The Fashion Forecasters: A Hidden History of Color and Trend Prediction

The fashion business has been collecting and analyzing information about colors, fabrics, silhouettes, and styles since the 18th century - activities that have long been shrouded in mystery. The Fashion Forecasters is the first book to reveal the hidden history of color and trend forecasting and to explore its relevance to the fashion business of the past two centuries. It sheds light on trend forecasting in the industrial era, the profession’s maturation during the modernist moment of the 20th century, and its continued importance in today's digital fast-fashion culture. Based on in-depth archival research and oral history interviews, The Fashion Forecasters examines the entrepreneurs, service companies, and consultants that have worked behind the scenes to connect designers and retailers to emerging fashion trends in Europe, North America, and Asia. Here you will read about the trend studios, color experts, and international trade fairs that formalized the prediction process in the modern era, and hear the voices of leading contemporary practitioners at international forecasting companies such as the Doneger Group in New York and WGSN in London. Probing the inner workings of the global fashion system, The Fashion Forecasters blends history, biography, and ethnography into a highly readable cultural narrative.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations List of Tables Acknowledgments 1. Beyond the Crystal Ball: The Rationale Behind Color and Trend Forecasting Regina Lee Blaszczyk and Ben Wubs Part I: When Paris Led and America Followed 2. The Rise of Color Forecasting in the United States and Great Britain Regina Lee Blaszczyk 3. Tobé Coller Davis: A Career in Fashion Forecasting in America Véronique Pouillard and Karen J. Trivette Part II: Going International 4. From Window Dresser to Fashion Forecaster: David Wolfe of the Doneger Group Tells How He Got Started in Trends 5. What Do Baby Boomers Want? How the Swinging Sixties Became the Trending Seventies Regina Lee Blaszczyk 6. The View from Paris: Nelly Rodi and the Early Days of French Trend Forecasting 7. Fibers, Feathers, and the Future: Ornella Bignami on the Importance of Materials 8. Fashion Prediction and the Transformation of the Japanese Textile Industry: The Role of Kentaro Kawasaki, 1950–1980 Pierre-Yves Donzé 9. Interstoff’s Fashion Table: The Internalization of Fashion Forecasting at the World’s Most Important Fashion Fabric Fair Ben Wubs 10. The Role of the Pitti Uomo Trade Fair in the Menswear Fashion Industry Mariangela Lavanga Part III: The Digital Imperative 11. Looking Behind the Scenes of Swedish Fashion Forecasting Ingrid Giertz-Mårtenson 12. Trending Online: Valerie Wilson Trower Discusses Stylesight in the Asia Pacific Region 13. Fast Fashion, Fast Futures: Catronia McNab on WGSN and the Global Digital World Part IV: Conclusion 14. Fashion Futures Regina Lee Blaszczyk and Ben Wubs Select Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Regina Lee Blaszczyk is Leadership Chair in the History of Business and Society and Professor of Business History at the University of Leeds in the UK. She writes about design and innovation for the creative industries. Her books include Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning (2000); Producing Fashion: Commerce, Culture, and Consumers (2008); The Color Revolution (2012); Bright Modernity: Color, Commerce, and Consumers (with Uwe Spiekermann, 2017); Fashionability: Abraham Moon and the Creation of British Cloth for the Global Market(2017); and European Fashion: The Creation of a Global Industry (with Véronique Pouillard, 2018). Ben Wubs is Professor of International Business History at the Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication in Rotterdam and an appointed Project Professor at the Graduate School of Economics at Kyoto University in Japan. In terms of research, he is engaged in projects on multinationals, business systems, transnational economic regions, Dutch-German economic relations, and the global fashion industry. His books include International Business and National War Interests: Unilever between Reich and Empire (2008) and (with Ralf Banken) The Rhine: A Transnational Economic History (2017).

Review :
A welcome contribution to the under-researched area of fashion prediction through ‘a series of cultural biographies of influential forecasters and forecasting entities’ ... Includes excellent full-colour photographs and particularly fascinating reproductions of archival materials ... These books are exceptional collections of essays, timely in their arrival and inspirational in terms of the continued broadening scope of work to be done on US and global fashion. Through carefully chosen case studies, the book provides a detailed blueprint of the development of fashion forecasting from its humble beginning in nineteenth century Paris, into a mature and complex service business in the age of big data and digital innovation. The Fashion Forecasters effectively weaves together personal narratives with archival sources, and will be of interest to academics, students, and those interested in the past, present and future of colour and trend prediction in the fashion industry. The intuition, “sixth-sense”, and impeccable taste of fashion forecasters is well worth this book’s insightful analysis. How they predict who will wear what - and when - is the intriguing story of this comprehensive anthology. For a field that is obsessed with the future, there is much to be learned from the past, as editors Blaszczyk and Wubs provide an engaging overview of the history of forecasting, giving overdue credit to the industry’s originators. Meticulously researched with excellent first-person accounts, The Fashion Forecasters untangles the web of current forecasting influences and creates a clear vision for its future.