Trend forecasting's reputation management problem + Why Trends are your friend
Trends are trending. And the trending is seen as trends. It’s a mess. - Matt Klein on how to approach online culture.
That's an epic way of framing the degradation and misuse of the soft science and art of future trend forecasting. For many today, the word TREND is associated with ephemeral hype.
Fortunately, there is a groundswell of organisations and individuals, really a movement, to question the role and use of future foresight, to turn it into the force for equitable and long-sighted change it can be.
The term 'Futures Activist' has even been floating around. As a former activist, this resonates.
Spiky idea though: if you find this title attractive, please don't go change your LinkedIn title just yet. Us 'futures people' have a love story with words and that's justified. But if left untethered, it can lead us to culturally reappropriating and misappropriating language. Let's honour the deeper meaning of the word 'activist', and the decades of social, racial and climate justice leaders whose shoulders we sit on.
Back to the word TREND.
Amidst our motivations to redefine the role of future foresight and the use of trends (and I say 'our' as I consider myself and Trend Atelier part of this movement)
.... somewhere in there
... is a reaction to the fact we have a reputation management problem. Especially in fashion trend forecasting.
And it's been brewing for years.
In my exploration of slow media, and as someone who hits publish each week, here's a piece from another time and place. In slow media, we take accountability for the ideas we put out, and how long they hold. If you scroll down, you'll however discover the reference evolution to why Trends ARE your ffiend, 3 years later.
Why Trends ARE your Friend
Fashion Trends are getting a bad rep but they aren’t all bad. Published with Fashion Act Now (Extinction Rebellion).
As the climate crisis unfolds and we outspend our planetary resource budget, seasonal and “on trend” fashion collections continue to be produced, regardless of the cost, perpetuating a fashion calendar and production cycle living on borrowed time.
Trends are an intimate part of selling a fashion brand. They inform what brands think the end user wants and needs. Trends hold an influence over creatives, suppliers, marketers and leaders in the style industry. They continue to do so even as digital clothing and the secondary market are redefining how we exchange and relate to clothing. On a broader scale, trends reflect changes in behaviour, culture and society; they reflect patterns deeply rooted in our cyclical notion of time and our need for reinvention.
With soundbites such as “The Trend is not your friend”, “What’s trend today is trash tomorrow” or “Are trends over?” used by fashion activists and sustainability leaders such as Clare Press of Wardrobe Crisis and Fashion Revolution, it is clear the connotation of the words “fashion trends” are increasingly perceived as hand in hand with the toxic model of fast fashion and overconsumption. In reality, a “trend” can be far more complex than we currently understand it to be. Even more, we have a responsibility to examine its semantics, particularly in the context of fashion.
I have found myself at odds with the word, struggling at times to call myself a fashion trend forecaster, exploring other terms to use in my writing such as ‘shifts in culture’, ‘behavioural patterns’ etc to circumvent a word that bears so many negative connotations. This doubt has now shifted to a need to discuss how we can clarify the word’s position, in a bid to redefine how trends can positively help planetary imperatives.
In addressing the issue, we cannot circle around facing how the fashion trend forecasting machine has been complicit in a system that only values our obsession with the new. This is outlined by the Fashion Roundtable in a piece asking for trend forecasters to take accountability. Everyone needs to be questioning their purpose and as “beacons” of future direction, our role is to get people inspired, equipped and informed. So how did we get here?
Reference evolution
The unpacking of the Why How Who Where When ... Whaaaat??? of trends and foresight continues. Since writing the piece shared today, I've gathered more writings and references. Here's a selection:
Trends have lost their meaning by Contagious (shared in Trend atelier by Strategy Consultant, Consumer behaviour expert and Scandi Insights founder Nayara Moia)
Writing the New Story of Foresight: A Conversation with Keely Adler by Foresight Folk
The Future of Fashion is Justice by Yessenia Funes for Atmos
The New Anatomy of Trends by AL Lacouette for SSENSE
The Thing About Trend Forecasting by Marian Park for Miscellanea, via Futures Friends which I recommend.
How does Trend Forecasting work: The Future Laboratory pulls back the curtain with Wardrobe Crisis
Essay by Geraldine Wharry