December, here we are. It's time for trends, rankings and forecasts.

Every research activity is conditioned by visual perception, from the observation of phenomena to the detection of recurrences.

Leonardo Piasere to describe field research refers to the “curvature of experience“, like the progressive departure from known reference systems that allow the detachment necessary to carry out an analysis from the outside; specifically Piasere speaks of curvature of experience in relation to travel in ethnographic practice.

In this specific context, vision becomes even more fundamental, not only directing the researcher towards the confirmation or rejection of specific research hypotheses, but directing his every step towards the unprecedented cultural complexity in which he finds himself operating.

In the absence of known references, when everyday life struggles to adapt to the new context, the eye is forced to a humble return to the original innocence, effectively becoming the main tool of understanding and interpretation.

By extending the concept expressed in the anthropological and sociological fields to what happens every year-end regarding the search for new market trends to guide the strategic marketing of the coming year, we can see how, even in this context, will be a sort of journey, where the “curvature of experience” should take on the same value as a guide.

The ability to identify trends that intercept the needs and interests of individuals and that are able to guide their purchasing choices in one direction rather than another, is a skill that has to do with knowing how to you count with the fact that the eye sees only what the mind is prepared to understand, as the French philosopher Henri Bergson wrote, and therefore on the understanding of necessary adjustment phases.

In this regard, reading the report created by Trend Hunter on 2023 trends is, as always, a stimulating and interesting study to understand where we are.

A compass that can help us better understand which insights will predominate in the Tech, Business & Marketing, Food & Beverage, Retail, Eco, Fashion & Cosmetic, Health & Wellness, Art & Design and Culture fields, interpreting which direction we are taking thanks to identified patterns of opportunity and related megatrends.

The patterns of opportunity constitute the highest level of understanding of the context and represent the possibility of mapping Megatrends over the long term; Megatrends identified to interpret reality are six and they represent a concrete possibility of channeling the gaze through a shared “grammar of seeing“.