With mass retailers, supermarkets and lower end brands developing attractive outdoor designs we are seeing an explosion of imaginative solutions by higher end brands to keep a head start and justify a price gap.

Adding new dimensions to your trend watch 'radar'
These initiatives are worth looking at and keeping on your radar as they are gradually becoming more widespread and changing consumers perceptions and expectations.

The new initiatives in the outdoor furniture market include mixing references from the fashion and accessories worlds!
These are now widespread enough to gradually be creating a new normal and changing how consumers view quality.
Let me run you through a few examples.
We have become used to outdoor brands having their logo in metal on their designs, clearly there for all to see. This is something we hardly ever see(or saw?) indoors. Interestingly labelling and visible branding are things younger generations live with in virtually every other area of their life ( fashion, telephones, food etc..) So this it is probably going to become an even stronger trend & expectation.
At the Milan Furniture Fair, here and there one saw 'jewelry' appear on furniture. It was interesting to see leading brands such as outdoor specialist Serralunga create pots like their new MM VaSe, clearly positioned as a hybrid 'jewel pot'. The 'MM VaSe' is a plastic pot priced 100 000 euros!
It is made with precious stones set in regular plastic!
Fashion brands are increasingly present in the furniture market. Fendi the fashion brand launched a very extensive outdoor range last year, Missoni is expanding its Home division into the outdoor market. Fashion brands are co-branding designs with traditional pure furniture players ( ex: the recent D&G/Kartell designs).
The newest trend to watch is the emergence of (outdoor) furniture accessories.
Italian brand, Green SRL was in Milan with this new hybrid design: a chair with an added fun jewelry type piece (image)

What this means for retailers
This has a huge impact. It suggests the way furniture 'sections' are marketed, the imagery used etc ..is about to evolve.
To illustrate the issue let us say we are perhaps looking at the same type of shift the 'paint and DYI' sections have experienced. They used to be matter of fact and they have become lifestyle divisions!