John Lewis’s ‘on-trend’ Christmas

As background research for a Christmas 2018 brief, we headed to John Lewis’s recently unveiled Christmas floor to see what’s ‘in’ for Christmas 2017.

Here, we explore some of the textbook ‘on-trend’ themes that underpin the retailer’s Christmas 2017 offering – though we have no idea if these were planned in, or just a well-timed coincidence.

A celebration of cross-cultural world influences

Global cultures are fusing. Fusion food is a trend which just keeps on rolling – Bibimbap arancini, anyone? – and Mexico’s Day of the Dead festival is merging with Halloween. Continuing this theme, the highlight for us at John Lewis’s Christmas shop is actually the Sari Cakes pop-up, which offers Christmas cakes, hand-decorated with a beautiful pattern inspired by those found on saris (image 1, left). This trend is also evident from the incorporation of llamas in the John Lewis Christmas mix – see below.

Personalised gifting 

Personalisation is one of the biggest buzz words in retail right now, with brands clambering over themselves to personalise their products in ever more inventive ways. This trend is tapped by John Lewis in several ways – from creating a “… 3D print of your picture in naturally-flavoured jelly sweet form,” with the Katjes Magic Candy Factory pop-up (see video, below), to having your name printed on the box of a giant chocolate Kinder egg (image 2, left).

Pick ‘n’ mix merchandising

Pick ‘n’ Mix is a merchandising format we’re seeing quite a bit at the moment – see our blog from last year. We really like both the visual effect of the John Lewis mix and match bauble wall (images 3 & 4, left), as well as the idea itself. It provides an simple and fun way for shoppers to essentially create their own Christmas colour palette.

Celebrating Britishness

Amongst the Christmas decoration themes is British Christmas. We’re unsure whether this is targeted at Brexit-voters, or foreign tourists, but it is interesting nonetheless. Beefeater or Big Ben tree decoration, anyone (image 5, left)?

Llamas

In a blog published in June this year, entitled ,‘Are llamas the new unicorns?’, trend forecasting consultants, WGSN, explore how llamas are being used as design inspiration across sectors, declaring summer 2017 “…the summer of the llama.” This is played out by John Lewis’s Lima Llama Christmas tree decoration theme (image 6, left).