Baby & Kids Design Trends for Spring Summer 2022
Published back in 2020, we share a preview of the season featuring one of four baby & kids trend forecasts from our Spring Summer 2022 forecast; Detour. The full Spring Summer season preview report is also available for you to read when you subscribe for free membership to our new trend platform – Your TrendBible. We’ll also be tracking these Spring Summer Baby & Kids design trends over on Instagram as they emerge worldwide in stores and online over the coming months.
Slowing down and embracing the unplanned allows little ones to learn to adapt and connect to the earth. ‘Detour’, our Spring Summer 2022 Baby & Kids design trend forecast, explores how a primitive aesthetic can be infused with modern day technology and techniques to create a tactile and earthy environment within the home.
Enjoy the journey
Wanderlust, wherever you are, is the key message shaping this story prompting children and their parents to discover a deeper appreciation of our natural world. This slower pace of life also impacts family travel preferences. Increasing concerns about the climate crisis and adjusting to a post-pandemic life prompts a growing appetite for rethinking travel. This drives a newfound appreciation for the journey as well as the destination, encouraging families to carve out time to detour, explore and find adventure wherever they are.
Explore & create
Children learn to adapt and appreciate that when life is not going as planned, you can still enjoy the journey it takes you on. Even with a firm destination in mind, there’s always adventure and learning on a detour. In the aftershock of the pandemic, products and activities that reassure children of their innate human capability and resilience feel comforting. The outdoors becomes a classroom to learn from; kinaesthetic play with natural clays, sand and earth instil a connection to the environment that counteracts the pace and complexity of modern life and encourages them to de-tech.
An ungendered, playful colour palette rests on a neutral base of mud-like clay tones and is brought to life with elemental brights inspired by campfire reds, earthy greens and meandering river blue. Occasional flickers of sunshine yellow ground these colours firmly in the spring summer season.
Play experiences that encourage enjoying the process rather than the finished result, and taking time to do things at a slower pace help them build their adaptability. Toys and decor items have a paleolithic feel; prints look hand-made and shapes are rudimentary and imprecise. Feeling free, camping out and curiously gazing up at the night sky constellations fills children with wonder and a sense of adventure.