The Fashion-Forecasting Process
Fashion-Forecasting
Fashion forecasting is a global career that focuses on upcoming trends. A fashion forecaster predicts the colors, fabrics, textures, materials, prints, graphics, beauty/grooming, accessories, footwear, street style, and other styles that will be presented on the runway and in the stores for the upcoming seasons.
The Fashion-Forecasting Process
“ Fashion used to come from one source at a time, be it
the street, the runways or the entertainment business. The interesting thing
about today is that influences come from high and low-everything from couture
to Target.” –Michael Kors
Trend Chasers
a.k.a. Forecasters
• locate the spawning grounds of trends
• identify emerging concepts
• fashion information passed on to other forecasters,
product developers, marketers and the press
• work for all kinds of firms
Strategic Window
i.e. a window of opportunity
• timing a firm’s product offerings to the customer’s
readiness and willingness to accept and adopt those products.
Forecasting Defined:
• Forecasting should identify:
v
Source
v
Underlying Pattern
v
Direction
v
Tempo
• Forecasting attempts to project past trends into the
future
• Anticipates future developments by watching for signals of
change in current situations
Trend:
• Can be emerging, building or declining
• It has identifiable similarities across information
sources. (styles, details, etc)
• Characterized by a building awareness among consumers
Fad:
• short trend (a trend with a short duration)
• accepted among a relatively small contingent of consumers
• fades quickly because it isn’t supported the corresponding
lifestyle changes.
Classics:
• long trend
• any item or style that gains visibility, generates
multiple purchases, and reaches a plateau level of widespread acceptance that
persists over a long period of time.
• classics implement core attributes desirable while
avoiding extreme styling
Visualization
Helps forecasters understand and communicate the movement of
fashion and project future directions.
There are 3 most familiar patterns of visualization.
3 Most Familiar Patterns
• Fashion Curves
• Pendulum Swing
• Fashion Cycles
Fashion Curve:
• trends are classified in duration and penetration which
are visualized by a curve
• time is on the horizontal axis
• consumer adoption is on the vertical axis
Pendulum Swing:
• refers to periodic movement of fashion between extremes.
Ex. Power dressing in the 80s moved on to relaxed dress
codes.
Fashion Cycles:
• The idea that there exist cyclical patterns in fashion
that reoccur over time and are discernible.
• The reoccurring patterns are called long wave phenomenon
7 Steps in Developing a Forecast
Tools and techniques that are systematically applied
1.
Identify the basic facts
about past trends and forecasts
2.
Determine the causes of
change in the past
3.
Determine the difference
between past forecasts and actual behaviors
4.
Determine the factors
likely to affect trends in the future
5.
Apply forecasting tools and
techniques while paying attention to issues of accuracy and reliability
6.
Follow the forecast
continually to determine reasons for significant deviations from expectations
7.
Revise the forecast when
necessary
Long Term vs. Short Term Forecasting:
Two types of fashion forecasting are used: short-term forecasting, which envisions trends one to two years in the future and focuses on new product features such as color, textile, and style and long-term forecasting, which predicts trends five or more years out and focuses on the directions of the fashion industry with regard to materials, design production and retailing. Long-term forecasts contribute to a fashion firm's development strategies and help it make decisions related to repositioning or extending product lines, initiating new business, and reviving brand images.
