megatrend to 2006. a telescope towards the future > a microscope on the crucial details ................................................................................................

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megatrend to 2006 --- Hanging with trend-spotters by Vanessa Friedman I remember the first time I ever heard of trend-spotters. It was about 10 years ago, in a New Yorker magazine article. Of course, they weren't called trend-spotters at the time; they were called cool hunters (it was catchier). Still, it amounted to the same thing: people who went out, or sent their representatives out, and identified patterns in behaviour that might lead to patterns in consumption, and then reported back to manufacturers so they might be best poised to take advantage of those patterns. The cool hunters observed, for example, that kids in Seattle were going through second-hand clothing shops looking for old Lacoste alligator shirts, which they wore with a certain irony, and then they (the cool hunters) suggested that maybe Lacoste and other old brands (Fred Perry, Kickers) would soon experience a revival - and maybe the companies should get in on the action. A few years later, voila, Lacoste has a catwalk show. Since then, of course, trend-spotting has become an industry in itself, extending across all sectors from fashion to advertising, and adopting all sorts of fancy monikers from futurology to consumerology. Pretty much every big company, from Nike to Lego, has its own "insight" department, and website after website has popped up devoted to the subject (you have to subscribe). Some people are doing pretty well out of their crystal balls. But is it in fact all hocus-pocus and jargon ("self-actualisation"; "lovemarks"; "emotional metrics"), a kind of modern-day version of the gypsy fortune teller, dressed up in bootleg trousers and kitten heeled-mules, playing on the insecurity of brands in a world of fickle consumers, or is trend-spotting a kind of new science sparked by exactly those fickle consumers, and best-placed to understand their desires? As someone who spends a lot of time dealing with trends - hey, look, lots of green clothes; green will be big! - I admit my own scepticism (how hard can this be - I do it every season). But the thing about trend-spotting is: one - it's a long-term business, looking at least two, if not five, years down the line (as opposed to next season); two - it is focused on the meta-picture: the return of conservatism and craft, for example, as opposed to green (that's a fad); and three - it looks at the context of trends. Trend-spotters don't just observe social and cultural directions, they explain them. And that, in turn, can help us explain our own desires - why, for example, lately you're just not that interested in another designer handbag, but you'd really like a personal yoga instructor. That has value. This was brought home to me last week at a conference, co-sponsored by the FT. Run by a trend-spotting group called Style-Vision (www.style-vision.com), it involved representatives from assorted businesses from Tax Free World Association to Saatchi & Saatchi, Procter & Gamble, and Quintessentially (the concierge service) throwing their thoughts out in order to create a kind of critical mass of ideas. Following are the five I found most interesting - judge them for yourself. We are entering an age of pro-sumerism, where instead of swallowing advertising whole (this bag will make you a smarter/chicer/more successful person), men and women are choosing products according to their own personal set of values. People are putting together their own looks instead of accepting designer dictates head-to-toe (when you read fashion stories and they go on and on about eclecticism, this is what they mean). It's not about consumption - which is rapacious, indiscriminate and passive - but making acquisitions (in the same way companies make acquisitions): targeted, and proactive. The Brand is dying. This is related to the above. The time of fashion-as-uniform is over, because people no longer want to be lumped together under someone else's set of values. Not that long ago, women were happily Prada people or Gucci people or Dior people - now that is far too reductive. Brands have to convince people they understand their individuality (act global, think local). This is why, for example, so many are starting bespoke, made-to-measure/order, or customisation services. This is why there is no longer any one "must have" designer handbag each season, but a galaxy of possible bags. Traditional advertising is dying. Tivo killed it. Education killed it. The enormous amount of products available killed it, by simply numbing the target audience. Sweaty Gisele isn't going to make many people buy sunglasses - at least in the old world (this is Europe and America). In the new world, aka BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China, or the countries that will become, in the next 30 years, the biggest markets for luxury and fashion goods) such images still work; those countries are just entering their period of mass consumption. For the jaded types, however, brands need to think more creatively. As one ad executive said: "Why not give away socks at American airports with your brand on them, so when people have to take their shoes off to go through the metal detectors, their feet don't get cold?" It's an idea - just one step on from putting your clothes on a celebrity. Less is more. We are all time-poor and option-rich - we don't have the hours necessary to go through all the skirts and shirts out there and decide what we want. We all want an editor, be it a store owner or a personal shopper. Simplifying the offering is not reducing it but improving it. Many people don't want more features on their mobile phones, they want fewer. Storytelling is how you reach people. You need to get them to enter into your story and take it over and tell it back to themselves. That's how you hook them. This is why, for example, brands like Burberry and Asprey and Dunhill concentrate on pushing their heritage and history: it's a good narrative. People can become characters in it, which leads to personal investment, which leads to real investment - purchasing. This also goes for stores, and explains, for example, the thinking behind the Marks and Spencer life stores, as well as boutiques like Microzine in London, Anthropologie in New York, and Colette in Paris. It is partly why large impersonal chains are increasingly finding themselves in trouble. Oh - there's one more thing: we're all looking for the happy ending. Vanessa Friedman is the FT's fashion editor © Financial Times 2004 www.ft.com

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