Where Trends Come From
Stamps produce 10 collections a year and, as you noticed, they all fall into trends. Wonderzine understands who shapes the trends for the seasons and the seasons ahead, as fashion analysts predict them and adopt clothing brands.
If you follow the fashion, then, most likely, you know that now the brands produce pre-autumn collections of 2014 - Pre-Fall 2014. In the last stage of production are samples of collections for the fall and winter of 2014 and 2015 - Fall / Winter 2014 / 2015. This means that most of the brands are already occupied with mindboards and sketches of the collections of the spring season, Resort 2015, and collections for spring and summer 2015 - Spring / Summer 2015. Of course, we are talking about global brands that set the fashion, from Alexander Wang and Burberry Prorsum to Givenchy and Prada. It turns out that these brands produce a dozen collections a year: remember the article by the critic of the International Herald Tribune, Suzy Menkes, about the new pace of fashion - the "endless parade of new products." To make such an impressive amount of clothing in such a short period of time, it takes more than just a team of designers and stylists who are able to generate ideas 24/7. In most cases, they are helped by trend forecasters - people who are engaged in the prediction of fashion trends. They analyze hundreds of different factors and determine how long the top with which width of strip of which shade of blue you want to wear in the future. Moreover, the prediction of the trend can be both short-term (for 2016) and long-term - for 2020. Anyone can get access to this analytics: it’s enough to buy a trend book at Première Vision or subscribe to the corresponding paid newsletter on WGSN, an online platform that in the late 1990s made serious competition to printed trend books.
What is the basis of trend analytics - or, more simply, where do the trends that they predict and thereby dictate come from? Perhaps the most important object of trend-analyst observation is consumers, that is, absolutely all people. Note that the focus groups are so last season. In 2009, American designer Julia Fowler, along with a friend and programmer Joffrey, launched Edith, a platform that analyzes the actions of customers at various online stores and comments on social networks. The data obtained makes it clear to retailers and manufacturers absolutely everything: on how adequate the price of their product is, given its fashionability, in comparison with competitors, to how long the love for the leopard lasts. Edith's customers are Asos and Gap, who turned out to be guided not only by the trend reports of the next season, but also by more farsighted and targeted predictions.
Another important feature that gives trend analysts food for thought is pop culture. This is, firstly, celebrities, directly affecting the minds of the masses. For example, in the early 2000s celebrities began photographing in everyday life in plush costumes Juicy Couture — and tracksuits became part of casual wear, and if Beyonce and Rihanna wear baggy T-shirts with numbers and short denim shorts, the likelihood of these will appear in Topshop collections increases at times. By the way, the head of the British brand design department, Emma Farrow, notes that another part of pop culture — movies, music and art — influences trends. “Now they are buying not just clothes, but aesthetics. If an exhibition about the culture of punks opens at the Metropolitan Museum, soon people will want to try on their image for themselves - these are the things that make today's buyers,” Farrow comments. Fashion, in fact, is part of pop culture. When shows become something of a national sport, people who attend these shows — heroes of street blogs — become the celebrities of the Scott Schumann and Tommy Ton eras. Many trends are set by Ada Kokosar, Suzy Lau, Taylor Tomasi Hill, and also Helen, Miroslava and Ulyana.
Fashion, like everything else in the world, is cyclical, so it can be partially calculated. Take an easy example: the trends of the 1960s were revived in both the 1980s and 2000s. That is, the decades that influenced appearance and habits are quoted with approximately equal frequency. However, due to the growth rate of fashion, its cycle becomes shorter. Moreover, now there is no distribution of decades over the seasons: according to the latest shows, at the same time 3.1 Phillip Lim speaks about the 1990s, Rochas - about the 1960s, and Giorgio Armani - about the 1940s. A cycle of trends can be described by special universities - just like economic cycles. They sell this knowledge to fashion houses - they, of course, will not talk about it publicly. Let's return to trend analysts. Style.com observer Tim Blanks always likes to repeat that fashion is changing under the influence of society. For example, in the 1970s and 80s women especially vehemently defended equal rights with men - and worn trouser suits. The sexual revolution of the 60s, and designer Mary Quant, presented us mini-skirts. This also includes the influence of subcultures with certain external codes on fashion: these are punks, hippies, and preppies. Trend analysts evaluate the social phenomena of the modern world. Greenpeace can provoke a fashion for artificial fur, Pussy Riot - for bright neon color blocking, and the latest events in Ukraine - a combination of yellow and blue.
The fact that many designers rely on trend forecasts - which is already evident from the repetitive colors and shapes in collections - does not mean that there is no room for creativity in the world. There are fashion houses that themselves shape the look of a generation and dictate how a girl should dress. These are, for example, Hannah MacGibbon and Phoebe Failo, who for five years dressed us all in silk tuxedos and beige coats, or Miuccia Prada, who dressed everyone in colored fur and made them want a bomber jacket with crystals. But when you need to make a distribution plan for 10 collections in a year, thinking about innovations becomes complicated. Raf Simons says that short-term vacations help him cope with this: the designer leaves to rest in an empty house after creating each ruler. And it can be seen that the most powerful impulse of creativity comes from young and burdened with only two collections of designers - like Iris van Herpen or Meadham Kirchhoff. Which, by the way, will surely soon become parts of large corporations: this is exactly what happens to their colleague Jonathan Anderson, who was taken under the care of the owner of Gucci, Kering. The question is what will happen to fashion in 10 or 20 years: will not 99% of designers choose the shade of mint and the width of the Breton strip according to the trend-book to get into the trend that they will definitely buy.