What’s influencing Baby & Kids trends this Spring Summer?

2021 will be a year of recuperation, with a focus on building resilience. Families prioritise their community, loved ones and emotions in a bid to take ownership and live a wholesome and considered life. This influences baby & kids design trends in a number of ways this Spring Summer season; through playful colour and quirky characters; and creating an expressive, modern aesthetic which counterbalances with soothing spaces, natural materials and organic forms.

Published back in 2019, we share a preview of our Baby & Kids trends featuring 2 of 4 trends from our Spring Summer 2021 forecast; Find Your Patch and Earth Child. The full Spring Summer 2021 preview is also available as a free download for you to track these trends as they emerge over the coming months.

Find Your Patch

The rise of homeschooling, and free range parenting techniques, places focus on raising self-sufficient kids. Brought up to take responsibility for their actions and independently tackle challenges, children are finding their voice, sharing their own opinions and playing an active part in their community. As sustainability and waste concerns heighten, a make do and mend attitude is revived for this new generation. It’s never been more important to nurture nature and protect your patch. The home provides the perfect setting for children to come together to make, craft and grow, inspiring one another to lead creative, self-sufficient, wholesome lives.

Tonal pairings of blue, ochre and green make this the perfect palette for woven plaids and busy ditsy prints. Embracing a make do and mend attitude, fabrics are pieced, patched and stitched in contrasting colours and patterns. Using untreated ply creates a simplistic look and feel for beds, storage boxes and playhouses. Daisies form decorative details on accessories and bold prints on bedding, whilst bees and their conservation inspire activist messaging and minimalist print design.

Earth Child

‘Nature knows best’ is the key message shaping this story with modern families opting to restore their connection with the earth to live slower, natural and more considered lives. As parents’ awareness of sustainability and environmental issues heightens, the things they put in, on and around their children come under closer scrutiny. As a result, a focus on creating a healthy, pure home is high on the agenda, with parents making more conscious choices in order to protect their children from toxins, allergies and pollutants.

Following a post ‘me too’ world, a celebration of womanhood and proud motherhood comes to the fore. This inspires the unapologetic maternal feel of this story, reflecting the beauty and strength of the cherished bond between parent and child.

A wave of calm enters the home for this slow, soothing story for summer. Families seek out environments that offer solace and relaxation, inspired by both desert oases and sandy shores. Sun bleached and sand buffed, this beautiful colour palette brings a new range of neutral shades for baby and kid’s products for Summer 2021.

Toys, soothers and decorative accessories are organic in form, motifs are simple, inspired by the elements, with sunbursts, wavy stripes and dappled patterns. Gentle typography and wave undulations on the sand inspire placement prints on textiles and furnishings. Shells inspire shape for lighting, toys and stationery alongside a handcrafted aesthetic created with embroidered details and hand thrown ceramics.