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Nothing is happening on Königsstraße in Stuttgart. The hotspot is considered a barometer for the rush of visitors to the Baden-Württemberg capital, where Designplus is also at home. Actually, the shopping mile should be full of people just before Easter, looking for small gifts for their loved ones' Easter nests and wandering from shop to shop for inspiration. But that's not the case right now.

We check the incidence figures every day, follow the state and federal press conferences and wonder when normal everyday life will be possible again. We all long to be able to stroll carelessly through the city centre again and enjoy the beauty of physical space. Precisely because we are all in this together, and because the longing to experience is so great, we look forward to the intense time that is to come. We are sure of that (and so are the consumer trends).

We see you, dear retailers, restaurateurs, museum and cinema operators, creative people and city flaneurs, and we will do everything we can to support you. Keep the love and passion in your hearts - it will be beautiful again!

Fashion shows were already sharply criticised before the pandemic, first and foremost for their pretentiousness, high environmental impact and many collections. Even then, the desire for smaller and more sustainable formats became louder, which at the same time meant an increasing shift to the digital space. It's one thing that this didn't involve audiences travelling far and wide, but much more we observed that the shows were exploring the possibilities of staging space.

At the shows for Autumn/Winter Fashion 2021, the labels that were able to present innovative concepts to the viewers in front of the screens caused quite a stir. They presented great storytelling, with high artistic standards and a lot of symbolic power, which was underlined by cinematic shots. And fashion? It often became a minor matter. Sure, the magic of the moment, the real thing that can be experienced with all the senses cannot be completely replaced by digital offerings, but it can tell the story differently and we can watch it again and again.

In our Unique Island blog, we have taken on the three shows that made a particularly lasting impression on us. The link below will take you to our review of Louis Vuitton, Versace and Hermés. Three formats that could not be more different and yet all touched us in their own way.

https://www.designplus.org/unique-island/

In the midst of all the stresses and strains that determine our new agency's everyday life in these turbulent times, we finally took a day for ourselves at the beginning of March.
With the Literally Talking Conference, we created a platform with which we wanted not only to strengthen the self-efficacy of each individual, but also to satisfy the great longing to finally spend time together again.

For us, Literally Talking means being allowed to talk about the really important issues, to clarify questions, to listen to each other and to find solutions together. Everyone is allowed to contribute and set impulses. For Designplus as an agency brand, for individual learning loops and for more visibility of each individual. Literally Talking is more than a team event for us - it is a mindset.

The day was peppered with versatile exchanges, role-playing, deep-dive one-on-one conversations, individual silent work and group workshops. Everything paid off on the questions - what makes Designplus tick? How are we doing? Where are we right now and where do we want to go? - We imagined Designplus as human being and asked ourselves what our agency would look like and what would drive it. We broke through all the boundaries in our heads and chose the wildest cooperation partners for groundbreaking projects. But we also took a hard look at ourselves on an individual level and visualised the roles we see ourselves in.

We have opened up many new worlds and moved between desire and reality. What remains is the great need to continue to speak openly with each other, to think big and collaboratively about ideas and to let this concentrated Designplus power, with so many great people, continue to grow. We are doers, all-rounders, idea generators, quick checkers, hosts, strategists, visionaries and tinkerers, but there is one thing we are not - heroes at any price.