The Ask

To start this project my group first had to identify things that were happening in the world and their impact that they would carry in the world of consumerism. Brands have to know what is happening in the world to build out what products will be used and carried within the stores for each season. This requires brands to either bring in a team or go externally to find the trends and understand how to execute on them. To effectively complete this outside trends need to be identified from all realms. Political, finical, cultural, familial, leisure, job, film all of these areas impact what people want to wear and it is the job of a forecaster to take these things in and out put how exactly they will impact purchasing decisions and fashion designs.

Once we gathered ideas and trends we were seeing across our various forms of research then begins the start of building the forecast. A team has to compile consistent ideas to create a justification. What this means is we had to identify similar concepts and happenings from different aspects of life and figure out just how exactly they communicate and what that means. This is the major step for trend forecasting as if you do not have a solid justification for what you see happening in 2-3 years you will likely find yourself wrong. Forecasting requires both instinct and research to see success as you have to be able to identify what is a trend and what is a fad and what should be capitalized on. My group was forecasting a return to the jazz age and a reimagination of the club scene to a more refined space. We saw evidence in the loneliness epidemic amongst Gen Z, the disappoint Gen Z saw when finally aging into the club scene, the move from away drinking culture, and a desire for elegance.

Another important step in the process is creating the body of the trend. Once the theme has been created and envisioned the team has to create what it will look like. This is where you are deciding on the aspects of who will wear the clothes (target demographic), what the key garments will be (the looks), the fabrics of the trend, what colors will be worn, and just the general aspects that will make up the trend. Like every step of the process if this is done ineffectively what the trend actually could be will be misinterpreted. With this portion of the project, it is the most time consuming but that is because you are creating the feeling of the theme. With the idea of our trend being a refined luxurious night out this was the core basis for a lot of the decisions made regarding the trend. Over the top elegant garments, rich fabrics, options for both a cool and warm color story. Everything pieced together a large and glamerous forecast.

Once the core ideas and decisions for the trends are made, the final step is next. Fashion is a visual field and communicating trends is no different. By the nature of the topic the ideas conveyed by the trend need to be shown both verbally and physically. The client needs to be able to see the trend to grasp the vision of the theme. This is accomplished through creating not just color palettes but a visual story that relates to the trend, showing garments that inspired the forecast, detailing what fabrics will be used, and any other physical media that can be used to articulate the vision. But this needs to be accompanied by a compelling oral justification, the team had to be able to explain what every element meant and why exactly it fit into the idea of the forecast.