Trend research starts with you—how you become aware of and understand the interrelationship of factors involved in change. The way in which you communicate that story through a forecast may include your current knowledge or a reinvention of the past. The goal of the trend forecaster is to reduce risk in the marketplace by predicting what the user needs and desires. To do this, the trend forecaster observes and recognizes interrelationships among the product, the user experience, and contextual factors. The ability to predict what the user needs and wants reduces risk in producing and marketing undesirable products.

This framework for researching and communicating trends is used throughout this digital book, which is to be used freely in learning about trends. A series of projects—individual and team-based—will challenge your thinking and intuition, and help you learn about the process of desk and field research. Activities dispersed throughout the chapters called “Trend Challenges” will help you apply the ideas and concepts from each chapter; you’ll add your completed challenges to your blog or notebook, where you collect ideas and journal about what is happening around you.

You will find a common structure

This book’s framework offers a holistic view of the interrelationships involved in trend research, including data collection, analysis and reporting, and forecasting what that direction means for design. The book’s primary focus is on the process of observing and collecting desk and field data to understand interrelationships among products, user experience, and contextual factors.

The book also focuses on finding ways to effectively communicate predicted trends and possible new product opportunities. Trend research can be change-making, and the aim is to change according to effective use of those resources we have at hand to ultimately communicate a message that the user needs and wants to hear.

Becoming a Trend Forecaster

The professional whose role is to research, observe, analyze and interpret data and communicate the trend in a forecast is called a trend forecaster. To research trends, the trend forecaster must be aware of what has occurred before and what is happening now to detect patterns of change. Change involves interrelationships—what is occurring in the product, the viewer, and the cultural milieu.

By product, we are primarily focused on product designs that inherently could involve innovation and change in their design. But this means understanding what occurred in the product before the change—in other words, what is familiar or considered traditional or expected by the user. The product life cycle is an important consideration in a forecast as a measure of acceptance.

Along with understanding the product, the forecaster must also be knowledgeable about the responses of the viewer, user, and consumer. The “viewer” is the person viewing the product; this may be the user or consumer, or the trend forecaster attempting to recognize trend patterns from a professional perspective. The “user” is the individual wearing and caring for the product throughout its life cycle (who may or may not be the original purchaser), and the “consumer” is the individual in the act of purchase and acquisition. The user is engaged in the product life cycle, and the trend for a particular product will be influenced by its life cycle and who will use it.

The cultural milieu is what we consider the context within this framework. This includes the background of culture, society, the economy, and technology—all embodied within the current context. “Zeitgeist” refers to the spirit of the times; it arises from the current cultural climate. In this instance, we use “culture” to refer to the climate within one cultural group, such as a societal group within the U.S. Age, for example, can be considered a subgroup or category that influences acceptance of a product in many cultures. Because experience influences expectations, an older individual may be influenced differently. Religion is another example; some religions specify certain customs of dress that identify their members for both everyday and special occasions. Among subgroups such as Native American or Hmong people, however, traditional dress might be worn only for special occasions.

The interrelationships among product, viewer, and cultural context offer the means to detect a trend. Being able to weigh options for the future as a change agent is part of the job of a trend forecaster, as is being able to communicate to the industry what those options mean for the product. Examples of these interrelationships abound. Trends in certain materials or color palettes might mean a kitchen remodel for a user who changes for fashion or for a functional need. Change in how coffee as a drink is made, how it tastes, and where it is consumed can motivate innovations by those who make coffee. You’ve see the proliferation of drive-by coffee shops that offer a quick cup. How has this influenced design? Then consider products like toys: if Legos are introduced at an early age, how does that influence the product offered and related user expectations? When will interest in this product wane? Will it wane according to aging out of the related activity, while remaining popular with younger age groups?

Then, of course, product designs can become worldwide trends. Though the popularity of denim jeans originated in the U.S., they are produced and worn all over the world. Because the apparel industry operates on a global scale, with apparel produced in many countries, it stands to reason that people in other countries would follow product trends such as wearing denim jeans. However, the context of wearing a product over time has changed in this  process. In the early 20th century, for example, blue jeans were worn because of their durability for work environments that required heavy labor. Today, they’re bleached and torn in strategic places by the manufacturer before being sold as a fashion statement to be worn in many casual situations. This process greatly increases their fragility and obsolescence.

What is a Trend?

A “trend” is a general direction in which something is developing or changing. A trend can be short-term, offering a signal of change or a direction of movement, or long-term, with a change occurring in user attitudes and behaviors. Patterns can be detected with information gathered from such movement. It is important to understand design in this context, as this understanding can lead to innovative opportunities.

