The cycles of history have new facets and aspects that separate it from prior periods but the similarities we encounter reflect our habitual patterns. These behavioural similarities allow us an opportunity to have predictive expectations, something that titillates anyone who is fond of looking for and finding trends.

If you look at the years starting from the world of Art Nouveau leading up to the modernism of the Deco era, you’ll see a gradual shift in design expression. It shows as leaving one mindset peppered with experimentation in breaking away from convention. It didn’t quite reach the bold vision that the period entailed, but elements conspired to set up the necessary platform from which the new direction shot off.

A hundred years later and here we are again, in a 2.0 version of what we have been through before, partially inspired by our celebration of reclaiming the past as inspiration jumping points for innovation. The fascination of biology then is now biomimicry in design that extends beyond aesthetics the Art Nouveau period brought forth to now become more technical; design innovations at a nano-level allow us to exploit qualities from the best of nature to enhance design today on many more levels from materials creation to performance qualities.

But just as the exploration meant for general accessibility was hampered by production costs and thus prevented its popularity, our new innovations are not so easily at hand for the some economic reasons. Innovation has a price and so the bulk of the population waits for knock-offs or for innovations to reach mass production levels that scale back the costs.

Eventually we lead ourselves towards a similar path as the last century where new materials, techniques and technical discoveries lay in wait for a new generation to mature to take these and remake the world in the name of social progress. We are a few years from that occurring but the experimentation is now. The collections show us each season an evolution of trial and error where mercantile concerns blend with our demands for clothes to reflect where and how we see and want to see ourselves.

Right now, some labels are playing with new combinations within acceptable parameters. The new combinations test our willingness to experiment with the hopes of finding freshness resonating with the way the new minds will see our world versus familiarities so we don’t feel we have something too dated and thus become bad investments.

The experimentation is the mixing of elements at once. It’s kind of like throwing things together to see what sticks, albeit with a more heightened aesthetic palette to filter the results. It can be in the mish-mash of textured separates versus solids at Burberry Prorsum or of space and sport at Just Cavalli; the blast of patterns at once at Escada or the jigsawing of hard geometry at Roland Mouret; or the blend of asymmetric quirks with more classic cuts at MM6 Maison Martin Margiela.

This blending and Franken-splicing of elements has been seen for a few years now as we look for new ways to combining all that we know in the quest to lead us towards the new century. All this has importance, for these become the seeds from which the next generation will use as a launching point. The tricky part is to see what resonates and sticks.

While those entering the creative spheres are doing so sooner thanks to the accessibility of the tools, platforms and markets necessary to succeed in doing so, the maturity of the creative process is something that technology cannot truly accelerate. As bright as our new creatives are, they must have enough time to incubate and play with what we bring them. But it’s fun to see the steps unfold; we are in truly interesting times indeed.