Trend Forecasting is the process of looking at the consumer market as a whole - looking at other industries such as automobiles, medicine, food and beverages, literature and home furnishing and from these markets depicting what will be the latest fashion trends.Identifying these trends is important as it allows companies to successfully market their products to their audiences taste, helping the profits of the brands and overall businesses.
Trend forecasters have 'shared situation awareness' where observational research is done in a professional context - themes and ideas which are prominent to the current market are highlighted, this is how the upcoming trends are deciphered. This is process is influenced by the opinion formers, the individuals who spark the initial inspiration. For fashion to create something new, fashion cannot feed fashion that it why research to other markets is compulsory.
Teams create trends through the ability to recognise a pattern in a fluid situation and to use this information to anticipate what will happen next. Due to the continually increasing pace of the environment, with the internet and social media, trends no longer have longevity.
There are three steps in the process of to forecasting a trend:
1. observing the raw data
2.spot patterns to form a hypothesis to how the situation might unfold
3. test the hypothesis
In terms of trends once they have been identified, they can be described in a number of ways.
FORDS: Fast selling ideas, idea of the moment. Also referred to as 'fizz buys'.
TRAFALGARS: Designers developing ideas, slow selling ideas.
BUBBLE UP: Ideas from the street bubble up to inspire designers.
TRICKLE DOWN: Trends that were created on the catwalk that have trickled down to be interpreted by the street.
The fact that many designers have complimenting collections each season is due to the fact their trend forecaster highlight the current trends for the season, and select the ones that would be most suitable for the market and most high end designer share the same consumers.
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