FILE N°3 Longing for connection

We're done with perfection (no really, we are).

Jan 24, 2025

FOUR MORE DECADES OF FRESH STARTS

January always brings that ‘fresh start’ feeling1—and for me, it’s hitting even harder this year as my 40th birthday approaches. With the promise of a new year colliding with the start of a new decade, I feel more energized than ever to tackle a new phase of my business and a special project that brings together all of my favorite things. I hate to be that person who says ‘more on that later,’ but… More on that later.2

Right now I’d like to dig into my other favorite thing about January—no, it’s not the resolutions, it’s the trend reports. I love how commentators and futurists make connections between seemingly separate events or phenomena, and zoom out to see a bigger picture. Trends can be interesting in and of themselves, but I’m much more interested in analyzing what drives them. Those are the actual influences that shape our world and explain our behavior as citizens and consumers.

Since this newsletter format explores and makes sense of a single trend in each issue in a way that is relevant to creative professionals in the lifestyle industry, I'm not interested in doing a typical ‘trend round-up.’ Instead, I’m kicking off the year the way I do best—by tackling the heaviest topic I can find and turn it into something inspiring :) Let me know if I succeeded by leaving a comment or sending me a message.

( We’re all feeling nostalgic )

If there’s one thing that almost every trend report for 2025 highlighted, it’s our continued fascination with nostalgia. It has had Hollywood in a choke hold for years, with remakes (such as Top Gun: Maverick) that bring back beloved characters and themes, and new stories that are told against the backdrop of an bygone era (such as the 80’s in Netflix’ Stranger Things).

Meanwhile in the food and hospitality, old-school cooking and ingredients are restored to star status. Fine dining restaurants serve 90’s classics such as shrimp cocktail appetizers and caviar on hard-boiled eggs, and social media are making old-school gelatine go viral as hip alcoholic shots, intricate pieces of art or joy-inducing jiggling cakes. Everything is served on vintage tableware, often curated by specialist retailers and/or influencers (such as Tableware in Amsterdam, or The Oblist online).

On Pinterest, things like eclectic grandpa, coastal grandmother and granny bathrooms have been trending since 2022, inspiring moodboard upon moodboard filled with either Nancy Myers-esque or Wes Anderson-like style and interiors. In fashion, the Y2K hype is not going anywhere, and Gen Z continues to idolize and romanticize 90’s celebrity beauty and style (see Julia Roberts, Kate Moss, etc). There is simply not a single domain within lifestyle that is not heavily influenced by nostalgia.

But what does it mean

Nostalgia generally means thinking back of happy memories or simpler times, creating warm, sentimental feelings that have a positive effect on your mental health. Living through a permacrisis for the last five years, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why we need this form of escapism: nostalgia acts like a shield against the horrors and uncertainty that threaten us in reality.

But there is more to it. Consumer research company GWI notes: “As a generation, Gen Z are the most nostalgic, with 15% feeling that they’d prefer to think about the past rather than the future. Millennials aren’t much further behind at 14%, and the preference continues to taper off with age.” I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these two generations are also the ones described as expieriencing “loneliness and alienation more than other generations.”

Even more importantly than offering a temporary break from worldly problems, nostalgia creates a feeling of social connectedness by remembering meaningful relationships and shared experiences. How many times over the past year have you sent a friend a funny meme that reminds you both of something you went through? Yet how many times over the past year have you actually shared a new experience with that friend?

Feeling a bit lonely or disconnected is making us reach back for the past, because most of us were simply surrounded by more people when we were kids or young adults. In our parents’ house, at school, in clubs or cafés—we were surrounded by people all the time. And while that isn’t a guarantee for not feeling lonely, we can agree the conditions for making meaningful human connections were not bad compared to our generally more isolated lives as adults.

Aside from the fact that our society is structured so that we spend most of our time at work, within a monogamous relationship or with our (small-ish) nuclear family, there is the unprecedented convenience of technology. We no longer have to leave our home to watch movies, listen to new music or get dinner, significantly diminishing our opportunities to interact with other people. And though we may use devices to chat to friends or strangers, to ask for advice or even be in therapy, studies show that social interaction through devices is not the same as real life, face-to-face socialisation (also, this article is both insane and so telling about our current dependency on ‘social’ media).

We all know we need connection and community to feel sane, healthy and happy,3 but we struggle to find more of it in our lives, so we like to be reminded of the times when we did have it.

1. Caviar on eggs by Nicolas Misera / 2. 90’s Julia Roberts / 3. Silverware at Tableware in Amsterdam / 4. Diane Keaton in a Nancy Myers kitchen / 5. Solid Wiggles / 6. 90’s Kate Moss / 7. Vintage tableware at The Oblist / 8. Top Gun: Maverick / 9. Granny chic

( The human touch )

If you consider our hunger for real human connection as the driving force, there is another interesting trend we can link to it: the rising popularity of thrifting. Of course there are multiple reasons why consumers choose second hand: environmental concerns, aesthetic preferences, a backlash against declining quality of mass produced items, the desire to break free from current trends, or even the desire to play into current trends.

