I wandered the streets of New York, Paris, London and Tokyo and Hong Kong. As an overall observation London


had the most innovative street style and Tokyo the wackiest. Back in NYC we would bring in coveted trend mavens like Lidewij Edelkoort, a famous forecaster, who traveled the world studying the evolution of sociocultural trends and created trend books that predicted themes two years out and were used by multiple industries from fashion to automobiles. www.edelkoort.com


Technology and social media were not as evolved in the late 1990’s and information sharing was driven by personal interaction and tapping into experts. Today Li Edelkoort uses technology to share her forecasting in “trend tablet” a tool for explaining how trends grow, evolve, flow and interact with our daily life. www.trendtablet.com


As a designer I would filter the four main trend areas through the lens of the Estée Lauder design principles and develop against the ones that aligned with our premium, upscale image. We had to stay true to the brand while engaging the world of “fashion/style” and appealing to our target consumers, the 30+ year old woman who wanted to be inspired by prestigious, elegant yet attainable beauty.


I would create a visual trend brief for my vendors and sketch out collections – series of bags and accessories for our different accounts. We would sit down and review fabrics, hardware and structures based on the trend brief, spec every detail and have samples made.


If one of the themes was inspired by the sporting outdoors while we would not do camouflage or neon orange we might pick-up on the equestrian themes: accents of metal, top stitch details, suede and quilted materials, contrast textures and an elegant fall color palette – blues, browns, greens, blacks – and if ties/knots were in – execute them as a handle or closure detail.


The makeup color collection would align with the acces- sory palette and create a cohesive trend story and our


offering for the season. We did this on a large scale for spring and fall across our global markets. The seasonal promotions were a great way for women to buy into a trend without having to change her wardrobe or make a huge financial investment. It was also a vehicle for the brand to be seen as relevant – new and now in fashion.


So which fashion brands leverage trends the best? On a mass level H&M is very successful in leveraging


trends. Their model allows them to offer two main collections, one in the spring and one in fall with several sub-collections of trendier items that are developed with short lead times and continually refreshed. On the class level Louis Vuitton is still the leader thanks to Marc Jacob’s collaborations with artists and even rapper Kayne West as well as his theatrical shows, which created trend buzz. Time will tell if former Balenciaga designer and new creative director Nicholas Ghesquiere can keep the LV brand in a leadership position.


Today trend information is accessible to consumers from live streaming fashion shows, trend sites and designers sharing everything they think and do. Consumers are allowed to create their own trend and fashion stories. Brands have to work harder than ever to distinguish themselves and their creative interpretation of a trend in order to capture the consumer’s attention.


Josephine Eke former trend hunter


Vol. ol. 2 Issue 5 | 5


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