ABSTRACT
The fashion business has come a long way from the days when trend predictions were all about attending the industry’s key trade fairs and catwalk shows and coming away with a set of sketches or complimentary kit of trend boards with appropriate fabric swatches attached. Certainly this still happens, at events like Premiere Vision, Pitti Filati or indeed the twice yearly catwalk extravaganzas in London, Paris, New York and Milan, but more and more, the industry is moving away from this rather inaccurate and intuitive model of trend prediction, and onto more ethno-and socio-graphic versions. Ones where a whole battery of marketing tools, observation methods and techniques are being used to underpin the looks and lifestyle gambits promoted by an ever increasing number of brands and labels.