The process of forecasting involves knowing the following:

1. What is now! References will proliferate about what is perceived as the normal and familiar.
2. What is changing! To detect patterns of change you must understand what is changing and for whom and for how long. Innovations may diffuse through a group at different rates depending upon the user’s penchant for change as well as the magnitude of the change within the cultural context.

How do Trends Spread?

Trends as memes: Memes can be regarded as the building blocks of a trend. A meme can involve ideas, products, clothing, behaviors, tunes, or catch phrases. It acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through speech, writing, images, rituals, or other imitable phenomena. Memes can diffuse by imitation, either consciously or unconsciously.  A meme replicates, mutates, and evolves in response to social and environmental changes. Trends can include any form of behavior in culture that develops among a large population.

Trends as tipping points: Many of the ideas products, messages, and behaviors we find in society can be characterized by their rapid and exponential spread through a population, almost as a virus or epidemic. They can be set in motion by a seemingly tiny cause, compared to their effect.  There is a particular moment that Gladwell (2002) calls a “tipping point,” when an epidemic breaks loose from being contained within a small population and begins to spread. All successful trends must reach this point—the point at which they move rapidly from being unnoticed or unheard of to being widely noticed. A trend will often catch on because of a very small change in content: the people who spread the trend, sometimes called influencers, and the context or environment in which the trend is being spread.

What are Trend Characteristics?

Trends as directional shifts have several critical characteristics.

Scale

The trend scale involves the length of time and impact of a directional shift.

Mini/micro trends are specific to small groups of people and are usually associated with a specific industry or marketplace. They operate within a short time frame of 1–2 years, or even for just a season.

Mega/macro trends are major shifts in the society that have definite impact on individual lifestyles. This impact can be on a global scale, and may include social economic, political, environmental, and technological change. They are slow to form and, once in motion, continue to influence for 7–10 years.

The aging of the U.S. population is an example of a mega trend that affects micro trends. In the past decade, the number of baby boomers—those born between the mid 1940s and the early 1960s—has increased faster than the under-age-18 population and the U.S. population as a whole, according to 2020 Census data (census.gov). This growth is a demographic mega trend that is influencing micro trends across industries, including those focused on health management. As this population grows, so does the number of older people remaining in the workforce, along with the need for assisted living facilities, senior housing complexes, and home health care. And more fashion icons, influencers, and brands arise that target this age group.

Speed

The lifecycle of a trend is characterized using a trend curve that involves the speed at which a trend rises, peaks, and decreases. A “fad” is usually a specific product or a detail of a look with a short lifecycle. Fads come and disappear within a season or a year.

There are seasonal trends that include groups of products that become fashionable for a period, such as the summer, and influence the user primarily for that season, but also may carry over into the next season. This especially occurs in regions with distinct seasons.

A “classic” is an item that is foundational to one’s wardrobe and that lasts for many years, such as a cardigan sweater or white shirt. Certain categories of product lend themselves to a longer lifecycle, such as underwear or loungewear, especially if not meant for public viewing.

What is the Objective of Trend Forecasting?

Trend forecasting is about alignment of the industry with user’s needs and desires. The professional trend forecaster learns to observe and interpret the broad directions of change within the culture and their influence upon the user. This includes understanding the user in terms of geographics (e.g., place or location), demographics (e.g. ,age, gender, race, employment), and psychographics (e.g., personality, values, attitudes, interests, lifestyle) that can be discovered through interpreting data.

The trend forecaster is looking for change. The search process involves research—collecting data, analyzing, interpreting, predicting, and communicating. Forecasting the trend then involves interpreting what is changing in the product or service design and in the target market. Finally, the trend forecaster must find ways to communicate the observed trends to influence the target market.

Categories of Research—Desk and Field

To interpret and predict change requires preparation. Engaging in research to predict change means collecting data to understand the interrelationships among product, user experiences, and contextual factors. Data comes from two important sources—desk and field research.

Desk research involves paying close attention to what is already available to you, such as general population trends, news about changes occurring within the culture (e.g., psychological, technological), and the many networks offered on the world wide web and in current media. It is important to consider historical references, and design history can be found in many resources that provide needed continuity with product design. Journalists writing about current events offer images and commentary useful in outlining a direction for trend research. Services provided by the Worth Global Style Network (WGSN) offer commentary about the current and future consumer, designer collections featured in fashion weeks in New York, London, and Milan, and more. Rich sources of innovative ideas also include high-end custom designers who display their work seasonally, and fashion blogs and videos that offer advice on product use. All of this information is available at your desk, but need you to follow these sources with enough persistence that you can interpret and consider what will be of value and serve the needs of your target market.

