You might think that trends emerge organically. It’s the Malcolm Gladwell scenario: one cool kid in New York wears a certain brand of loafers. His friends adopt the look. Those who admire them follow suit. The virus spreads. And then suddenly the trend spills into the mainstream; hence the title of Gladwell’s most famous book, The Tipping Point.
Trends can be manufactured, with an entire industry working very hard to ensure that we all buy the same thing at the same time. The hub, of course, is the fashion business. Designers both high and low take their cues from a little-known group of trend consultants who set the agenda for the seasons to come.
I first came upon this brigade when I was working on a book about the fashion industry in 2004. As part of my research I visited the headquarters of Inditex, the owner of fast fashion brand Zara, in Galicia.
Zara is notorious for taking its “inspiration” from high-end collections. I asked one of the designers where she got her ideas, and she indicated a pile of fashion magazines on her desk. Then she added: “And of course there’s WGSN.”
WGSN is the Worth Global Style Network, founded by brothers Marc and Julian Worth in 1998. Describing itself as “the world’s leading fashion and consumer trend forecasting service,” WGSN.com employs more than 400 journalists and stylists across the globe. They report on fashion shows and fabric fairs, attend exhibitions and cultural events, snap street style photos and infiltrate youth tribes, all to keep WGSN’s clients informed about what’s hot.
Clients pay several thousand dollars for a password to this online treasure trove of trends. WGSN’s advice may influence not only the packaging of a new cosmetics brand, but the shades of eye shadow and lipstick within.
You can immediately see the irony in all this. By informing designers, buyers, merchandisers and strategists about the next big thing, WGSN actually drives trends. (Full disclosure: after writing about the company, I actually worked for WGSN as on a freelance basis for three years.)
For my book I also interviewed Pierre-François Le Louët, president of a “style bureau” called Nelly Rodi, which is actually the modern-day incarnation of the 1950’s International Fashion Committee set up in Paris. Nelly, Pierre-François’ mother, bought the committee when it was privatized in 1991.
Pierre-François provided the perfect summary of the trend conspiracy. “Why co-ordinate trends? Simply to reduce incertitude: if you give the same intelligence to those who sell the clothes, those who design them, and those who supply the fabric, there are enormous advantages, because they know what material will be in demand and where to concentrate their efforts… The idea was to reduce the margin for error in the extremely risky field of fashion.”
The most tangible result of these efforts were “trend books” provided to designers by style bureaus. These hefty tomes are filled with photographs, illustrations and fabric swatches that round up the agency’s predictions of forthcoming trends and act as inspirational tools –or prompts – for idea-hungry designers. Imagine what happens when several designers receive the same book. Abracadabra! Trends are born.
Apart from as providing intelligence, trend consultants also advise on brand strategies, help produce marketing materials, organize events and – occasionally – design entire collections.
Once you’re in the loop, it’s actually fairly easy to predict certain fashion trends. Right now, I’d be taking a close look at the costumes worn by the characters in Star Wars: The Force Awakens – particularly Rey– to get an inkling of what we might be wearing next summer. Natural fabrics in dusty desert tones, anyone? If WGSN is as good as I think it is, the Rey effect has already been integrated into its 2016/17 colour palette predictions.
To a large extent, the fashion industry would be lost without trends. Why do we need more clothes, when our wardrobe is already full of them? Because we want to be “on trend”. Our glasses are too square, our jeans are too wide, our sneakers are the wrong shade.
Trends are a form of advertising. They plant the seed of doubt that encourages us to buy. Without trends, we might be perfectly happy with everything we own. But then what would happen to consumer society?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mark Tungate is a British journalist based in Paris. He is editorial director of the Epica Awards, the only global creative awards judged by the specialist press. Mark is the author of six books about branding and marketing, including the recent Branded Beauty: How Marketing Changed the Way We Look.
NOTE: This article was first published in the January-February 2016 issue of adobo magazine.
