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Trend Watching: Predicting the Waves of the Future
| Article
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14415 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1988 |
2,248 Words |
| Author
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Steve Kaplan
Steve Kaplan is a widely published free-lance writer living in
St. Paul, Minnesota, who is also a contributing editor of St.
Paul Magazine. |
Miami Beach, the city that once influenced old people's homes more than anything else, suddenly became the new home of trendiness in the United States when the television show Miami Vice was first aired. It has been a hotbed of fashion ever since.
Trends are like that. They can spring up in the unlikeliest places, and with great suddenness. For trendwatchers everywhere, unexpected twists add an excitement and a thrill to the hunt. And almost everyone these days seems to be a trendwatcher, from the teenager on the lookout for the hippest, most up-to-date fashions to older folks trying to keep current with what's suave and jaunty.
For these consumers, knowing what's the latest may be just a matter of whim. But for manufacturers and retailers, it's a matter of red or black ink. Discovering a trend early can give a retailer the edge over his competitors. Either way, trendwatching among retail businesses is a deadly serious occupation in the eighties.
About five years ago Dayton-Hudson, the fifth largest retailer in the United States, added a new position to its highest level of management, a job that it called "Vice President of Trend Marketing." Other major department stores, including Neiman-Marcus and Macy's, have also created trend coordinator positions, to discover trends before they become trends, and to identify the direction that fashion will be moving in the coming year, from clothing to electronics to automobile design.
"I think that we are in an era of unbelievable trend awareness," Karen Bohnhoff, Dayton-Hudson's trendwatcher, says. "Part of that is based on the instantaneous communication we have. Everyone is aware of everything at the same time, so we don't have a time lag of information. What happens in Europe, whether it's a summit conference or a designer's new styles, appears the next day in some form of media."
The tools of the trade
A trendwatcher's work does not require astrologers and crystal balls (although both of those have been minor trends in the last few years), but some very specific tools of the trade. Bohnhoff summarizes her work in what she calls the three A's: "awareness, analysis, and action."
Whether you're watching trends from an amateur or a professional level, the first requisite is to be constantly aware.
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