Field research involves careful observation and interpretation of what is happening around you, so you can be aware of where change is occurring. You must learn to use your own intuitions and observations as a laboratory for what is to come based upon what you experience yourself. To detect trend patterns, you will need to learn how to view your surroundings with some objectivity, looking for connections that the cultural context, your targeted user, and the products on offer. Paying attention to your surroundings and making connections in this way takes constant vigilance (DeLong, 1998), but trend patterns only become evident through awareness of what is happening around you.

What Skills are Needed to Forecast Trends?

A trend forecaster detects patterns and shifts in attitudes, mindsets, and lifestyle options that run against current thinking in lifestyle, dress, trade consuming, and communication. They find information within the cultural milieu on the streets and at fashion shows, museum exhibitions, expos, and festivals. Continual awareness and observations in your everyday life can be a fertile means of discovering such changes.

To become a forecaster requires many abilities, foremost of which is the ability to observe, link, and integrate what you discover as it relates to product innovations and outcomes. Also needed are curiosity, detective-like research instincts, familiarity with foresight methodologies (e.g., cultural scanning, analysis, and interpretation), an understanding of human and cultural values and how they impact behavior, knowledge of related industries like advertising and marketing, and the ability to thrive in ambiguity. Finally, the communication of outcomes requires systems thinking and the ability to logically connect complex and, at times, unrelated ideas into a focused story.

Forecasting is needed in many industries that focus on the relationship of the product to the user, including product design, manufacturing, and retail. Jobs in trend forecasting include both full-time and part-time positions. For those working in large corporations, positions may be full-time, focusing on, perhaps, color analysis in a paint company, or interpreting trends for large research services such as Fashion Snoops or WGSN.  However, even if not working in a defined trend-forecasting position, an individual who is a technical pattern-maker or a designer, for example, needs to keep abreast of what is happening within the culture and how it will influence their products.

Terms and Definitions to Know

Aesthetic Response: A response involving the interrelationships of form, viewer, and context. Personal, and important to understand for oneself and as it relates to a collective within the culture. An individual response is characterized by “me” or “my personal response,” while “we” is the collective response of a culture or subcultural group, and a “universal” response is one occurring world-wide.

• Form: The product, with its relational and dimensional shapes and surfaces. If viewed on the human body, the relationship includes the body characteristics of physical coloring and the head-to-toe structure of the body.
• Viewer: The individual—in the role of, for example, consumer, user, or professional trend forecaster—observing a product to understand its style details and entirety within the current milieu.
• Context The culture, society, economy, technology—all embodied within the current milieu or Zeitgeist.

Change Agent:  An individual or group undertaking the task of initiating and managing change in an organization. Change agents can be internal, such as managers or employees who oversee the change process, or external, such as a forecaster outside the firm.

Cocooning: A specific term used by Faith Popcorn for a trend that began in the 1980s based upon the user’s interest in a cozy, comfortable lifestyle.

Consumer: The individual purchasing products in the marketplace—in store or online, and new or used products.

Demography: The statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis is the study of a population-based factors such as age, race, and sex; it can cover whole societies or specific groups defined by criteria such as education, religion, and ethnicity. Demographic data refers to socioeconomic information expressed statistically, including employment, education, income, and birth, marriage, and death rates.

Fashion: The style that is accepted and popular within a culture or community, and that identifies the time and place for that cultural group.

Fashion Forecaster: A trend forecaster who specializes in predicting what is considered up-to-date in apparel products and in the ways they are offered to the user.

Influencer: One who encourages the rate of adoption of a trend through observable actions.

Innovation: Introduction and implementation of a new product, method, practice, service, or idea, or a change made to an existing good, service, method, or practice.

Market Segmentation: Formation of groups according to demographic and psychological traits that influence consumption habits drawn from people’s lifestyle and preferences.

ME to WE Response: A ME response is related to an individual’s personal and individual preferences, and includes personal language to communicate that individual’s preferences within their group. A WE response is collective and related to the needs and desires of a group of people or a targeted market; it includes language related to what that market understands.

Mega-trend: A designation of a long-term cultural shift that influences the user’s lifestyle. See trends definition.

Meme: A unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, images, rituals, or other imitable phenomena. A meme can be an idea, product, article of clothing, behavior, tune, or catch phrase.

Modernity: What is or is perceived as current or up-to-date in thinking, actions, and images among a societal or cultural group.

Niche:  A designated product market for a specific user. A niche market is a segment of a larger market, but defined by its own unique needs, preferences, or identity.

