2026/27

CONSUMER LIFESTYLE TREND

UNPROCESSED

Today’s consumers are yearning for something real—something that breaks free from the cookie-cutter aesthetics of modern design. For years, the trend was all about sleek, polished, and perfect. Smooth surfaces, seamless interactions, and flawless appearances became the standard. But that perfection has started to feel cold and lifeless. Now, we’re seeing a shift toward ruggedness, rawness, and imperfection—qualities that feel honest and grounded. It’s about creating products and experiences that resonate on a deeper, more sensory level. Texture, for example, is no longer just a subtle detail. It’s becoming a key feature, inviting people to touch, feel, and connect with what they’re buying or experiencing. This movement isn’t about rejecting beauty but redefining it. It’s beauty in the unpolished, in the authentic, in the details that feel handcrafted and personal. By moving away from overly curated perfection, brands and designers are creating a sense of realness that speaks to a growing desire for connection in a world that often feels too uniform and detached. In short, rawness isn’t just a style—it’s an emotional experience, one that satisfies a craving for depth, honesty, and meaning in the everyday.

INTRODUCTION

As aesthetic homogeneity and flatness become more pervasive, consumers are reacting by increasingly seeking out stronger stimuli. From visual to tactile rawness, they are gravitating toward experiences and products that deliver a more palpable and grounding sense of reality. In this scenario, where consumers have a hunger for intensity and rawness, brands will need to learn how to play with the allure of discomfort and imperfection, and how to channel these elements into sophisticated forms of gratification.

Hyper Rawness: The Data Behind

01 Hyper Rawness stands out as a trend driven by the Gen Z audience, followed by Millennials.

02 Being a cross-industry trend, Hyper Rawness finds a particular relevance in the realm of Media & Entertainment, Advertising & Branding and Food & Beverage.

03 Consumer conversations range from biomimicry to skeuomorphism, reflecting not only a shift in aesthetic preferences but also new expectations for how they interact with content across various platforms.

Sensory Friction

Moving away from traditional notions of comfort and security in their sensory and aesthetic expectations, consumers are seeking out more intense stimuli. The allure of experiences and aesthetics that can clash or unsettle the senses is becoming stronger as sensory friction is now seen as a form of gratification. Brands will need to recognize that friction and even dissonance can enhance consumer engagement in a more visceral way, making discomfort an integral part of the brand's appeal

Gustav Westman x Highsnobiety

Once synonymous with soft and squiggly designs, Stockholm-based designer Gustav Westman has expanded his visual language to include spiky elements. In partnership with Highsnobiety, the designer presents an exclusive collaboration featuring ceramics and apparel, along with his iconic pieces. The iconic Chunky Cup that anchors the refreshed lineup has been reimagined as the Spiky Cup. This subversive transformation contrasts the cuteness and charm of round forms with a spikiness that simultaneously entices and deters touch, adding a complex layer to the cup's appeal.

A24 x Joya Studio: Heretic

A24, the film entertainment company producing the horror film 'Heretic,' will enhance screenings with the aroma of blueberry pie. The story follows Mormon missionaries visiting Mr. Reed's (Hugh Grant) seemingly hospitable home. Initially reluctant, the young women enter after being assured by Reed that his wife is in the kitchen baking blueberry pie. However, they soon discover that the scent comes from a candle, revealing the sinister nature of Mr. Reed. The use of the blueberry pie scent is cleverly tied to the film’s themes, as the pie initially represents comfort and domesticity, something wholesome and inviting. However, as the plot unfolds, this comforting scent becomes a symbol of deception and manipulation, enhancing the audience's experience throughout the film and playing with the sense of discomfort.

Rewilding Design

Consumers are increasingly distancing themselves from the sleek, tech-driven minimalism that has dominated design landscape for decades. Instead, there is a noticeable pivot towards forms and textures that resonate with palpable and organic naturalness. Innovations across multiple sectors, from home appliances to branding and packaging design, are in fact increasingly driven by nature-inspired influences rather than purely technological advancements. Brands are pivoting to nature-inspired designs, targeting tech-weary consumers who crave more visceral connections to the natural world.

