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So what are the trends that are speeding towards us from the horizon? Some have already reached us while others are looming... here's our pick.

Sure, it's an overview and a generalisation, but there are some clear directions on show.

DOMESTICITY

Martha Stewart and Donna Reed are role models once again. The credit crunch has helped in fashioning a return to good old family values like cooking for yourself, eating together and making your own crafts, gifts and ... well, just making things. Some of those things are even turning back into craft home industries, macramé anyone? It's even going as far as creating your own clothes, although people like Vivienne Westwood are putting a real spin on it by doing a collection of clothes made from scraps, leftover bits of material, towels and curtains - sounds a bit like the scene in Gone With The Wind where empoverished Scarlet rips down the curtains to make a new ball dress!

IF YOU CAN'T MAKE IT YOURSELF, CUSTOMISE WHAT SOMEONE ELSE HAS

From custom ordering online, to stick-ons for your phone, body, walls, and life... the desire for individuality within conformity means we all have our iPhones but they've all got different sleeves and ringtones and patterns and... technology makes it possible. We expect it now - even our burgers: with or without, add something extra, take something away! And the more we share the same products the more we want to make ours our very own.

GETTING ATTENTION

Whether it's unattractive models, shock advertising, extreme geekiness or sheer outrageousness, having centre stage is all important. If you need to be really out there or over the top to do it, that's just par for the course today. Soon it'll be really different just to be normal because everyone else will be trying so hard to stand out.

THE 1960s

With the craft revolution, home cooking, hippie values, greening culture and all the other indicators, it's no wonder that the sixties are our new decade of cool. Look out for the colours, the patterns, the sounds - heard Sharleen Spiteri from Texas channelling Dusty Springfield on Melody, or Duffy channelling Dusty Springfield on Mercy, or Amy Winehouse...? Well, you get the idea! Let's not forget shows like Mad Men or movies that remix and retro-coolify the decade too. The poor eighties hardly got their fifteen minutes of fame.

OLD IS THE NEW YOUNG

Well not quite, but close. You've got Baby Boomers swimming the Atlantic, old models in commercials (or in Yohju Yamamoto's case, on the catwalk), the concept of never retiring as a viable option (and maybe financial necessity). It's never been a better time to be elderly and cool. Old people aren't giving up their spotlight - just how many rockers are eligible for pensions these days? They say 60 is the new 40.

PERSONAL GROWTH

Gardening that is. Real gardens are back. So are growing your own vegetables - if you can and it doesn't work out that you're spending so much time doing it that it costs you about $300 per carrot! Hell, Michelle Obama has even dug up a corner of the White House lawn to grow lettuces! If you can't have real gardens, fake ones are good. Not to mention pot plants (headline: Rubber trees make a comeback!), spice gardens and, wait for it, personal trainers for gardeners about how to grow better roses and plan your garden (they give advice, you do the work).

SUPERLUXE

After MASSTIGE (the mixing of everything mass and prestigious to make the previously desirable attainable for ordinary folk - 'let's drink French champagne and wear designer clothes in front of our huge plasma TV!') comes the stuff you really can't afford. US$4 million rings (Beyoncé's engagement ring) or cars (like the £750,000 Bugatti Veyron Simon Cowell bought) or... well, anything ordinary folk really can't and never will be able to afford. If you're rich now, you've got to spend much, much more showing it because anyone can do the stuff you used to. It's exhibitionism with a big budget - because you can't brag about it otherwise.