article due on 04/17

Identifying trends is a continuous effort of compiling observations, facts. Trend forecasting is a highly creative field that's also much grounded in practicalities of business. With our role being not only to inspire but enable companies to make the right business decisions in an extremely competitive and fast-changing landscape that is fashion. In a financial crisis, companies rely on trend forecasters to back up their business decisions with research and data. This could make or break the company's sales.

Fashion trend forecasting includes having a good knowledge of fibers, fabrics, colors, and silhouettes. Knowing what people are wearing and what they have been wearing in recent past can give a sense of what to expect next. With some trends being perennial and deeply embedded in our everyday language they never really go away, good examples being fifties fashion and the military-inspired fashion. Planning and buying, unfortunately, can be made difficult when trying to please a particular target audience and can get intensive when trying to find the right fit in size, length, colors, fabrics and the perfect clothing for people of different regions.

Knowledge of the consumer hence becomes mandatory. Their lifestyles, behavior, and preference are areas as a trend forecaster we must be well informed on to make the right decisions in determining trends. A knowledge of your consumer will make or break sales as your target market determines your profits or loss margins. This calls for products to be filtered appropriately and tailored specifically to your target audience which might prove challenging.

Culturally, forecasting has a lot to take into consideration like generational and ethnic cohorts plus eco factors giving relevance to clothing making it look cut precisely for a particular people. While it sounds effective many might not identify with their cohorts, an example being a 30-year-old male not being sure of his cohorts leading to lousy fashion decisions. Similarly, people from different parts of the globe may not identify with the same fashion cuts even though they're peers. This makes it hard to get consistent with wants and needs of the target consumers.

Furthermore, a forecaster must wield extensive insight on competitors and the market at large. Technology advancement has led to change in ways clothes are manufactured and in parallel how they're consumed with recent the emergence of social media. Knowing the competition, we can identify untapped markets and position ourselves to best serve the unused spot in the market. But with trends being followed on the internet these days many people are curating their images forcing forecasters to bring a new fresh perspective on trends which may prove challenging.

Forecasting is future-oriented and while that might prove challenging I find the rush amazing as it involves diving into the future head fast and taking numerous risks. Although planning and buying tasks can be perceived as much more complicated in reality, this proves to be an enticing challenge for creatives.