Chanel Jacket, part deux
Posted: March 25, 2012 Filed under: behind the scenes, classics, classics re-imagined | Tags: Carine Roitfeld, Chanel, fashion, Karl Lagerfeld Leave a comment »I seem to have missed the fact that Chanel is on a mission. What mission exactly, I’m unsure of. But it seems to involve their famous little black jacket, a series of cute videos and Karl speaking French, so who am I to complain. Sit back and enjoy watching the Chanel gang play around with The Jacket:
How Chanel makes its little black jackets
Posted: March 16, 2012 Filed under: behind the scenes, classics, classics re-imagined | Tags: Chanel, fashion, fashion marketing 3 Comments »This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you keep your brand and signature product aspirational year after year:
How Chanel makes its little black jackets (via fashionologie.com)
Sorry you’ll have to watch the video off the blog again. I just can’t seem to figure out how to embed it. Tech fail. Please click the image above to watch the film, then come back here straaaaiiiight away and tell me what you think 
Trend Forecasting, Part 2 – EDITD’s approach
Posted: October 20, 2011 Filed under: trends, London Fashion Week, behind the scenes, New York Fashion Week, spring/summer, Paris Fashion Week, Milan Fashion Week | Tags: fashion, trend forecasting, trends, EDITD, Geoff Watts 3 Comments »
Spring/Summer 12 colour palette according to EDITD's analysis of the show season
A few weeks ago I made an attempt at explaining how trend forecasting works. At the time I focused on the more traditional way of doing things, not discussing the new kid on the block. This was mainly done because the first post wasn’t exactly light on information but also because I wanted to wait and see how I find the newbie. Old Street-based trend forecasting service EDITD crawls the web to gather details from retailers and to monitor the mood on social networking sites. Then they take this data to make their reports and to forecast trends for brands, retailers and suppliers so they can base their business decisions on facts rather than educated guesses.
Last week I received their first analysis of fashion month, EDITD’s Spring/Summer 2012 Fashion Week Wrap. ’25 million tweets and updates covering fashion weeks in New York, London, Milan and Paris over a month were analysed to give a unique, definitive overview of Spring/Summer 2012,’ the company’s co-founder Geoff Watts explains in his email. Following the link what I found was a detailed yet concise summary of the shows we just saw. The report describes how brands have benefited from a well thought-out social and digital strategy, visualises the season’s main colour palette as well as one for each of the four fashion cities, informs us that Givenchy and Louis Vuitton were well liked and that Yves Klein Blue was the predominant hue across the board. It also shows florals are the most talked about print of the season, lists sportswear and under-the-sea as the two most influential themes, and charts people’s reaction (love, hate, neutral) to the most important topics (eg. retro, feminine, Chanel).
I also liked their selection of 16 key looks and how EDITD explains why each of these looks will be important come spring. Lists of the 10 top designers, styles and prints conclude the coverage.
Although rather short I feel that the report covers everything most people will need to take away from the shows at this point. Of course buyers in particular will need more specific information (that EDITD provides) but what it does is filter out the main trends. I liked the way the data is presented and think it helped me sharpen my focus in some areas. The graph visualising peoples reactions to specific topics is particularly interesting. Of course there was no way around noticing all the retro shapes on the runway but I was surprised that EDITD’s data found 80% of these reactions to be negative. The colour analysis of the similarities and differences between New York, London, Milan and Paris also provides insight into what we’ll want to wear next season.
Generally I feel that data analysis on this level is a great addition but not quite a replacement for traditional trend forecasting. But I don’t think that that is EDITD’s aim. It does seem to bring some much-needed structure and logic into a field that tends to rely on instincts. On the other hand human interpretation and indeed instinct is something that is hard to express in numbers so my ideal solution is to have the best of both worlds.
To read the whole report, go to EDITD’s website.
The Enigmatic World of Trend Forecasting – Stylesight
Posted: September 8, 2011 Filed under: trends, behind the scenes | Tags: fashion, trend forecasting, Stylesight 1 Comment »Hi there! Long time no see. I have no excuses, really. Things have been in the pipeline but I couldn’t find the time to sit down and write them up for you. Let’s just consider this my little unannounced summer holiday. But here we go now: Before I worked in fashion, I had always been wondering WHY (It was such a big question for me, it warrants all caps!) certain trends emerged from the runways each season. Is there a secret convention designers attend beforehand where they would agree on a direction? Divine afflatus? A memo sent out by Anna Wintour? And considering lead times how long in advance must this happen?
