NIFT Launches Éternité: Kalpa 27/28 Fashion Forecast
20 July 2026: The National Institute of Fashion Technology launched Éternité: Kalpa 27/28, VisioNxt’s first international trend forecast, at Bharat Tex 2026 in New Delhi on 16 July 2026. Union Textiles Minister Giriraj Singh unveiled the book during the “Indian Trends to Global Taste: Forecasting for Billion Consumers” session at Bharat Mandapam. The forecast covers the 2027-28 fashion cycle and is intended to help designers, brands and manufacturers plan for shifts in design and consumer culture.
Forecast built around four states
Published through NIFT’s VisioNxt Trend Insights and Forecasting Lab, the book draws its title from Kalpa, the Indian concept of a vast cosmic cycle associated with continuity, renewal and the passage of time. It presents the future through four evolving states of consciousness: Vikalpa, Nirvikalpa, Akalpa and Samatva. These themes connect cultural change with possible directions in colour, clothing, design and consumer behaviour.
Rather than predicting individual products, VisioNxt says its approach studies changes in people’s aspirations, values, emotions and world views. The resulting observations are then translated into fashion and design directions.
Research combines culture and data
The official publication describes a Tesseract Methodology that brings together cultural cartography, archetype mapping, social listening, ethnographic observation and artificial intelligence.
Its research tools include the SCCEEEITA framework, which maps social, cultural, environmental, emotional and technological drivers. AI and deep-learning models are used to examine large datasets, while the Foresight Cube helps researchers consider alternative futures and possible paths of change.
VisioNxt says its research network includes more than 850 trendspotters working across different regions and communities.
One global trend analysis in the book used 40,730 full-body fashion images collected from influencers in European countries and Britain. A separate colour analysis produced a database of 201,721 apparel colour samples.
Direction for the fashion industry
Éternité: Kalpa 27/28 gives Indian fashion businesses a locally developed reference point for planning colours, materials, silhouettes and product themes for 2027-28. However, it remains a directional forecast rather than a guarantee of future demand. Brands and manufacturers will still need to compare its themes with their own sales data, customer research and target markets before making commercial decisions.
https://visionxt.in/dashboard/TrendsForecastsFashion
