TREND GURU: A STEREOTYPE

TREND GURU – published SUNDAY TIMES LIFESTYLE, 2006.


Here is a font of wisdom, perfectly in touch with the ever-changing whims of the (much younger) youth market. Trend guru will normally be attired in something spectacularly understated, which looks like a potato sack, but was actually
hand-stitched by Tibetan craftsmen in this ‘charming little store I discovered in Montreal.’ Trend guru’s hair is always perfectly unkempt, while on the wrist sits a very expensive but plain-looking and largely obscure watch brand, known only to those in the know. Trend guru’s cell phone is one of only three such prototypes in the world – but it’s always being mislaid; being persnickety was never trendy.
Trend guru sported an I-pod before they had been invented and let go of the Bohemian theme long before it disappeared from the ‘what’s hot’ columns.

Trend guru has the most expensive voice money can buy. Corporations with vision will pay handsomely for Trend guru to spend half an hour with top-level board members and chosen sycophants, sipping Lap sang or mineral water while nestled on fair trade cushions. As Trend guru begins to speak in a gentle, relaxed tone, with no notes at hand, gems of verbal wisdom are eagerly caught in the palms of
awe-struck brand managers. Some of the phrases you might hear, should you be able to afford them, include ‘melting pot’, ‘lateral shift’ or ‘return to innocence’. Trend guru will point knowingly to slides showing rattan mats, or a bowl of apples, and listeners will ooh and aah quietly, mentally rubbing their hands at the potential wealth next year could bring in the form of rattan apple bowls.
Much of Trend guru’s speech is peppered with contradictions. There is talk of freedom/constriction, energy/calm and fantasy/reality. After all, you can never be more than half wrong with a contradiction. By the end of Trend guru’s exposition on the importance of beige to the future of architecture, listeners will rise, stupefied, knowing that they have just heard something incredibly profound…they’re just not sure what.

Trend guru has a supernatural knack for predicting the next big thing. At the 2005 paint expo in Cologne, Trend guru spoke of a revolutionary return to pinks; lo and behold, the stores are awash with pink. However, the Bulgarian Onion Farmers’ Collective remains disappointed at the lack of a resurgence in the popularity of onion soup – perhaps Trend guru was off on that one? But then, even Trend guru is only human and a 70% hit rate is not half bad.

Trend guru is a young spirit, whose long-time lover makes environmental art and lives in a converted loft in Cape Town CBD. Trend guru comes and goes, heading off to décor conferences in Milan, or arriving suddenly at 11pm with the latest Slipknot CD, which says something profound about the mindset of the youth market…Trend guru’s just not sure what.

Trend guru falls blissfully asleep each night beneath a motto framed and hung; ‘build it, and they will come’ – safe in the knowledge that everything moves in cycles, so if the predicted 90’s craze doesn’t arrive this year, well, it will the year after, thus proving Trend guru even more prescient than previously thought.