Hi guys, before I start writing this entry, let me introduce my self 😄! I'm Chetrin, currently studying in my year 2 Diploma in Fashion Design, NAFA, Singapore :)
Basically, this blog will be discussing about what is forecasting fashion, why and how to forecast fashion.
Let's get started~!!
Basic definition of:
Fashion: a popular or the latest style of clothing, hair, decoration, or behavior.
Forecast: predict or estimate (a future event or trend).
What is Fashion Forecast?
- Fashion forecast is a global career that focuses on upcoming trends, such as 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. (Wikipedia.org).
- Foreseeing fashion trends and predicting those trends early enough to allow time for production to meet the consumer demand (Slideshare.net).
- To predict or foretell future fashion trend for a specific period of time (Probite.net).
By observing the definitions of fashion forecast from different sources, I could conclude that fashion forecast is basically discussing about trends in fashion, daily lifestyle, and other changes which could affect people thought about fashion, buying habits, styling, and fashion preferences.
Types of Fashion Forecast:
- Short-term Forecasting
Focusing on current events for both domestically and internationally, as well as pop culture in order to predict the possibility upcoming fashion trends through color palettes, fabrics, and silhouettes. Some important events to follow on are art, sports, science, and technology. This forecast usually predict the trends fore one or two years in the future. - Long-term Forecasting
Focusing on major changes in international and domestic demographics, shifts in the fashion industry along with market structures, consumer expectations, values, and impulsion to buy, new developments in technology and science, and shifts in the economic, political, and cultural alliances between certain countries.
Why is it important to forecast fashion?
- To increase the possibility of products purchased based on consumer demand by studying their lifestyles, shopping habits, and fashion sense/preferences.
- To understand more about styling, textile, color palettes, silhouette to fit their design into the mainstream of fashion and their consumer categories (men, women, children).
- To keep up-to-date with the current events, arts, and mood of public by observing street fashion and society environment.
- To train the accuracy of trend analysis in order to compete in the real fashion world because worldwide competitions enhance the importance of accurate fashion analysis/observation.
By knowing the importance of forecasting fashion, we could tell that there are lots of research done by the designers, merchandisers, and managers, for instance, consumer research, market research, sales research, comparison shopping, and others. Therefore, here are some activities that they do to achieve the research results:
- Consumer Research
- Surveys by telephone or mail to determine income levels, lifestyles, fashion preferences, and shopping habits
- Consumer focus groups to discuss the pros and cons of currently offered merchandise
- In-store informal interviewing to assess what costumers like and dislike
- Market Research
- Study of market conditions
- Study consumer lifestyles
- Study of current events, arts, and mood of public
- Sales Research
- Evaluation of previous sales trends
- Rising sales
- Declining sales
- Weak sales
- Comparison Shopping
- Current popular designer collections
- Review of fashion publications, catalogs, and websites
- Observation of street fashions and celebrity wardrobes
In my opinion, all these research process will be the most crucial part in the forecasting progress because by going through these steps, they will get more accurate data and it will help the outcome results.
On the other hand, fashion forecast happened because there were lot of changes happening in the fashion world. All these changes were comes from different factors, such as economic changes, cultural changes, social changes, competitor performance, globalization, advanced communication technologies, and others. In my opinion, out of those changes, cultural, social, and economical changes are the most influential factors to cause changes in the fashion world.
- Economical changesIn basic daily life, we indirectly could see the connection between fashion and economy, which is most of people tend to sacrifice their fashion shopping when money's tight in order to save money. This correlation remind me of the "Hemline Theory" by George Taylor, which hemlines became shorter as a way for women to show off their silk stockings. However, due to the economical downturn, longer skirts became high in demand because longer skirts allowed women to hide that they weren't wearing and couldn't afford stockings.
- Cultural changesCultural changes give lots of impact on how fashion change time to time. By observing and understanding on different cultures, fashion designer could understand more about their daily activities, traditions, architectures, music, designs, and photography which could be the inspiration and concepts for a collection idea for the upcoming trend.
- Social changesBasically, social and environments affect on the way people think about fashion and how they style themselves. One of the very common examples is celebrity influences. Through celebrities, people started to follow their fashion styles which results on them buying the garments. This influences could give both positive and negative impacts to the society. The negative impacts could be people only think about the new fashion styles without thinking about the quality and this causes money and time wasting on it. The positive impacts are high on demand which cause fashion industry employs some millions of people and it's a way to celebrating the diversity and variety of the world in which we live.
- Globalization
As fashion brands become more globalize and demand on branded fashion label started to increase because of the good economy level, people start to state out their judgement based on the way they dressed or their appearance.In this case, McDermott et al. (2011) held a study with two participants. One female was wearing a sweatshirt with a K-mart logo, while the other female was wearing a sweatshirt with an Abercrombie & Fitch logo. They took the participant’s pictures and passed them out to college students. Most believed the female with the A&F logo was of higher socio-economic status than the female wearing the K-mart logo. This study concluded that most people do judge others by the clothes they wear (McDermott et al., 2011)
- Advance technologies
By the development of technologies nowadays, lots of factories in any different field started to adapt with current technologies which affect on their product outcomes. As many factories improve their machinery, manufacturers are able to produce clothes of a much better quality by using different materials, techniques and practices.In term of the development of communication technologies, fashion designers started to rely on TV, newspapers and magazines, theater performances, films and past season fashion looks to determine their next biggest fashion move. This happened because people started to ignore their surroundings and focus more to social media which make us become more individualistic until to the extend that they could not express their own personality. Through this advance technology, it is easier for fashion designer to attract people's attention because it is faster to be a trend when there are medias who support the issues/trends.
In a nutshell, it's very important to understand trend and what is happening outside the world, so that we could know how we should react and what action should we make to grant consumer demand on fashion. Even a small details such as color palettes, fabrics, detailing, finishes, styling, and everything that's going on to a garment must be observed in order to achieve accurate fashion trend for the future.
Thank you for reading!! :D
References:
- http://www.slideshare.net/Vijay_ggsbs/fashion-and-its-impact-on-social-change
- http://www.intothefashion.com/2010/01/cultural-influences-on-trend.html
- http://www.beautyandgroomingtips.com/2013/04/how-does-culture-influence-fashion.html
- http://www.slideshare.net/khull06/cultural-influences-on-fashion-3389768
- http://www.intothefashion.com/2010/01/cultural-influences-on-trend.html
- http://www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article/6938/effects-of-new-technologies-social-changes-economic-trends-on-fashion
- http://elitedaily.com/women/fashion-reflects-economic-state/948110/
- http://fashioneconomy324.blogspot.sg/
- https://durrschmidtunt.wordpress.com/2012/02/04/how-economic-status-influences-fashion-trends/
- http://smallbusiness.chron.com/longterm-vs-shortterm-forecasting-apparel-forecasting-process-35753.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fashion_forecasting
- http://www.probrite.net/define.asp?def=Fashion%20forecast
- http://www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article/83/fashion-forecasting?page=1
- http://www.slideshare.net/suniltalekar1/fashion-forecasting-29173427
- http://www.fashiondesignscope.com/?p=5447
