Like a certain white rabbit, fashion always seems to be running late, late, for a very important date. If the major glossies are anything to go by, hemlines are up one month, down the next. Colour right now is cool. Then - bam! - you can bet your Gucci boots it will be 'back to black' before you know it. If the pace seems breakneck, imagine doing it for a living. Imagine Li Edelkoort.

For ten years now, Edelkoort's Paris-based Trend Union has kept its fingers firmly on fashion's erratic pulse. Combining insider know-how with a big dose of instinct, she tells the trade what will be happening in fabric and form for the seasons to come. Major retailers, cosmetic companies and design studios can be spotted at Li's exclusive twice-yearly in-house presentations. At the trade-only fabric fair, Premiere Vision, at which most designers buy the material for their collections, her audiovisual presentation has queues forming outside. Her limited edition Trend Books are snapped up by the corporate or the very rich, but since 1992 her biannual magazine, View On Colour, has brought the Edelkoort oracle to a broader public.

"The consumer," insists Edelkoort, "is going on strike!" Tired of endless change and limitless choice, it is time, she says, to get back to essentials. Taking monochromatics as her Winter 1997 theme, she urges us to all take a deep breath and focus. In a visually-cluttered world, monochromes will put us on the path of stylish righteousness. And more than a few will be following Li Edelkoort's lead...

Lumière:
Li, sometimes the line between trend prediction and trend creation seems very fine. When Trend Union declares that there will be more dry or 'burn-out' fabrics don't people go off and look for them, or create them, in anticipation of a new trend?

Li Edelkoort:
But we can only predict. Prediction forecasting is not a creative job, we are more like an electrical cord - we take the message and bring it down. What makes us creative is the way we present the prediction. Having the idea is not, in itself, creative. This is true not just in our trade, but in every discipline. Especially in art. Too many artists think that the idea is the art, but you see the same idea everywhere. It's more the way somebody handles the idea that makes art.

It is something of an art, however, to announce these coming trends faster than anybody else...

Sometimes we are in rather early. We have been known to be occasionally too early. But, then again, perhaps 'too early' really doesn't exist. If I capture signs of something happening, then it's there already. I don't invent it.

It always surprises me when you make big statements like 'We feel Helmut Lang will start to use burn-out fabrics' or that 'dryness' will be a new trend...

Well, you were just telling me that at Helmut's show the models had 'brittle' hair...For some time I have been analyzing where he is going. I see that he is moving away from shine, that he's going towards very matte, almost cardboard- like materials.

Helmut is, in a sense, an easy one to follow, because his trajectory is a succession of logical steps. But other people are more difficult...

I'm not really so interested in predicting what individual designers are going to do. I'm more interested in the general silhouette and the colour and movement of the textiles. So, whether or not there is an influential designer is interesting to us, but not of major importance, because what makes change is a sort of general move accepted by a larger group. Of course, every period has its more influential designers. When we're in a very romantic, baroque mood, it will be somebody like Lacroix. And now it's somebody like Lang or Prada.

Can we talk about what you refer to as 'the Prada principle'?

(Laughs) We should. I think that for the past 3 or 4 years Prada have been drawing attention to themselves by giving fashion a very modernistic slant, which wasn't originally so strong. They redefined shape, and had some solid ideas about cut and different fabrics. When they began to use baggage nylon in clothing they hit a nerve in designers and fashion people all over the world. So much so that I have never seen such a copy-wave sweep through fashion! This winter you can already see a lot of copies, but I know that by next summer there are going to be even more. I see that there is going to be a little problem of over-production of the same idea. And I feel very unhappy that I am in a trade where people are driven to be only copiers. I can tell you that in all the great design studios of the world there are clothes by everybody else.

In terms of influence, Prada, Lang and Jil Sander are the kind of three-headed beast of fashion right now..

True. In most collections there are a lot of reminders of those designers' last 2 or 3 seasons' shows. That's okay, but what's really boring is the absolute lack of variation. Pockets don't have to be on the bias; skirts do come in other lengths besides mid-thigh. There are other colour nylons besides black. Even other nylon weaves, no? That's what is bothering me. If you want to be inspired, that's okay. But learn from them, and mix in new ways.

Is this simply a question of economics? Following the established trend is, after all, a more assured way of making money.

Maybe it is. At the moment there is even a lot of collections theft. Like Lacroix's collection which was recently stolen in London. The right look is becoming as precious as gold. If you have the right shapes quickly enough, there's money to be made. I've never seen this happen in this way before.

Do you ever feel sorry for the consumer? Some of the current clothing looks great in the editorial pages, but can be a nightmare to wear.

I don't think the consumer at large is ready to suffer. So they will buy things which point in the current direction, but without going for the real thing or total look. If I feel sorry for the consumer it's because right now it's so hard for them to find out what is going on. There are very few magazines which actually give the keys to a season - what it means to be in or out of fashion. It's a matter of proportion, the right items, the right way to put it together. If you look at the fashion editors at the shows this season, they have never been so underdressed! They are mostly in t-shirts and jeans. They have spent a fortune on their shoes and bag and then they have tussled hair and no make-up, or at least no-makeup-look makeup.

What does this mean? A return to quality basics?

It's sort of a search for minimalism, which is typical of the 1990s. At first there was the image of naturalism and ecology, earthy basics, but now it's a much more luxurious type of minimalism. We are definitely in a new period.

