The High Point Market Authority’s Fall 2007 Trends Forecast—packed with expert commentary from some of the world’s top trend-trackers and industry decision-makers—is now available for download.

Success in the home furnishings business today isn’t about picking the slam-dunk product line, pushing the “hot” color, or being the first to stock a “must-have” piece. Great design exists in a consumer landscape that encompasses demographic shifts, lifestyle choices, and current preferences for colors, styles and functions. For retailers, success comes by interpreting broad trends in a way that is meaningful for their customers.

“Trend-trackers describe possibilities for home furnishings over the coming season,” says Brian D. Casey, president and chief executive officer of the High Point Market Authority. “Retailers, however, possess a key piece of information—they know their customers. By fitting together coming trends and customer knowledge, buyers can transform the tens of thousands of new products they encounter at the High Point Market from an array of unpredictable possibilities into an assortment of opportunities.”

Themes highlighted in the Forecast include:

The Demise of the ‘Next Big Thing.’ Robyn Waters, a leading trend-tracker and author, advises retailers to expand their thinking about consumer trends. “My clients are always asking me to tell them what the ‘next big thing’ will be,” she says. “The truth is, the next big thing is that there isn’t going to be a next big thing. People are making much more individual choices now, based on what is important to them as individuals. So, you have to look at trends from the inside out, to focus on what’s important instead of what’s next.”

Comfortable Contradictions. People are not always consistent in their choices. A customer is likely complex and, often, contradictory. She may want her bedroom to reflect the opulent luxury of Marie Antoinette’s lodgings in the palace at Versailles, but prefer her home office to be a model of form-follows-function modernist austerity.

Quality of Space. Consumers are focusing on the details of how they live when choosing their furnishings. Deb Barrett, a trend strategist for Grace McNamara, Inc., and an editor of the home furnishings trends website, www.interiorsdesignintelligence.com comments that “many consumers are deciding that quality of space is as important as quantity.” Small personal spaces, nooks and alcoves, studies, hobby and retreat areas, and efficient living spaces are increasingly important; as a result consumers are searching out home furnishings that are fabulously functional. “For example, sectionals and sofas now recline, adjust, store and perform a number of other functions, in a multitude of configurations,” Barrett notes.

Adventure and Exploration. From bold use of color to unusual style combinations and even quirky collectibles, consumers are exploring new territory when it comes to their homes. “Not only do people want to express their style and personality,” says Becky Ralich Spak, senior designer for Sherwin-Williams, “they’re in tune to a much broader range of influences. The Internet allows you to literally go any place in the world or to any moment in history in a matter of minutes. This makes us much more accepting of not just more colors, but different ways to use color.”

Calm and cool. A countertrend to adventure is a desire for peaceful, calm retreats. “In a weakened housing market and uncertain financial times, there is a desire to return to stability and find harmony within our environment and ourselves,” Spak asserts. Calm and comfort shows up in neutral colors in “contrasting pales,” says Leatrice Eiseman, director of the PANTONE Color Institute. “Comfort colors are being paired with khakis and decorative blues. And in upholstery, more cool colors are coming into the mix.”

Shades of Green. Consumers’ concern for the environment is apparent, but how that plays out in their purchasing patterns is anything but. A “green” or sustainability message alone may not move furniture off the retail floor. Furnishings must first appeal to consumers’ aesthetic sensibilities. Once design and quality desires have been satisfied, environmentally friendly furnishings may be preferred. Waters identifies an approach to sustainability that she calls it Lite Green. “A customer may not be willing to go completely green in all of their purchase decisions, but will often enjoy opportunities to make better choices.” And, according to Waters, “each of those decisions makes a small, but meaningful difference to the overall well being of our planet. Lite Green is a way to encourage them to make the best choice whenever they can.”