Interview with Ms Fiona Jenvey

We have a specific and refined process for our trend forecasting. This is a method we have developed in house, and is widely recognised to be the most accurate. The process itself is based on thorough research where all the information is distilled from 100s of micro trends into 3 main themes. The skill is not in gathering and processing the information, it is assessing the likely speed to market which requires an accurate assessment of when that trend will be at its most important. If the emerging trend is too accelerated it may not be advanced enough to go in our printed publications and may be more suited to a closer to season trend on our online service Mpdclick.com.

To forecast a trend it is essential to have a good understanding of the present - 'Where are we now', this means what is going on in our world today, and what effect does this have on the consumer? For this it is essential to have a good handle on news, current affairs, economics, cultural and creative happenings and socio-economic trends. People make different choices based on their emotional connection with the present, which is why their future feelings can be second guessed by looking at the factors that may affect the future. These factors are often socio-economic, political, and technical or simply influences from popular culture.

We create our information with the fashion industry in mind which has made it popular with a broad range of industries; our trend services sell to car manufacturers, financial institutions, mobile phone brands and pharmaceutical companies as well as a broad range of fashion brands and retailers. Today every product is a fashion product and therefore influence by fashion trends. Marketing agencies, industrial designers and technology companies are all big users of trends and often use information which is very long range. The longevity of the information required is usually linked to the lifespan of the product. Most people do not change their car every 6 months so mid range trends are needed for this which tends to be socio-economic and influenced by longer range technology trends.

Inspirations that represent a decade are important touch points, such as architecture. Architecture built today will be defined as 'teens', reflecting the period 2010-2020, and industrial design will follow the aesthetic principles of this period in many ways. The fashion industry uses trend forecasting for planning and building collections, these run in parallel to the fast fashion offer which is much more reactive and close to market. Currently there is a trend for longevity and classic as a reaction to both considered consumption and sustainability (buy better less often) this translates in fashion to vintage, design re-issues or ‘vintage inspired’ the same is true for cars, architecture, and interiors, look at the re-design of the fiat 500 for example. The Fiat 500 will not last forever, nevertheless it represents classic and is an accessible statement of vintage brand values.

The fashion industry needs forecasters more than it thinks it does, other product related industries look much longer range. Automotive design, interiors and architecture as well as consumer hardlines design for a decade rather than a season, or in the case of architecture the design often represents the attitudes of an entire generation. One of the problems with the retail environment today is the fixation with the runway rather than own design. Runway and celebrity inspiration is fine for a fun fast fashion line, however it should not replace consumer insight or become a way of short cutting creativity. Looking at the consumer allows the brand, retailer and designer to understand the bigger picture. Currently the profits of almost every high street retailer depend on a ‘re-work’ of the same runway collections, creating a dangerous precedent where ubiquitous poor quality product can only be differentiated by price. I firmly believe in the words of Alan Kay, the pioneering computer scientist “The best way to predict the future is to invent it. Brands, retailers and designers should use trend information as a tool for creating an original desirable product which represents the values of the brand- this is something that Topshop Unique does very well, and could be done by other creative retailers in a very commercial way.

The process itself has not really changed, the way that we locate the information comes much more via online than from print, although most of the real inspiration comes from online versions of printed publications. Online has also created infinite sources of information which has made the job both easier because of the ease of locating information and harder since a greater mass of intelligence needs to be developed into meaningful trend information.

Because we are represented in over 50 countries our trends are international. However as a business based in the UK we will always be UK centric to some extent. As an island nation with 12% of our population foreign born, other cultures are well represented in the UK. Our best markets include the USA, South America and India, Southern Europe and Scandinavia.

At Mudpie we have a trends team; each person has an area which reflects their personal interests. These include art, architecture, politics, economics, media, entertainment, technology and social sciences. Our trends team look at these area and we aggregate both the popular and emerging themes. We then randomly add these 'micro trends' to our trend journal and gradually distil them into smaller and smaller groups of trends. Along the way we identify items that are close to season as possibilities for 'fast fashion' or flash trends', we discard items that lack commercial potential. We create and develop all of our own trends, there is nothing available in the market that is far enough ahead for us to use as a 'package' so we gather our information from a wide variety of intelligent non fashion resources.We know our trends are very accurate, my role is to ensure that our predicted trends meets market maturation at the same time as the selling season we have forecast it for.

In my opinion big changes within the industry will occur in the delivery of the information, or the communication between brand and consumer. There is something interesting developing between the virtual worlds of Second Life, Science Sim and Augmented Reality, and in this respect in virtual trade fairs. Augmented Reality will give us a means of experiencing a ‘trend', this opens up new possibilities for presenting information which is neither purely online or in print. AR could be used for something as simple as understanding the application of the trend, for example a merchandiser could test how a range could look in an augmented reality store environment. For the consumer the reality is that body scanning technology that enables the virtual shopper to create a realistic virtual self (avatar) is already available, thereby allowing the 'shopper' to check the fit from all angles.

This opens up all kinds of possibilities for garment design and manufacture and of course the trend development process. Firstly, samples could be entirely 'virtually' designed and developed as 3D prototypes in a virtual environment and realized on the virtual runway before becoming a finished material product in the real world. Less time and resources are then wasted on travel and materials within the product development cycle.

The only limitation to the reality of virtual shopping is self image- the average female is not ready to accept the virtual 'reality' of her own body image as seen from every angle - this will take more than web 4 or 5 or even ScienceSim to solve! Until then the 3D delights of the virtual grocery store is the next likely commercially successful development in Internet shopping and is something that the grocery retailer Tesco is already reported to be looking at.

For autumn/winter 11/12, Mpdclick look towards the changing consumer behaviours and patterns and predict an overall theme of ‘The New Equilibrium’. Now that consumer decadence has come to an end, ‘The New Equilibrium’ creates a stable path for future growth, bringing renewed opportunities for brands; the challenge for retailers is to think the unthinkable, accepting that the ‘consumer age’ has entered a new phase. As previously identified in Spring/Summer 10, ‘Consideration’ is a key consumer trend of the decade. Today’s customer, no longer afraid of reality, is adapting to a new model for living based on an alternative future which combines science and technology with social cohesion and collective influence. A new globally-connected peer-to-peer culture has evolved, producing a refreshed sense of community as consumers re-examine the concept of ‘truth’. As the environment continues to be the defining issue of our age we are set for an energy revolution and a plan of action with longevity firmly in mind. Certainly brands and retailers must adapt to emerging patterns of consumption, utilizing design to deliver originality, quality and transparency through all levels of the supply chain.