Necessity is the mother of invention. Pressure creates diamonds. (Insert your favourite saying about innovation here.)
Whichever way you slice it, there’s a lot happening right now in the world and, ergo, a lot of required change. Adapt or die goes that old maxim. But when a decades-old tradition makes a radical change, eyebrows are naturally raised.
When I learnt that imm cologne – that stalwart of the international trade-fair calendar – was moving its 2023 edition from January to June, I was more than a little curious to find out the rationale behind such a major shift. After all, isn’t its pole position at the start of the year a significant part of its raison-d’etre, claiming, as it often has, to set the agenda for the spring design season? Is the new spring edition, as the fair organisers are calling it, the result of necessity or strategy? Or both? (Lord knows Cologne is a finer place to visit in June…
