A New Kind Of Connoisseurship

I received this question in episode 2 of the Ask Brian Boggs Show:

Brian, looking in your crystal ball, which trends do you see that really interest you, and maybe good trends to pursue?

That’s a little dusty to look through at the moment. I don’t see what’s coming. I see what I want to have coming, and there are bits of hints from clients and visitors that we get regarding what the opportunities are that probably won’t become trends. A huge trend now for example, obviously, is the slab table, or slab anything, or live edge. I really think that has to do with the degree to which we have become almost divorced from nature so that we have to go out of our way or in order to feel connected with nature, we have to have that real raw edge, or we really need something rustic to balance the cold hard contemporary aspects of much of what higher-tech manufacturing is putting out there, whether it’s our watches, our computers, our cars, our houses or other furniture types that are in the house.

But I would hope that there is … What I dream of is that we can help create a new kind of connoisseurship. That’s what I would call it in furniture. We’ve seen it happen with wines, we’ve seen it happen with cigars. It’s happening with cigars, guitars, and with cars. In all of those arenas, people have shown an interest in real good refinement, really good design.