ABSTRACT
Trends were traditionally a useful way for the fashion industry to sell a new season’s offerings, and for magazines and newspapers to make sense of them for the public. This has been disrupted by digital and social media; trends are now more likely to trickle up through Instagram than they are to trickle down from the catwalk and fashion editors. But, as this chapter explains, the trend report is still a useful way to give shopping stories a journalistic angle. It has also been given new life by the use of affiliate links on websites, and it gives e-tailers a way of curating product in a way that makes it manageable and appealing to consumers. This chapter looks at how writers and editors define trends, where they spot them, how they monitor them, and how they write them up. It also looks at the social and cultural context of trends, and how some journalists try to bring that into their reporting to give them relevance beyond the shop shelves.
