HAMBURG (dpa) - Germans are keen to buy a new sofa, the videotheques are full and if you drive to the furniture shop on a Saturday, the traffic jams start ahead of the parking-lot.
In an increasingly dangerous world Germans like things to be comfortable and are keen to shut themselves off from the rest of the world although this trend is not entirely new.
U.S. trend researcher Faith Popcorn first coined the term cocooning about 20 years ago. These days the emphasis is on privacy: If you feel unsafe, stay at home.
Lifestyle researchers are on the track of the new “Gemuetlichkeit”, that hard to translate German word for a cosy, homely atmosphere.
“The new geopolitical situation reduces the public space and promotes all forms of exclusiveness and intimacy because these suggest security and clarity,” a new survey by the research institute of Matthia Horx says.
The boutique Voyage in London where only club members are allowed to shop or the Zurich restaurant-club Daniel H., which is reserved for an exquisite circle are outstanding examples.
Faith Popcorn herself sees yet another form of retreat into intimacy the “armoured cocoon that is supposed to protect from a tough outer world and its dangers.
The private security market in the United States is worth 115 billion euros a year, four million Americans live in heavily- protected residential areas. Insecurity is also growing in Germany. Staff at private property protection services are chalking up overtime.
Ikea Deutschland, the German unit of the Swedish furniture manufacturer, adapted itself a long time ago to the desire for domesticity, for example. Cuddly furniture is selling very well, said spokeswoman Stefanie Neumann.
“Our world is becoming more and more hectic, people are uncertain about the future,” she said. According to Neumann, this corresponds to the fact that rattan furniture is in people are taking a bit of the garden into the home.
However, the trend is not “entirely brand-new,” as Europa Brandig of Trendbuero in Hamburg puts it. There one speaks of “privacy”. “Unlike the cocooning of the 70s, this withdrawal today has very much more to do with social togetherness.”
This means cooking together, viewing sports broadcasts or evening serials on TV in each other’s company.
The plethora of interior decorating journals and the popularity of games-evenings speak for this approach by Trendbuero. Hamburg-based social researcher Horst W. Opaschowski summarises it simply: Germans are becoming more domesticated.
“What the German soul calls ‘Gemuetlichkeit’ or a homely atmosphere is therefore once more in demand,” the researcher states.
Terrorist attacks might have contributed indirectly to the withdrawal, Bendig says. Two factors are important: Many people have lost the desire to travel, they are less mobile. “The ability to experience things sensuously has become more important,” Bendig notes.
People lead a more conscious, more intense life, indulge themselves in a chocolate ice-cream or a pack of cigarettes. However, the actual trend is the desire for credibility, while fear and mistrust grow at the same time.
Thus, the retreat into one’s own four walls could be “one of many consequences”. However, as The New York Times finds, there is one hitch to the new Gemuetlichkeit: Who has the time for it? (Internet: http://www.faithpopcorn.com/trends/cocooning.
