WTF Are Trends?
… and how they impact us as designers and consumers
Trends. This is a hard post to start right off the bat so let’s take a short detour and talk about fashion. I like fashion - correction: I like clothes. And patterns. And prints. However I don't give much thought to which colours and styles I wear anymore or even if my wardrobe is particularly fashionable. Or trendy, which is basically the same.
Don’t get me wrong - I happen to know colour theory and I bother to follow trends. Yet I only wear that I like and consider flattering and what I perceive as posessing decent enough quality, all of it while simultaneously fitting my budget. Nonetheless runways by major fashion houses happen at least twice a year and trend forecasters in all industries plus a gazillion bloggers and trade magazines regularly tell you what is or will be “in” and “out” in terms of colour, shapes and materials - and most brands and consumers actually seek and drink from that advice.
How trends came to be
Trends are the reason behind us commoners not being able to buy a lilac coat just because we want it - unless we happen to want it at a time it is “in”. I am pretty sure this phenomenon isn’t altogether new to you.
Every year has 2 fashion seasons*, and it is quite difficult to find apparel and accessories with certain specific colours, patterns and cuts whenever such specifications don’t match the trend upon which the seasonal collections were developed. Yet this is by no means something exclusive to fashion - it spans across all consumer goods’ industries, from the automotive sector to gadgets, home décor, wellness and beyond.
This happens because at some point in a not so distant past, brands were told by emerging companies (the trend forecasting ones) that if they were to predict consumers’ appetite for certain colours, designs and themes at a given point in time, their sales would skyrocket, their after-season inventory would shrink and their clients would be happy and returning faithfully to their sales outlets season after season. And guess what? It worked so well that now every single company has a terrible FOMO** when it comes to trends.
Today even small companies fear not being able to establish themselves unless they play by these rules and, while there are quite a number of dissidents cathering to a niche target during their first seasons, most of them quickly adopt the default industry model, since it is quite hard to keep being indie in a now globalised world - unless you produce everything in-house which for most companies is simply unfeasible.
“But why should I care about trends?” You think.
Ok. Trend forecasters predict trends, you, the designer, apply the trends. The formula works so problem solved, right? Yes but actually no… There’s way more to it.
1 - We took advantage of a bug in our brains to be able to sell non-essential stuff - and are destroying our planet because of that.
The success of trends and their eager adoption derives in no small part from their short lifespans and the way this affects consumer behavior.
As humans (and ultimately animals) we are hardwired to want everything we can possibly get our hands on since the time our only posessions were what we were able to hunt or gather ourselves and going through times of scarcity only reinforced this trait. We came a long way since then having even managed to get a good grasp of our own psique - and putting this knowledge at the service of capitalism.
When we want something we feel a pleasing sense of gratification after getting it - that’s why rewards work as motivators. Conversely, when we can’t get it… we want it even more - that’s why we desire luxury goods even though they may not even fit in our lifestyle or reasoning.
Trends work by guaranteeing that there is always something new (or that feels new) to desire and this makes them one of the main culprits behind all the pollution derived from consumerism and programmed obsolescence***.
2- Trend forecasting is not really forecasting - it is pure futurology.
The work of trend forecasters is obviously not free. In fact, unless you are a big fashion or industrial group, these services would eat up a significant chunck of your budget. You could analise the market yourself to predict trends and I am actually a proponent of doing this as it makes designers develop new skills. However this isn’t always possible.
In the age of the internet you can keep up with lots of trends online, specially by following the big brands and trade fairs and checking what every one of them is pushing forward for the coming year. However there are many trade fairs and within the same industry they often push forward disparaging trends. How is that possible?
Well… because its all made up. It is much more cost and time efficient to develop whole trends with moodboards, palettes, materials and some copy to support a concept and say “here they are”, influencing fast fashion in the same way haute couture has managed to do since ever and receiving a profit in return.
Now, don’t get me wrong - trend development is real work and therefore is worth money. There is absolutely nothing wrong with researching, developing and selling something which is basically the earlier stage of a design process to a client that will then produce finished products based upon it.
Therefore the problem does not lie in the trend part. It lies in the forecasting one.
Companies simply cannot predict consumer behaviour with precision. They may claim they do, show some stats to try to back their claims but it is all bogus. The sample of their stats is always either too small, completly unverifiable, unrealiable or all of it. This doesn’t mean that companies don’t analyse the market at all, they do. It actually means that the market is unpredictable by nature.
When something is trending among a satisfactory number of influencers or repeats across presentations/releases of several elite brands, trend forecasting companies assume it will be the next big thing and they prepare their trends reports and sell them but oftentimes…
Another big brand presents a totally different novelty product that makes consumers go crazy. A celebrity wears something and all of a sudden it is out of stock. A pandemic hits and suddenly everyone wants to wear leisurewear, trade cryptocurrencies and make potentially controversial political statements
- how about that for the accuracy of trend forecasting?
Yet, despite all this, trend forecasting services sell. After all, when you are the authority on the matter (and trend forecasting companies are authority) no one will really dispute your claims. You cannot be held accountable if your client’s collections flop. In any case, they are unlikely to flop since most companies in a given market will be following the same trends and consumers will buy the stuff because everyone is selling the same thing - so, from a business standpoint this is brilliant because it is almost fail-proof and brings in lots of money.
3 - Trends are fads used for selling a solid brand - how the heck does this work?
For designers there is an added challenge: Each client (or employer) has a brand identity which should be rock-solid and fad-proof, yet the trends they rely on to develop, market and sell their products are the polar opposite of that. How do you reconcile these things?
I believe that there are many solutions around this and that some brands and some industries can ditch trends altogether and be purely centered around their target / persona / or niche client - and be wildly successful at it. Apple comes to mind. Also the old days Braun, Chanel and Muji - but there are many more. The approach of these brands to making their products desirable is not about coming up with something new for the sake of novelty but about getting to know their target really well, their core desires or needs and taking the time needed to develop something that meets these desires and needs.
However not all brands want to be globalised - even though the aforementioned ones are. Some enterpreneurs want to be indie and have an ethical business model that is only compatible with small, local production. Oftentimes this does not allow market expansion or leaving the business as a legacy to their children - but not everyone dreams about that and it is fine.
Nonetheless for most brands - those that cannot or do not which to follow this route, the only viable solution around this is to make trends work for their specific case. For a designer at the service of these brands the only sensible approach is picking trends carefully, playing with them and bending them to suit the brand’s needs - and never the other way around. After all the designer’s job is to maintain a solid yet flexible identity, not a diluted one.