Fashion Forecasters

Fashion forecasters are professionals who predict colors, fabrics, silhouettes, and design details that are relevant to the zeitgeist. Fashion refers to the prevailing style or custom. The term can be applied to many forms of expression (architecture, art, home furnishings) but is most commonly associated with mode of dress. By nature, fashion is dynamic; it reflects the ideas, events, and people in society that influence us. It responds to our behavior and reflects our mood. Forecasters help those in fashion identify emerging trends on their way up the fashion curve. They help to guide the element of change that makes fashion a big business in today's global marketplace; newness induces people to buy.

Fashion theory suggests that fashion trends may trickle down, trickle up, or trickle across. Trends that are derived from fashion runways, adopted in the luxury market, and then adapted for the mass market are said to trickle down. Trends that emanate from the streets and are imitated by designers, celebrities, and those in the higher socioeconomic segment are said to trickle up. (The popularity of denim and the youth movement in the late 1960s are examples.) The trickle-across theory suggests that the accelerating ability of the mass market to interpret fashion at any price point gives rise to fashions that are adopted simultaneously—in any given fashion season, consumers at any price point may select from a range of styles that satisfy their personal taste. Fast fashion purveyors, such as H&M and Zara, have perpetuated trickle-across fashion.

Fashion forecasters track trends that trickle down, up, and across. They look for cultural elements that make certain colors, fabrics, silhouettes, or details relevant. The growth of Starbucks is credited with making brown a cool color. An interest in sustainability creates buzz about green. With a long-term interest in sustainability, green as a fashion color may morph into new shades of green, or blues and blue-greens that represent the water and the sky. A reference to a particular country or culture may be popularized through a native handicraft used as fabrication or trim (e.g., batik fabrics) or through a silhouette or detail from that culture's native dress; references may be expressed in either a historic or traditional mode (e.g., Japanese kimono) or in a modern-day context. Forecasters can suggest applications for new textile [Page 592]technology that speeds up the commercialization process such as in adaptations of techno-fabrics used in the Olympics. Consumers of fashion may not consciously think about the symbolism of their fashion choices, but subliminally they understand their relevance and respond to a somewhat consistent message across the marketplace.

To make these connections, forecasters must have keen powers of observation and the ability to connect the dots. One headline catches their attention; a casual conversation reinforces the message; a television show deals with a similar topic. A trend forecaster identifies the issues, people, and places that their customers are thinking about. This ability helps forecasters to make fashion relevant in a way that draws in consumers and motivates them to buy.

The field of fashion forecasting emerged in the late 1960s. Today, fashion forecasters may be employed by large retail product developers that want to ensure that the trends projected throughout their stores convey a consistent message. Others are employed by service bureaus that sell their forecasts to fabric manufacturers, wholesale brand product developers, and private brand retail product developers. Fashion forecasting services may sell products that are comprehensive in scope or products that specialize in color, fabric, or silhouettes and details. Like fashion brands, each forecasting product is designed to appeal to a particular segment of the market. The product may be delivered in the form of glossy books with color and fabric samples as well as images of directional runway looks; as daily or weekly e-mails with images and observations from around the globe; or as an interactive, dynamic website. Fashion forecasters may work as much as two years in advance of the season if working with the textile sector or about nine months in advance if working primarily with the retail sector. Color projections are made the earliest, then fabric, and then silhouette and detail predictions—the same order in which design decisions are made.

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