation” of communication methods has occurred most rapidly. If anyone at the beginning of 2020 had tried to convince the academic community that it was possible to study design through e-learning, we would have considered it acceptable at most as a supplementary form. Yet, we have now been practicing the online education model at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk for the third semester – with increasingly better results (including recruitment and diploma procedures). In the field of design, in particular – with the use of increasingly intuitive software and increasingly accessible 3D printing technologies – this is not impossible, though of course nothing replaces face-to-face meetings, manual work, and haptic contact with materials. We have usually boldly explored the area of CAD/CAM, and although many student projects reproduced in this year's Trend Book were created on the computer, we have tried – despite the cyclically announced „lockdowns” – to materialise them in the goldsmithing workshop in short time slots when epidemic restrictions permitted work in the studio.
Even deeper changes are occurring in the area of e-commerce, and even if their foggy and gradually increasing beginning is set in the relatively distant past (though it's hard to believe, Amazon has been around for 25 years), the current limitations associated with the pandemic have radically accelerated and intensified this process. It would seem that in the case of jewellery – an item whose essence lies in micro-scale details, perfection of craftsmanship, quality of materials used, and therefore, in short, characteristics that are not easy to properly recognise and evaluate solely indirectly using an image or digital visualisation – it would be difficult to accept a clear shift to the online sphere. However, even in the conservative goldsmithing sector, where digital innovations were adopted relatively cautiously, we can observe a surprisingly affirmative evolution of existing habits. In 2020, attempts were also made to organise large exhibitions solely online, including by the organisers of the jewellery fair in Las Vegas and the Dutch Design Week festival in Eindhoven – so far with limited, though worthy of careful observation, results.
The forced return of business activity to the virtual space, driven by the current situation, has collided with a parallel world that has long existed on Instagram, the distributed capacity of which has previously been difficult to reliably estimate. Jewellery and fashion start-ups that have settled there were treated by „analog” goldsmithing brands as a niche B2C space, usually identified with the amateur creation trend, which has long ceased to be the rule (if it ever was). The nonchalantly dismissive approach of many jewellery manufacturers to a considered social media presence – that is, where consumers from generations Y and Z exist en masse – will have to be quickly revised. Otherwise, aggressive targeting and algorithms for personalising advertisements and shopping recommendations will irreversibly establish a distorted ranking of popular original jewellery, in which product quality will increasingly be replaced by the celebrity „coolness” of its creator.
Jewellery purchases have never been a necessity, rather the first reason for saving when even the slightest sign of a downturn appears. The jewellery sector can certainly be classified within the „FILO” (first in/last out) category of business, which is the first to feel a drop in demand during a recession and the last to return to equilibrium. This regularity was clearly confirmed during the uncertainty of COVID-19, and will certainly prompt many consumers to reflect more deeply on the purpose of many purchases, including jewellery. Anticipating just such a turn of events, many manufacturers, designers, and retailers have turned their attention to timeless products, those that do not fade with seasonal trends. Moderation wins, according to the „less but better quality” philosophy. In preparing recommendations for designers, we have also been guided by the general principle of returning to the most universal criteria: functionality, quality, ethical aspects related to responsible sourcing of raw materials, and the application of circular technologies. „Personal” reasons, impulses, nostalgias, and justifications for buying jewellery are also becoming increasingly important factors (I deliberately do not use the increasingly.
When preparing a project brief that serves as a starting point for stylistic interpretations, we identified five macro-trends this year: Architectonix– a decisive nod to constructivist geometry, talisman – referring to the anthropologically oldest function of jewellery, Slowstainable – as a combination of the concepts „slow” and „sustainable” with a strong reference to the idea of sustainable design, Glitch– a pretext for the creative use of computer techniques and intertwined– An intercultural invitation to explore the jewellery traditions of past and present-day China through the necessary juxtaposition of amber and jade. The partner for this last theme is the brand: Chow Tai Fook – one of the largest jewellery companies in the world today, listed on the Hang Seng stock exchange, and boasting an impressive network of stores in locations such as Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Taiwan, China, Japan, and many other Asian countries. The fruits of the parallel work of students and graduates from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk and goldsmith artists from Hong Kong will be presented during a separate exhibition at the Loupe Gallery in the renowned PMQ Design Hub in Hong Kong. Selected prototypes will also have the opportunity to be implemented into limited production by the Chow Tai Fook company.
The state of suspension we have experienced over the last two years has also impacted the preparations for the jewellery collection launch, which this publication summarises. The usual venue for its annual presentation has always been the spring Amberif fair, which this year will take place online – as Amberif Virtual Showroom – on 24-26 June. The opening of the Trend Book 2021 exhibition will also be „hybrid” – first exclusively digital, with the actual collection launch happening in the autumn, when travel without onerous sanitary restrictions will be possible and we will be able to safely meet in Gdańsk – the World Amber Capital, celebrating unique design.
Prof. Sławomir Fijałkowski, Introduction to Trend Book 2021+
Previous editions of the Trend Book:
Trend Book 2020+
Trend Book 2019+
Trend Book 2017+
Trend Book 2016+
Trend Book 2015+
Trend Book 2014+
Trend Book 2013+
Trend Book 2012+
Trend Book 2011+