Lidewij “Li” Edelkoort doesn’t care about data. “By the time you have data, it’s too late,” says the Dutch trend forecaster, who for decades has worked with brands in the fashion industry and beyond to predict consumer tastes. “By the time you can measure it, the thing has happened. It’s no longer in the future.” Rather than rely on numbers, she says, she trusts her own curiosity, observations, conversations, and intuition to sketch a picture of where cultural forces are heading: “I try to understand currents, cast them in the right way, and connect the dots.”

Edelkoort began by simply offering her services to companies looking for an edge—selling them a glimpse of the future with enough accuracy that her roster of clients grew to include Gucci, Nike, and Coca-Cola. Her forecasts, issued twice a year and looking two years ahead, are staples of fashion offices.

Over time she began looking at design more broadly—envisioning the intertwined futures of everything from architecture to agriculture—and advocating for change. As she began to see the effects of socially and ecologically unsustainable practices in fashion bearing down, Edelkoort became an outspoken campaigner for accountability in her own industry, culminating in her 2015 Anti-Fashion Manifesto.

She is currently organizing an exhibition titled La Manufacture: A Labour of Love. The show, which opens in September in Lille, France, will look at how the changing ways that we work will influence how we live. We spoke with Edelkoort about the exhibition and what the future looks like for our homes.

The exhibition you’re working on is being called La Manufacture: A Labour of Love. Why are you thinking about labor right now?

Well, we are about to have a big problem. With the onslaught of artificial intelligence, many people are at risk of losing their jobs. Many, many, many people. Whole professions will disappear and be automated. To help people find a reason to live, we’re going to have a return to a cottage industry—basically the idea of smaller, human-scale enterprises. We will adopt completely new rhythms, take much more time, and make much less merchandise.

How will you represent that idea in the show?

We are exploring all kinds of designers who are proposing new ways of producing and making as well as developing materials. And what we see happening is that people are very interested in craft—as they have been for a long time—but they’re also interested in extending the hand with some mechanical, virtual, or other kind of tool.

For example, one designer is using insects to recycle fabrics: Moths digest a textile and leave behind a material that you can later compost. Maybe if you make it fine enough, you could 3D print it? The concept is that people will create new materials so we stop polluting the planet.

“I predict that at one point you won’t see the difference between the city and the country. They will somehow grow into each other.”
— Lidewij “Li” Edelkoort

How will a change in how we work affect how we design our homes?

The skill of building will be very different. Therefore, I think the scale and form of buildings might also change. Because of these materials, homes may look almost primal and primitive—like going back to the first day of what it is to be human.

People also will prefer not to live in cities anymore. I think there will be a lot of housing, farms, and cottage industries in rural areas. Natural space will become very coveted. Architecture then will want to blend into the landscape.

At the same time, cities will become much greener. That’s what we see in a lot of the better urban plans right now. The city will become the forest and the landscape. I predict that at one point you won’t see the difference between the city and the country. They will somehow grow into each other.

Will this mean a simpler, more austere way of living?

Well, some people will need to go to austerity first. It’s like a cleansing agent. But I’ve been alive for a long time, and I’ve seen other periods of minimalism come and go. I know that we will not give up on beauty.

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