His speech is committed there as elsewhere

"So far and yet if close in Visual and aesthetic terms, a mirror of the purist design of Northern and southern primitive crafts leaves us strange and enchanted; How is the attraction of opposites so strong, how if remote cultures are so similar ... This young century will be the North and the South kissing, triggering an inspiration for decades to come, to a both archaic and contemporary modernism. "Here is a short overview of the"visions"that Li Edelkoort book from customers listen as it consults an oracle. Oracle acquired the virtues of the communication and that, to the weight of his words, adds clash of mounted slide extremely evocative and seductive photos. The sanctuary where she delivers his prophecies is other than his agency Paris 14th arrondissement, former industrial premises rehabilitated Boulevard Saint-Jacques.

This Yaguel Didier of the style did not ball in the Crystal or divinatory tarot. It does not work with futurists nor sociologists. It just trust his intuition. His road crossed the Maïmé Arnodin and Denise Fayolle who, with their Mafia Agency, are at the origin of this business in the 1960s, time of ready-to-wear shuttering. Amstellois Bijenkorf store hired as procuring the young Li out of the National Gallery of Arnhem was advised by Mafia. This style Office urged large distribution, Prisunic, La Redoute and others, to make that useful is beautiful and beautiful not expensive. Diva, guru, Priestess: the press has since vied superlatives in its regard. "I must inspire wisdom, although I practice yoga or meditation." Recognize that its looks, her wardrobe made of more dresses signed Yamamoto chasubles and his happy conceptual language gave this image of Madonna of the style. His entourage said his side "good living" magnet large tables. Is this not as she has seduced the staff of the Galeries Lafayette Six months ago, the store launched with it and Andreas Mavromakis in the adventure of the Laurier restaurant, installed on the first floor of the Parisian department store.

A very happy childhood

Thought the remote, it is accessible. Of her childhood that it describes as "very happy", she tells all these objects in cardboard, turntables, baggage that it manufactured to build a world with it. "By chance, I did not went to school before the age of six years." This is a real gift because I have unfettered give free rein to my imagination. "She speaks of these post-war years - she was born in 1950 - where he had to fend for themselves by just oneself. As his mother that he made with taste strange clothing in modernist tissues.

Referring to his career, including in France where she arrived in 1975, Li Edelkoort don't forget to include those who have helped build his reputation. Nelly Rodi, the Committee for the coordination of the industries of the mode, and Micheline Alland, Director artistic salon premiere Vision. "The first was immediately trusted young Dutch speaking not very well English." The second me has engaged to carry out audiovisual trends broadcast in the show of clothing fabrics, providing me the chance to speak to forty thousand people. "Demanding and rigorous, Li is the kind to just redo the eve of a meeting with a client. His famous book of trends remains its fiefdom. It is in his quiet home in Normandy, near the cool waters of the channel where it swims daily, she reflects. Support for the staff of his Office Trend-Union decline his inspirations in multiple books dealing with materials, colours, styles of life, sold 2 000 euro coin. Many of the entrepreneurs, the universe of consumer goods, appealing to the offices of style and fashion. Those who have the means to make the tour and facing information collected with those of their own teams. Many clients also seek Li Edelkoort to personalized advice (charged between 20 000 and 120 000 euros). It remains quiet on their names. Recently, it is a brand of beer which would like to launch a non-alcoholic beverage. A Bank also came the probe on the issue of long-term investments...

His eye goes to the screen

Its main tool is his eye. Blue and curious, it passes to the screen: politics, Ethnology, art, literature, to decode the signs of a future more or less close. It is comparable to a "radar". "". The information is deposited on my disk hard without the I knowledge. "It draws from this data bank as soon as the industry the seeks to know what tomorrow will be made. September 19, was arranged with its customers - a thousand fans - to reveal them the color of summer 2008. "I am taking a risk on the grey", she says, arguing that "with the very sense of political, economic, ecological and humanistic bankruptcy, there is a growing need to return to the consensual, osmosis, mixtures and creative interactions ..." The world can be beautiful, between the black and white. "Expert in deciphering of the air of the time, it is aware that his business is today worn. The fault in is, according to her, magazines and their in/out topics that focus on the necessarily fluctuating nature of trends.

To celebrate twenty years of Trend Union in 2007, Li Edelkoort prepares at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), New York, a retrospective of his work . There will be all that she announced: the obsession of the body, return to the soul, the opposition between craft and industrial... "In the future, these opposites will mix." "Society as President Bush with his cartoon"with or against me"is in loss of speed," she predicted.

Madam Edelkoort however keeps cool head on the scope of its role. "We are a very small link in the chain", she says, very critical people in marketing which it denounces the fear of change. Fortunately, there are exceptions that lead to best collaborations. As with Lancôme for treasure or Nissan fragrance for the launch of the Micra in 1992. "It was the 1980s and their black and fast cars.". "With the ecological and economic crisis, there was desire more round shapes", she recalls. His lookout post, Li Edelkoort trying to move the minds, support the creation and to fight against the standardization of the market. "I tell them to do better and less.". It also shows the example through association Heartwear, born in 1993 of the initiative of some textile professionals. They do produce clothes in India, the bed linen in Benin, of dishes in the Morocco local and ancestral techniques on the basis of an updated design. An intelligently to globalization.

In 56 years, it is not the intention of slowing down the pace. Paris is only a quarter of his time. One week per month, it returns on its land, to the Netherlands, where it operates seven years as Director of the Design Academy in Eindhoven. The school has trained a new generation of designers rated. "New departments such as the welfare opened new pathways to the profession of designer." His speech is committed, there as elsewhere. "I am angry against the way in which all European Governments deal with the creation.". The creation, it is a life insurance. When a child learns from a young age to be creative, he has the weapons out of any situation of crisis. He has no fear, it is more aggressive. It is the key to the future.

It has forgotten to talk about his publishing house, United Publishers, which produced two beautiful journals, Bloom and View on Colors. This energy that the projects in so many different companies would think that there is in this woman a little divine that renders devin.

"Archeology of the Future: 20 Years Forcasting by Li Edelkoort" in September 2007, then in Paris, at the Netherlands Institute in 2008.

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HIS RESTAURANT PREFERRED

De Witte Tafel, Clausplein 2, 56111Z Eindhoven. Tel: 0031 40 236 73 28.

The restaurant-workshop that the Academy was created in Eindhoven with a local school of restoration. Students to invent ever new cuisine concepts, presentation and animation.