The person to finally answer my questions was the wonderful Lynnette Cook, one of my tutors at Central Saint Martins. Trend forecasting is done by specialised agencies and tries and projects trends as far as 2 to 3 years ahead of the current season. They basically assess the world we currently live in, pick up on things going on in politics, art, culture, technology etc and work out the effects that may have on the consumer. The biggest players are – and I’m sure I forgot a few here – Promostyle, Nelli Rodi, Fred Carlin, D-Cipher (they all produce trend books), View, Zoom (colour prediction magazines), EMAP, WGSN, and Stylesight (all online). The later got in touch a while ago and offered me an online demonstration of their services. After many, MANY emails back and forth (it really wouldn’t be as much fun without the time difference between New York and London) with their lovely PR Elyse Heckman, an online meeting was set up with one of their ‘Site Geniuses’, Ingrid, who walked me through the site’s features.
Stylesight: The Image Library
Access to trend forecasting information is based on a yearly subscription. Their insightful blogs, however, are free and open to the public.
The Image Library is a section of the website that lets you search runway, celebrity, campaign and retail (visual merchandising, new products in stores…) images. Refine your search by keywords such as ‘full shots’, ‘dresses’, ’3/4 sleeve’, organise your images in folders, upload your own, download or add a comment, email your selection to someone, build presentations and customise colour palettes. It also offers prints that can be downloaded and used by designers, changed or unchanged.
Trend Forecast takes place 18 months in advance
In the Fashion Office you will find forecasting information for 18 months in advance. A time line helps you keep track of what’s coming out and when it’s coming out. From this information Stylesight put together four Megatrends per season and also explain where they’re coming from. Materials, flats and suggestions for what collections could or should consist of are provided. This was one of the details that surprised me the most during the session. I didn’t expect trend forecasting to go as far as putting out sketches designers can work from. That combined with the free-to-use patterns from the Image Library can provide a very practical starting point for any designer.
Trend Boards visually and verbally explain what will be important in the future
Within the Fashion Office, Lifestyle & Culture charts public attitude through art and exhibitions coverage and technology. The role of emerging talent (graduate shows…) is investigated and youth culture (which offers brilliant insights for festivals) is monitored. Cool campaigns and the most influential editorials are covered as well.
Runway analysis is done in Stylesight’s New York office. It’s an invaluable tool for buyers as it analyses the collections that just happened in terms of shapes, colours, themes and fabrics. One part of Runway deals with forecast confirmation. It matches up forecasts with what actually happened on the runway.
Market Intelligence completes Stylesight’s offering. A news and calender keep subscribers updated on goings-on in the fashion industry and Style Traveller acts as a mini city guide for people travelling to trade shows. Maps give you a quick overview of things to do, places to eat or where to stay and lets you put together your own map which should help keep your itinerary organised.
With my basic knowledge of trend forecasting, I was really curious to see what Stylesight had to offer. Until then all I had seen were hard copy trend books – which are huge, beautiful and expensive. All features on the site seem extremely well thought out and there wasn’t a single one where I thought: Who is going to use that? Quite the opposite, in fact. I realised that the key is not what a service forecasts (they all do that really well) but how the information is then presented and made available to the user – designers, editors, buyers. Stylesight does a brilliant job deciphering what can be quite abstract predictions for you by illustrating them with examples of any kind. Their various tools let you approach the same trends in many different ways. I left the meeting wanting a subscription if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s too expensive for me. As a stylist I do like to know vaguely where we are headed but my job is focusing on more immediate trends. The image, colour and runway tools would still be a welcome addition to my daily life, though! I would definitely recommend using a trend forecasting service to slightly bigger businesses. It just reduces the amount of guesswork and reliance on gut feeling that goes into, for example, buying decisions and really helps to streamline your process.
Don’t forget to check out the free trend blogs on Stylesight!
Thanks Elyse and Ingrid and everyone else at Stylesight who helped me set up a demonstration!