Persona: An imagined or fictional user of a target market that involves lifestyle characteristics; used by designers, manufacturers, and marketers to define a focus for needs and desires.

Preferences: Recognizable patterns of response that can relate to the aesthetic responses of an individual (“I like it;” I don’t like it”) or a group or collective (“we like it;” “we don’t like it”).

Psychographics: The qualitative methodology of studying consumers based on psychological characteristics and traits such as values, desires, goals, interests, and lifestyle choices. Psychographics in marketing focus on understanding the consumer’s emotions and values for the purpose of marketing more effectively.

Research, Desk: Observation of the data are available to one as a trend forecaster, such as general population trends, news about directional changes occurring within the culture (e.g., psychological, technological), and networks on the web and in current media. This includes the work of futurists who inform about and help forecasters imagine long-term trends and options as well as consequences of change.

Research, Field: Detection of trend patterns through observation; use of systematic methods (e.g., participant observation, survey, interview, and focus groups) for observing and questioning a targeted group; use of analysis and interpretation of data through intuition and looking for connections among the cultural context, the targeted user, and the products on offer. Paying attention to your surroundings and making connections about the direction of change

Style: The characteristic manner of expression in lifestyle, art movement, or products. Regarding a product, this might include details such as the shape of a collar, the use and combination of colors, or the configuration of details into a total identifiable look such as a silhouette—i.e., the way the user puts together a look that is characteristic of the time and location. Styles can repeat (e.g., the 1990s style or the Art Nouveau style). The term can be applied widely to what identifies the expression of a particular time, such as art movements, decorative accessories, furniture, and appliances.

Style Tribe: Cultures or subcultures that are recognizable groups of people with expressive patterns that are similar enough to be identifiable to both the viewer and user. The term was coined by Ted Polhemus (1994), an anthropologist writing on popular culture, to describe the trickle up of trend patterns from various groups such as flappers, swing kids, mods, rockers, surfers, hippies, punks, disco, hip hop, Harajuku, and hipsters.

Style Tropes: Basic categories of clothing designed to be supported by production processes within the apparel industry and the user’s culture. Appear repeatedly to become part of the language of dress for the user within a marketplace, with a common language developing for each—e.g., trench coat, blazer, caftan, t-shirt, newsboy cap.

Systems Thinking: The ability to make linkages within the design thinking and trends framework.

Sustainable Practices:  to look at the effects of product design, manufacture and distribution on the environment and coordinate user’s needs with these opportunities and limitations.

Tipping Point: As used by Malcolm Gladwell (2002), the point at which a behavior or lifestyle breaks loose from being contained within a small population and begins to spread; a point at which a product or way of using a product moves rapidly from being unnoticed or unheard of to being widely noticed. See above for further definition.

Trend: A shift in patterns in attitudes, mindsets, or lifestyle options that runs against current thinking.

Movement of Trends: Movement down, up, or across within a society.

Mega or Macro Trend: A change in direction of the culture that is significant enough to alter user behaviors and lifestyles over a long period of time across large populations.

Micro or Mini trend: A change in direction affecting the user within a cultural group for a short period of time; can often be linked to a megatrend.

Trend Adoption: A process that classifies adopters of trends based on their level of readiness to accept a newly emerging trend. Adoption rate depends upon the user’s awareness and acceptance of a trend. Categories of adoption include innovator, early adopter, early majority, late majority, and laggard.

Trend Drivers: Forces that drive a trend forward. Can include a change in value or behavior, or an influencer who turns a weak signal into a strong signal.

Trend Forecaster: One who observes changes in a given society, and who collects data and analyzes and interprets these data to predict change in user needs for new or modified products. Communication of the change is couched in a language that is professional, i.e. objective and understandable within the industry and to the user.

Trend Lifecycle: A process that shows how trends rise, peak and decline throughout their existence. A fashion trend’s lifecycle, for example, involves five stages: introduction, rise, peak, decline, and obsolescence.

User: The individual who wears or uses, takes care of, and discards products throughout a product’s lifecycle.

Zeitgeist: German word interpreted as the “spirit of the time;” the defining mood of a particular period of history as shown by the ideas and beliefs of that time. In trend forecasting, particularly related to modernity and the looks that appear up-to-date.

References

Polhemus T. 1994. Streetstyle: From sidewalk to catwalk. Thames & Hudson.

Popcorn, F. June 15, 2020. Welcome to 2030: Come cocoon with me. https://faithpopcorn.com/trendblog/articles/post/welcome-to-2030/

Popcorn, F. 2010. YouTube video. https://youtu.be/5-KiWK9eg4o