Fashion Trend Spotting
Last week was New York Fashion Week in NYC where all the designer presented their latest styles. Next year there will be ready-to-wear clothes in the stores inspired by those designer styles. But where did the designers find their inspiration? The answer is trend spotters.
Trend spotters like WGSN. They are based in London and do research and trend analysis for the fashion industry. Basically what they do is get out and about on the streets of places like London, Paris, Rome, and New York and observe the latest fashion ideas. For instance, they might go to a popular club in Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan and photograph what the young hipsters are wearing in clothing and accessories. They gather this raw data, analyze and sell it to the design industry. Then the fashion designers take the ideas, mix it up a little bit and voila, you have the design you see on the runway shows.
Trend spotters report on fashion trends as they sweep across the globe. For instance, a trend might be observed in Sydney Australia first and later in London. Maybe a year later it will be seen in New York or Los Angeles. Eventually it may even reach backwaters like Dallas or Kansas City. (For some reason trends take a long time reach the U.S.A.)
You can do you own trend spotting. Get yourself a digital camera and find some of your own hipsters and fashion trend setters. If you are a college or high school student the trend setters would be the other students in your school leading the way in fashion styles. Take pictures. Observe trends. Start you own blog and post your trend analysis online for the world to see.