Consumers Buy Into the Cult of the Celebrity Chef
		Genetic Denim Decodes Millennial Jeans

Outer Space Next Stop for Destination Weddings

Google’s My Maps Enables Unprecedented Amateur Mapmaking

One is Enough for Many Moms and Dads

One Million Masterpiece Project Paints a Portrait of the World

Consumers Buy Into the Cult of the Celebrity Chef

Chefs have become today’s rock stars, thanks largely to the success of the Food Network. You no longer have to be a hardcore foodie to know who Emeril Lagasse or Rachael Ray is. Chefs have more power in the mainstream than they did even five years ago, influencing the way consumers of all ages choose their restaurants, do their grocery shopping and approach cooking in general. After seeing Tom Colicchio on Top Chef or Bobby Flay on the Food Network, fans are more curious to check out their restaurants. Tasting menus are rampant, all the better to experience chef’s whims. Foodies go deeper, of course, obsessively tracking restaurant openings on blogs like Eater.com and making specific pilgrimages to chef-temples all over the world. First, chefs bulldozed their way into specialty food shops; now they’re getting shelf space at supermarkets. Mario Batali is creating a line of frozen pasta for Progresso that doesn’t require boiling (NYTimes.com 1.24.07), while Ming Tsai is partnering with Target’s grocery department. Consumers clamor for such cheffed-up products in the hopes of reproducing restaurant-quality flavor at home. But more premium versions of processed/packaged foods aren’t the only chef influence. Now that many chefs are also growing the ingredients for their own kitchens (most notably Dan Barber at Blue Hill at Stone Barns), they’re teaching diners about the importance of sustainability, locality and don’t-mess-with-Mother-Nature simplicity. Fussy cooking technique is becoming less popular today, upstaged by the idea of letting the ingredient speak for itself. Living the premium life is the natural outgrowth of today’s chef worship. A Brooklyn-based publishing company called Haute Life Press creates glossy lifestyle magazines inspired by restaurants and their chef-owner personalities. The sleek rags, packed with upscale ads, are given away to diners at New York establishments like BLT Steak and Alto. And don’t forget that the title of chef is no longer restricted to those who prepare solid food. Bartenders? Try “bar chefs.” Mixology is getting serious attention—with groupies in tow—at places like Pegu Club in New York and Cyrus in Healdsburg, California. Recognizing and reveling in the power of the chef: It has gone from foodie niche to mainstreaming trend. It reflects the upscaling premiumization phenomenon, the respect for craft in a world of cookie-cutter sameness. Foodies will always take the obsession further, but almost every consumer is trading up in small ways, whether dabbling in a tasting menu or feeling empowered rather than overwhelmed by the array of raw produce at the farmers’ market. And yet, are celebrity chefs running the risk of overexposure? Now that Rachael Ray is hawking crackers and it’s becoming pretty darn taxing to secure a restaurant reservation in Los Angeles, watch for a return to the old-fashioned notion that the customer (rather than the artiste) is always right.

College kids have denim encoded in their DNA, so Genetic Denim went straight to the source. At sample sales on hundreds of U.S. campuses, student bodies determined the coolest washes and most flattering cuts for the line of jeans. Result? Jeans cut for Millennials with different body and personality types. Dominant Genes are built for chillin’, Recessives hug sexy bods, while Mutated Genes appeal to leading-edgers with fashion-forward DNA. Genetic Denim broke another code by refusing to gift celebs. A-listers like J.Lo and Sarah Jessica Parker have been spotted shelling out cold cash for their GDs at überhip L.A. boutiques. The bottom line is that sample sales on a college campus is worth a thousand focus groups. Look for more youth-centric companies to emulate Genetic Denim’s down-and-dirty consumer research. Saying no to J.Lo is another stroke of genius. Bucking the trend of gifting wealthy celebs by denying them freebies only makes stars want the product more.

Couples who want their big day to be really out of this world can soon say “I do” in space. Some starry-eyed pairs are already planning weddings on Rocketplane and Virgin Galactic, which hope to launch space tourist flights in two to three years. They can’t fly to the moon—yet. But for $400,000 to $500,000 per couple, they’ll get an astronaut’s-eye view of the home planet from 62 miles above while flying just outside Earth’s atmosphere. Space nuptials may be over the top, but they’ll also be intimate. The only wedding guests boarding Rocketplane will be the pilot and the master (or mistress) of ceremonies, though Virgin Galactic can squeeze in a couple of bridesmaids; its planes accommodate six. Destination weddings have been getting more exotic and more extravagant every year. Where else have they got to go but up? Some enterprising couples are seeking corporate sponsorship to help pay for the flight. That sounds like a match made in heaven to us. Once people start planning extraterrestrial weddings, the advent of space tourism is that much closer to Earth.

Google just made personalized digital mapmaking that much easier. Already popular among leading-edge geeks, Google Maps mashups are going to the masses thanks to the Google’s My Maps offering. Google is simply giving consumers map-mashing tools they’d otherwise find elsewhere online. Users can create public or private maps, add lines and shapes to Google’s data, plug in photos and videos and, of course, mark spots. Map mashups have proliferated among the geekarati for the past couple of years. Ambitious mashup artists have combined Google map data with everything from Craigslist housing ads to user-contributed info about who in the neighborhood has the flu (at WhoIsSick.org). Regular Joes use the maps to plan vacations or chart favorite local spots. Cutting-edge consumers have shown a deep interest in playing with and personalizing digital maps, whether they do it to connect with others in their community, to make a political point online or simply as a fun data diversion. By directly giving consumers the power and tools to create their own map mashups, Google has pushed a number of smaller, third-party vendors out of the game.

Only-child families are growing. According to Only Child magazine, one-child families are the fastest-growing domestic structure in the U.S. (OnlyChild.com 3.07). Today, there are about 15 million families with only children, an 8% increase from the 13.8 million in 1994 (Post-Gazette.com 2.28.06). Why? Women are marrying later (or not at all). Others cite financial reasons, while some working moms admit that one child is all they can or want to manage. Parents of onlies aren’t alone: Only Child aims to “address the concerns and interests of only children, their parents, grandparents, family and friends.” The book Only Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing Up Solo offers a collection of essays on growing up without siblings. Parents of only children often feel pressure to provide extra peer interaction for little singletons. Beyond playgroups, sports and activities, they often treat friends like family, inviting them into their homes, out to restaurants, on shopping trips and on vacation. The media is making slow progress toward projecting the real picture of families—interracial, single-parent, same-sex parent and only-child. But when the mainstream media does capture domestic reality, consumers light up at their own reflection and appreciate the recognition.

How do you paint a portrait of our global society? Ask a million ordinary people from around the globe to participate in the world’s largest artistic collaboration: the One Million Masterpiece project (www.millionmasterpiece.com). People of all ages and abilities can use software on the project’s website to paint, doodle and otherwise decorate their own personal squares, which become part of a giant mosaic. Six months after its July 2006 launch, the mosaic had grown to 22,000 squares from 174 countries. Once it hits the 1 million mark, the image will be printed on a massive 260-ft. canvas and unveiled in London as a symbol of world unity. Like Australia’s “Face of Sydney,” composited from 160,000 photos of individual residents, the One Million Masterpiece proves the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The brush is mightier than the sword. Reaching across national boundaries to create a global artistic statement helps bridge cultural gaps and heal political rifts.

© 2007 ISM and Iconoculture, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published monthly by ISM in partnership with Iconoculture.