How do you feel about trends? In sustainable fashion circles, that word can have negative connotations. After all, it's the sped-up trend cycle delivers us fast fashion. Flipping between different, and often conflicting, fashion trends, it's easy to lose control, buy and waste too much. But there's way more to trend forecasting than predicting that next week you'll be wearing yellow. Or Barbiecore. Or whatever momentary madness TikTok is serving.

Mapping cultural, lifestyle, economic and societal trends helps us form a picture of where we are headed and shape our strategies for everything from new business models and products to reaching our chosen audiences.

Want to know how the metaverse will impact retail? Or if consumers are really likely to spend more on sustainable solutions going forward? Keen to figure out how Gen Z thinks, or if that's even a thing? Some predict generational terms will soon be a thing of the past...

This week, Clare sits down with Christopher Sanderson, co-founder of London-based trend-forecasters, The Future Laboratory, to ask, what's around the fashion corner - and how they heck do they figure that out anyway? What's the role of intuition, and how can you hone yours? The Future Laboratory is one of the world’s best regarded trend forecasting agencies, working with leading companies across sectors to help them navigate ahead.

A must-listen for anyone in business who doesn't want to fly blind.

NOTES

THE FUTURE LABORATORY is a global trend forecasting agency, founded in 2000 by Christopher Sanderson and Martin Raymond. Discover their work here. They say: “We help our clients engage with their future consumers, deliver thought-leadership, build and future-proof brands, and create innovation in their industry or category… Whether it be new product or service development, marketing communications, placemaking or customer experience, The Future Laboratory helps make a better future happen for our clients.”

ABOUT CHRIS Christopher is responsible for delivering the company‘s extensive global roster of conferences, media events and Trend Briefings, which he presents in London, New York, Sydney, Melbourne and around the world. Clients who have booked one of his inspirational keynotes include luxury group Kering, the European Travel Commission, Retail Week, Selfridges, Marks & Spencer, Chanel, Harrods, Aldo, H&M, General Motors, BBDO, Design Hotels, Condé Nast Media and Omnicom. Chris presented Channel 4 TV’s five-part series Home of the Future and is a SuperBoard member of The British Fashion Council’s Fashion Trust.

WHAT IS TREND FORECASTING? Martin Raymond writes in the introduction to his 2019 textbook in the subject, The Trend Forecasters’ Handbook: “Forecasting - and I include strategic foresight, scenario planning and future studies in this broad umbrella - isn’t about predicting at all. It’s about carefully considering a band of evidence and lines of possibility that are weighed, one against the other, with a view to determining possible, plausible, probably and preferable outcomes - the four Ps, as we sometimes call them.” Buy the book here.

BUT AREN’T TRENDS OBSOLETE? No way, says Chris. Now more than ever businesses are trying to stay ahead of how culture, lifestyles and appetites and tech are changing. Also, trends aren’t just pink vs. blue; the trend forecaster’s job is to map out bigger shifts that look likely to shape our tastes and behaviour going forward.

SPEED & THE TIKTOK FACTOR “Before the internet, if you wanted to know what was happening in fashion, you would turn to a magazine…In the past two decades, mass access to the internet and social media has reshaped the zeitgeist. As of 2022, approximately 4.6 billion people use social media globally, with the ‘typical’ user spending an average of almost seven hours online daily. Instagram and Facebook have long been home to influencers, and if you need sartorial inspiration, you can find it with a quick peruse of TikTok — often under #FashionTok, which has amassed more than 5.9 billion views. Until now, social media has remained in the realm of trend influencing or trend continuing, but a new breed of fashion-focused TikTok creators are taking that one further to trend forecasting.” Read the rest on Harper’s Bazaar.

BLINK is a 2005 book by Malcolm Gladwell ”about how we think without thinking, about choices that seem to be made in an instant - in the blink of an eye - that actually aren't as simple as they seem.”

KATHARINE HAMNETT is the OG slogan tee queen. Listen to her on Episode +

COFFEE CULTURE In 1994 Starbucks ran 425 stores across the US. By 2005, it had more than 10,000. “Starbucks is not the only upscale cafe that has popped up in the South Bay recently to pour coffee, the latest American food staple gone designer. In malls, storefronts, even old houses, coffee is being clothed in everything from mocha and latte to panna and raspberry cream and sold to the public. Reflecting a nationwide trend…” Read the rest of this 1993 pearler from the LA Times here.

MEATLESS MEAT In recent years, fake meat products have gone from a niche vegan interest to a mainstream one. Read the rest on VOX.

SUSTAINABILITY TRENDS Forbes predicts 2023 will be the year we say goodbye to greenwashing as regulators crack down and brands step up. Business of Fashion/ McKinsey includes ‘Tackling Greenwashing’ as one of its 10 factors shaping the global fashion industry this year, adding: “79% of fashion executives consider the lack of standards to assess sustainability performance as the greatest hurdle to improving how consumers perceive their sustainability efforts.”

Says Future Laboratory: “Sales of eco-friendly goods are higher than ever. But sustainability as a one-solution label has been co-opted. Marketers use it to push everything from packaging to social media campaigns, while greenwashing brands still operate unchecked. In short, the term has lost its purpose. ‘I barely even know what the word “sustainability” means anymore,” admits Stella McCartney…” The future belongs to those who can get clear and specific, and drill down on what really sets them apart, while doing the work behind the scenes to transform their businesses.

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