But I think another reason is that the way we shop for second-hand things usually brings us in closer connection to other human beings—whether it’s through the conversation with the previous owner of the item on apps like Vinted, or with the shop keeper at the local thrift shop. Platforms such as Vestiaire Collective are streamlining and de-personalizing the process of shopping second hand, but most of it still takes place offline and/or person-to-person4. It’s a completely different experience from grabbing something off a rack or shelf, especially now that the high street increasingly introduces self check-outs, often eliminating interaction with shop assistants altogether.

Perhaps even more powerfully, thrifting makes us feel that we are part of a community. We are taking home things that have lived with another person, and our money is going directly to that person, or to a shopkeeper who thoughtfully curated the item, or to a charitable organisation that pours the money straight into projects that benefit their local community. For those with a more conceptual relationship with the earth and less driven by ecological motivations, shopping second hand does reinforce a very close connection to our shared humanity.

Perfectly imperfect

What we are looking for while thrifting, is not just a good deal. It’s something that stands out, that has a personality, that is ‘different’. Algorithms already made so much of our culture look, feel and sound the same, and now artificial intelligence is taking it a step further. Everywhere we look, there is more of the same—everything optimized, everything standardized. But we can’t relate to perfection: it alienates us because human beings are not perfect, they make mistakes—and that’s what makes them relatable.

That’s why we’re quick to criticize things that border on perfection as ‘too good to be true’. At least some of the backlash against Meghan Markle’s new lifestyle show on Netflix is proof of this5. It’s ironic, because Markle’s team is promoting the show as ‘Meghan at her most relatable’, and the show’s topic of ‘hosting friends and having deep conversations’ is in itself all about human connection. However, if the setting and circumstances are too polished, too perfect, all these efforts to create something meaningful will feel fake or forced.

It’s a shame, because it’s a topic with so much potential. WGSN’s trend report around the holidays says Gen Z is in ‘their hosting era’. It’s so beautiful to see this generation turn away from the digital innovations that lack humanity: ditching dating apps in favor of meeting people through friends; embracing the dumbphone to reduce screentime and be more present; even making board games come back (table top gaming is now a $27 billion industry). They realize that for all the good things technological innovation has brought us over the past two decades, there’s also a lot we lost along the way.

So, of course we are rediscovering the joys of hosting friends, throwing parties and enjoying deep, offline conversation. Of course we’re looking for inspiration to make it fun, but we’re also mostly looking for ways to make it ‘feel like us’. Having friends over can be a performance (doing it for the ‘gram), or it can an expression of who you are, where you invite people into your world and are vulnerable in showing them what you care about. Only the second way creates a setting for true connection.

1. Meghan Markle’s ‘With Love, Meghan’ / 2. Laura Jackson’s ‘The Art of Hosting’ / 3. @thesweetlifeofnina / 4. @morgan.yates / 5. Chess set by Printworks / 6. the Bumble fumble / 7. vintage shop Concrete Matter in Amsterdam / 8. Salted Books / 9. @ginnyranu

( The show is over )

Yes, it all comes down to authenticity (womp, womp). To me, the weirdest thing about the trend forecasting space has been the endless talk about authenticity on the one hand—to the point where the word has lost all of its meaning and power—and on the other hand seeing culture become more and more performative. Over the past years, authenticity has been mostly performed by (personal) brands: showing failures only to highlight the success that followed, showing outrage for social injustice only while it is on the news, cherrypicking sustainability efforts to fit the day’s mood, and so on.

I really do think the state of the world today is pushing us over the tipping point: as our desire for meaningful connection grows, so will the real backlash against everything fake or forced. I really think we are ready for brands and businesses to be truly vulnerable and truthfully share their ups and downs, their hot mess and their screw ups. In a not-so-far-future, we’ll automatically distrust companies that don’t communicate these, convinced not of their level of professional perfection, but only of their capacity to hide stuff from their audience.

What does that look like though?

In the personal brand space, Amsterdam-based influencer Ginny Ramkisoen unapologetically detailed her journey as an entrepreneur so far, sharing the mistakes she made, the bad luck she experienced and the opportunities she missed. She plainly admits that sometimes she doesn’t know what she’s doing, and she feels proud of her career regardless. Bookshop Salted in Lisbon is a retailer allowing their audience unprecedented access to their inner workings. They are practicing ‘open accounting’, and posted every last detail of their trading numbers from their set-up costs to their monthly revenue and final profits.

The reason these are such great examples of authenticity, is because their transparancy is not random. The things they choose to share so vulnerably are actually the things that make them strong. Ginny doesn’t position herself as a ‘one-in-a-million success story’, but shares hard-won advice and learnings that are valuale to so many other professionals, which is exactly what makes her such a compelling voice in the ‘career space’ of her ventures, the latest of which is job platform Who Knows Ginny.

Salted Books’ brand identity is built entirely around the fact that they are an independent book seller that supports authors in ways big e-commerce retailers don’t. By transparantly showing how they’re making that happen (selling books at recommended retail price instead of slashing prices, which also impacts authors’ royalties), they are in a much stronger position to spread their slogan “Buy Books from Bookshops. Not a Billionaire.”

We want connection, not perfection: in our real lives, but brands are part of that, too. It’s not about trying to convince people you’re real, it’s about truly connecting with them by being honest. Showing your weaknesses demonstrates you are not ‘above’ your audience, so that showing your strengths will be seen as inspiring, not bragging or flaunting. Open up where it matters the most. That might seem scary, and you might not get it right from the first go, but that’s kind of the point.

Steph's dossiers

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