Long Term Forecasting:
•5 years or more
•timeline sufficient for decisions related to repositioning
or extending product lines
•initiating new businesses
•reviving brand images
•planning new retain concepts
Short Term Forecasting:
•1 year +
•timeline allows for the segments of the textile / apparel
pipeline to coordinate seasonal goods around looks that can be communicated to
the customer through the press and stores
Tools used for Gathering Information's for Forecasting:
Fashion Scan:
• Following the latest fashion news to spot emerging fashion
& lifestyle trends
• Focus on color, textiles or style forecasting
Consumer Scan:
• Attempts to identify clusters of people who share
Characteristics
• Usually combined with demographics, lifestyle, attitudes
and behavior
• Used to determine target market
• Can be used to better understand consumer behavior
Fashion Analysis:
• Combines FASHION SCAN and CONSUMER SCAN to
determine what is likely to happen next
• Brings together expertise of a fashion insider & the
insights of consumer behavior
Social and Economic Trends:
• Cultural changes in society involve shifts in lifestyle
and reflect changes in generational cohorts or cycles in the economy
• Affects mass scale purchasing decisions
• Casual lifestyle, trend resistant consumer
• Megatrends-large scale shifts that cross industry lines
Trend Analysis:
• Detects short & long term trends that affect business
prospects
• Uses all of the aforementioned tools:
v
Fashion Scan
v
Consumer Scan
v
Fashion Analysis
v
Social and Economic Trends
v
Trend Analysis
Competitive Analysis
• Researches the plans and capabilities of competing firms
by tracing public information sources.
• Over time this allows for the bench-marking of activities
against competitors and to develop an accurate view of the market environment.
Discovering the Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist = “The Spirit of the Times”
• All cultural components respond to the spirit of the times
• The power of the zeitgeist is the ability to coordinate
across product categories
• Fashion affects all product categories
• Individuals in large numbers choose among competing
styles; they choose those styles that click or connect with the spirit of the
times.
Defining Fashion:
• Fashion is a style that is popular in the present.
• It is a set of trends that have been accepted by a wide
audience.
• It is a complex phenomenon: psychological, sociological,
cultural or commercial points of view
7 Statements of Fashion:
• Fashion as a Social and Psychological Response
• Fashion as a Popular Culture
• Fashion as Change
• Fashion as a Universal Phenomenon
• Fashion as a Transfer of Meaning
• Fashion as an Economical Stimulus
• Fashion and Gender Differences
• Fashion as a Social and Psychological Response
Clothing simultaneously conceals and reveals the body &
self.
The buying of fashion is cognitively challenging ($$$ vs.
value) and emotionally arousing (+ vs. -) in terms of symbolic meaning to
products.
• Fashion as a Popular Culture
Operating within the domain of popular culture
It is sometimes trivial and transient
This invites skepticism because it sometimes seems frivolous
or extreme
• Fashion as Change
Captures charms of novelty
Responsiveness to the spirit of the times and the pull of
historical continuity
• Fashion as a Universal Phenomenon
example: Mid 15th century Burgundy was a fashion
hub
With international trade came exposure to foreign styles
Fashion is trade in materials, ideas and artisans
• Fashion as a Transfer of Meaning
Meaning exists in the cultural environment
Designers, marketers and the press transfer meaning to a
consumer good.
One buys the consumer good and constructs one’s world
• Fashion as an Economical Stimulus
Fashion is an economic entity
Planned obsolescence powers the economic engines of fashion
There is a pleasure associated with new looks and new
clothes, styles, etc.
• Fashion and Gender Differences
Men’s clothes traditionally occupational
Women’s clothes traditionally vented their individuality
Apparel for the genders is not on the same field.
Nystrom’s Framework for Observing the Zeitgeist
Attempted to list factors that guide & influence the
character and direction of fashion
• Dominating events
• Dominating Ideas
• Dominating Social Groups
• Dominating Attitude
• Dominating Technology
• Dominating events, 3 kinds:
Significant occurrences= war, death, world fairs,
academy awards etc.
Art Vogues = Russian ballet
Accidental events = discovery of king tut’stomb
• Dominating Ideas
Patriotism, Greek ideal or classic beauty
Multiculturalism, environmentalism, gender equality, etc.
• Dominating Social Groups
Those with wealth, power & leadership positions
celebrities fall into this category
• Dominating Attitude
attitude of the times
eras of differentiation v. conformity
(20’s & 60’s v. 30’s, 50’s & 90’s)
• Dominating Technology
technology imprints:
including production methods
materials
infiltrating our daily lives
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