Crucible Lab: Brand Identity

Based in London, Crucible is an award-winning lab and consultancy renowned for its innovative approach to drinks and flavor development. Eager to establish an identity and digital presence that reflected their notable success, they collaborated with Chris Collicott from Madalena Studio to explore the aesthetic potential of natural processes. Collicott cultured various samples in petri dishes, keenly observing how these organic forms evolved into visually striking designs. "Once we arrived at the idea of growing the logo from bacteria, it was an idea that just sat right (…) I’ve long been inspired by organic form and texture. It was exciting to experiment with this kind of natural growth, creating beautiful, unexpected forms, rather than using code or AI, reflecting the physical nature of Crucible’s work.”

Mortlach x Philip Starck

Designer Philippe Starck has teamed up with the renowned alcohol brand Mortlach to launch a trio of innovative whisky blends, each encased in a 3D-printed shell. Starck collaborated closely with a master distiller to craft the unique blends and created a distinctive encasement for the trio. Each bottle features a protective "cage" crafted through 3D printing, with textured surfaces designed to echo the intricate patterns of a brain. "The form of the cage comes from the gyrus, the circumvolution of the brain. It is human intelligence creating human intelligence, to reveal the subconscious of the whisky," added Starck.

Consumers are attracted to unprocessed materials and aesthetics not only because of enhanced tactility, but also due to their perceived authenticity and even robustness. As preferences shift away from overly refined products, experiencing materials and ingredients in their raw, unaltered state has become a hallmark of superior quality. In a scenario where unprocessed is deemed superior, brand storytelling will undergo a seismic shift. Instead of emphasizing conventional, extensive processing and curation, brands will be proudly showcasing flaws and minimal intervention.

Brutalisten Pop-up Restaurant

Carsten Höller’s brutalist pop-up restaurant in Paris is a temporary vision of the renowned Brutalisten that opened in Stockholm in 2022. The restaurant is set in a Parisian railway station and its menu is featuring a six-course tasting for lunch and an eight-course dinner. The main rule is that dishes are made from a single ingredient—or at most two — and these are used alone, possibly adding water and salt. Somewhere between a restaurant and a social experiment, Brutalisten pushes the concept of "Less Is More" to its limits, applied to cuisine. As Höller explained at the opening of the first location: “It transports you to an unexplored culinary territory, governed by rules that may provoke discomfort, but also that intense pleasure often associated with a great work of art.”

Honda Sustaina C Concept

The Sustaina-C Concept distinguishes itself with its innovative exterior panels, meticulously crafted from recycled acrylic resin obtained from second-hand taillights. Eschewing traditional painted surfaces, these unpainted panels not only significantly reduce emissions during their production process but are demonstrably more robust. The raw, unprocessed quality of these materials not only evokes a sense of rugged durability but indeed delivers enhanced resilience. These panels withstand environmental stressors such as cracks and adverse weather conditions far better than their painted counterparts.

Key Action Points

01 Sensory friction emerges as a powerful medium for designing products and experiences that actively challenge and provoke consumer senses, transforming discomfort into an appealing and gratifying element.

02 Nature’s influence is no longer limited to décor or traditional aesthetics — it’s permeating even the most tech-dominated realms with designs that echo the organic, raw, and imperfect qualities of the natural world.

03 Imperfections and rawness not only attract consumers seeking relief from digital sleekness but also convey a sense of product quality and robustness.

Trend Application

Entertainment industry players must leverage sensory friction and rawness to deliver more intense experiences that can cut through the flatness of consumer attention.

To stand out from the crowd, brands need to invest in rawness-inspired designs and aesthetics that connect with consumers on a more visceral level.

The idea of rawness and minimal processing can be expanded as a powerful storytelling tool to evoke a quality so superior that it requires no further elaboration.

MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

ADVERTISING & BRANDING

FOOD & BEVERAGE

FASHION & CLOTHING

Since consumers are moving from hyper consumption to the minimal consumption, Raw texture, sustainability, unfinished edges and natural dyes will be preferred.

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