Trends forecastingAesthetic | Key Drivers | Zeitgeist
This project explored the process of trend forecasting and formed a foundation for understanding how to identify patterns (threads) in order to establish future trend concepts and market opportunities. The process of trend forecasting is the basis for developing ideas, product and strategy to meet future market changes and demand. The process is used across multiple industries and is a vital tool to ensure products and ideas are launched at the right time, are marketed to the appropriate consumer and have the right aesthetic to suit the prevailing mood. For this module we had to look firmly at what was currently going on NOW in society, in the news, in the arts, everything. We had to find links through our research, links that would create trends for the future. We could choose a sector to forecast and I chose menswear as this was an area that I hadn’t explored in great detail yet and I wanted to broaden my portfolio past just womenswear. We also had to chose a season for 2017 and I chose Spring/Summer. Our research and outcomes had to include Key drivers towards our trend, historical context, commercial context and theories, concept development, interpretation of patterns across sectors and application of trend thread into fashion. My trend was called Backward Thinking and it was about the love in the old and adopting the past in a retro aesthetic defiance. Rejection of modern life leads to traditional approaches, which in turn then creates this macro trend. The blur between the past and the new is a key factor for this trend. I had three phases within this trend, each one slightly different to phase into stores at the right time in the season. |