Chris Sanderson and his team draw on up to 2,500 creatives, designers, analysts, stylists, DJs, gamers, cultural academics and trend scouts to keep in touch with what’s coming.
Christopher Sanderson is the CEO and co-founder of The Future Laboratory, where he is responsible for delivering the company’s extensive global roster of conferences, media events, in-house briefings, consumer insight, trend forecasting and brand strategy. Clients include Louis Vuitton, Design Hotels, the Ministry for Tourism, Australia, and Women’s Wear Daily’s CEO Summits.
The Future Laboratory is a UK consultancy specialising in analysing new and emerging trends and lifestyle markets most likely to have an impact on how we live, eat, shop and think. Projects he has worked on include directing Futurescape, a series of short films about the future for Channel Four television. Chris has a monthly column in UK luxury industry bible, The Luxury Briefing. He is a regular writer on style and design for British and international publications and was contributing style editor at British Esquire.
Born in the UK, he trained as a theatre director and designer at Goldsmiths’ College, London. He has also worked in the UK and Spain as a Director in Residence at the Palau de la Musica, Valencia. Subsequent career changes saw him work as UK communications director for surfwear brand Quiksilver, and as a lecturer in visual communication at the London Institute.
He also sits on Heimtextil’s Trend Table, one of the world’s principal panels for forecasting key trends in the global textile industry. In 2012, Chris presented Channel 4’s five-part tv series, Home of the Future. In 2014, he and his team created Fragrance Lab for Selfridges, an exploration into the world of personalisation in scent, which won Retail Week’s Best Pop-up and Overall Winner of the 2014 Retail Week awards. Chris is a SuperBoard member of The British Fashion Council’s Fashion Trust.
He is a regular speaker and consultant for the British Council, projects include setting up magazines in India and Estonia and overviewing the growth of the creative industries in Scandinavia. He also served on the advisory panel for the British Council’s Creative Industries Unit.