Is there ever a time when you look out and see that nothing has changed?

I think that things change very very slowly. But I must say, if you look at the dominant lifestyles of today and tomorrow, then one must conclude that fashion is rather off-track. Today, people expect to take more leisure time. Young people want to work less, and are not going to organize their lives around work. They want to spend time with their kids, have more pleasure time. Given the new electronic possibilities, people will work more at home. So, one might expect that we will head into more 'soft wear' - not to be mistaken with 'home wear' or 'leisure wear'. We will still dress up, but only for ourselves. When you see the huge success of the Friday movement in Japan...

Which began in America, no?

And is now hitting Japan in a big way. In big corporations, on Fridays men can dress casually. Men don't know how to dress casually because they've been wearing suits all their lives, so they are getting all these lectures and lessons and fashion shows. In Japan, it means 9 billion yen extra turnover in the men's clothing sector. So it's also a highly economic move. But it also indicates how bizarre this current fashion moment is, because it reflects little of the way society is really heading. In the past, fashion was always a dominant describer of what was happening at a particular time, but right now it is like a sort of dream world, disconnected from reality. A lot of the current fashion is still about showing off, and in no way reflects the things we (at Studio Edelkoort) are capturing about the way people actually want to live.

It was strange to see Lacroix this season. After the first few passages, people started to look dazed, rather than dazzled, by all that glitter...

Yes, but there is a permanent clientele for that sort of taste. That is why people like Kenzo and (Lacroix's second label) Bazar - and there's something really fresh! - continue. At all price levels there is a permanent fancy fashion client. But Lacroix knows very well how to do pared-down, the problem is that people don't expect that of him. Many designers become prisoners of their own style. If Gaultier doesn't do prints, people won't like the collection. Thierry Mugler sometimes steps out beyond his own style, but then he doesn't sell. They are trapped in their image.

How do you relate to the fashion magazines, and their treatment of new trends, for instance, the recent 'Mod' frenzy?

We've been speaking about that move for a long time, but we never called it 'mod' because that would be too much like pin-pointing the styling. It's more a styling question than a true concern for the garment. If you didn't have the time or the inclination to make a series of shots with a fisheye lens, it could look like any sort of tailored outfit of the past 6 years. You see? But we try to not toy too much with anecdote. We try to open up the doors of perception.

Where does your inspiration actually come from?

From everyday. It can be virtually everything, and is therefore quite difficult to pinpoint. One never knows where it will be.

In your introduction to the current issue of View On Colour, you say 'forget about age groups, income groups, style groups...just rely on your intuition...' Do you think that fashion has been overworked, over-theorized?

All markets - not just fashion - have been over-theorized. Marketing has taken on so much power that very big disasters sometimes occur. Marketing is no longer forward-looking, since the people doing marketing nowadays are often those same people who were traditionally scared of the future.We feel that at this time, regardless of income or age bracket, you can find more-or-less the same mentality. You express your mentality in your own way, but there's a correlation. There's a correlation between Agnès b, APC, Jil Sander and Hermès. They have different clients, different budgets, but for the consumers it's about reputation and talent. If you look at the brands which work, they are the brands that have a definite point of view.

Such as?

Such as Agnès b. In fact, almost all luxury houses have done extremely well over the last few years. Hermès, Gucci and Prada have really become leaders in their rank.

Because they held the conviction of their own beliefs?

Yes. They believe very much in their own philosophy, and they don't even feel that they are particularly in competition with each other. They are like sports people...like really good sailors who admire the one who arrives first, but are more concerned to be sailing well.

Hermès sales, for instance, were up incredibly in the last quarter.

They all weathered the recession best, these houses, because people go for quality. These houses refused to compromise on their quality or price, and ultimately they won. They focused on their strong points, rather than trying to madly do everything. To leave things out is as important - and as difficult - as it is to add them.

Does this go for collections in general?

I like small collections. You don't need to see that much, as long as you can find the right things. I think there is this extraordinary cacophony right now.

Certainly the fashion press has a lot to do with that. Each month is meant to be the absolute best next thing. Obviously, they are out to make the biggest impression possible. What do you think of the fashion press? Obviously you consume quite a lot...

Yes, but we have to. If I were just a consumer, maybe I wouldn't. I think the fashion press has been in great trouble but it has recently begun to regain some ground. Since the start of this season, I feel a revived interest. Although last summer I didn't like the way women were being depicted as silly little housewives or naughty children. I don't see why every single magazine in the world should make pictures in a supermarket. Okay, there is a lot of plastic and fluro colour, but there must be new ways of looking at it. It's the same as in fashion design, so much in photography is copied from famous photographic portfolios of different periods.

We've theorized that as symptomatic of postmodernism, but do you think we still have the ability to create new things?

I think we do. There is bound to be a quotation somewhere, but if you look at art, artists use quotations but rework them. You can always add something contemporary to the citation. But in fashion, it is often citation, full stop. The world is changing fast, but I feel that certain sectors outside of fashion are much more eager to learn how to cope with these changing ways of living.

Photography Enrique Badulescu, Dolores Marat, Erwin Olaf, Serge Paulet, Paolo Roversi, F. Sueur, Marcel Van Der Vlugt, Lon Van Keulen.

All images published courtesy of United Publishers S.A.

Copyright © 1995, Lumiere. All Rights Reserved.