Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 15, 1990 TAG: 9004130049
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TRISH DONNALLY SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Well, chances are they didn't.
There's a trade secret in the fashion industry: a group of professionals known to insiders as fashion forecasters. Although they remain invisible to consumers, fashion forecasters are some of the most powerful people in the business.
They predict what you will want to buy before you even know it's going to be available. Designers, manufacturers, mills, retail stores and many others subscribe to their fortune-telling services.
These people tell designers what shapes you will want to wear, say, two years hence, what colors you will want for your car, even the toys your tots will enjoy.
"The consumer often thinks there's a plot to get her, and there is. The fashion industry pretends there isn't, but there is," says David Wolfe, one of America's foremost fashion forecasters. He also advises clients in the entertainment, home furnishings, cosmetics and toy industries.
"There are all kinds of businesses who need statistics that haven't happened yet," says Wolfe, who bases his predictions on gut instinct, logic, common sense and 35 weeks of travel each year.
Why would a toy or car manufacturer consult a fashion forecaster? Because many of the colors, shapes and details popular in fashion will surface in other objects.
"It's the spirit of the woman they have to deal with," says Francine Horn, president and chief operating officer of Here and There.
Her New York-based fashion forecasting service charges clients - predominantly fashion designers and manufacturers - $6,750 a year for 20 books complete with silhouettes and colors; seasonal slide presentations; and textile predictions. She generally works from six months to two years in advance.
"There are a handful of very sensitive designers in the world who are really gifted at analyzing a sort of emotional temperature of our taste and our visual sense. And that really is an expression of what's going on in the world," says Wolfe.
"There are a few people who are great at it, and the rest of the world really looks at what they do and interprets it or retimes it, because eventually our society has such a herd instinct that we can all end up feeling the same thing in terms of great big movements.
"For example, right now the entire world is beginning to be cautiously optimistic. We're certainly seeing that starting to be talked about in terms of brighter, happier color.
"This season we're seeing some pretty pastels come along for fall, which are really out of sync," says Wolfe.
"The thing that turns it from art into business is the fact that the fashion world is very incestuous . . . and everybody studies what everybody else is doing."
In other words, they copy each other.
"I don't think there's anything wrong with copying. I really don't," Wolfe says. "There's very little use for an original in the world, because anybody who's wearing an original stands too far out in a crowd and ends up looking silly and like they don't belong to their time or their culture or their gender sometimes."
In many ways, fashion forecasting is a self-fulfilling prophecy, because if enough clients follow forecasters' advice, then what they say will result in what shows up in stores. Textile production schedules dictate in advance what you'll find as well, since mills often have to start making fabrics two years in advance.
Right now, for instance, fiber manufacturers are working on filaments for spring 1993. Look for lots of stretch.
Ocean debris is expected to inspire swimwear designers for the summer of '92. Think oil spots.
And the cool blue-greens of the sea will dominate next summer's palette. So you can start planning your warm-weather wardrobe, because manufacturers already are.
by CNB