The products and environments of Autumn/Winter 25/26 are set to be influenced by three key directions: Simplicity, Borderless and Odyssey.

These directions, as predicted by Stylus – the expert source for global trends and insights – set the tone for design over the next two years. Here, Lauren Chiu, Stylus’ head of Colour & Material Trends, unveils a key application for each of these directions, providing essential inspiration for conceptual thinking and product development.

Trend One: Junkyard Materials

An eclectic, playful aesthetic emerges as part of the Simplicity direction, as designers pioneer creative reuse by revaluing waste and scrap heaps. Found materials – from industrial scrap metal and wood to glass containers and foam – are ingeniously transformed into new products. Constructions are rudimentary and modular, enabling easy disassembly, while hand-built forms have a patchworked quality.

Trend Two: Warm & Intimate Colour In Stylus’ Borderless direction, warm and intimate hues play a pivotal role, evoking the soft radiance of the golden hour to provide an antidote to grey winters. Earthy wood tones, lustrous gold and the comforting shades of red, orange and blush pink emulate a hot dusk, while terracotta hues infuse surfaces with a sun-baked quality that sparks wanderlust.

Trend Three: Eerie & Ritualistic

Interplays of hard and soft, dark and light, and real and unreal come together in the eerie and subversive Odyssey direction, drawing inspiration from horror stories and old rituals. Unusual material contrasts convey a curious and otherworldly narrative, such as hard-edged and brutalist forms paired with surreal transparencies and ghostly draped textiles.

To delve further into the directions and aesthetic trends set to emerge across design over the next two years, join Lauren Chiu on Thursday, May 23 at 12pm for Essential Inspiration: Key Colour & Material Trends for 2025/26.