Fast Fashion and How to Spot Trends?

One thing we may not consciously realize is that affordable trendy clothing (sometimes called "fast fashion") is a double-edged sword. Some of the staunch fashion folks may roll their eyeballs in disbelief and ask why? Well, here goes the answer- Fast Fashion makes fashionable looks accessible to those of us on real-life budgets, but when the market is totally saturated with it, the trend loses its appeal. It basically helps to kill the trend quicker.

So how do you know how long a trend will last? There may not be any sacrosanct rules, but from what one has observed in the fashion industry, here are some points to keep you in good stead.

• Generally speaking, most fashion trends stick around for 8-12 months. Some trends, usually the most understandable ones, last longer. For example, the personalization or initial craze started with Sarah Jessica Parker's "Carrie" necklace during season two of "Sex and the City" in 1998. The look saturated the mass market in the fall 2003 with initial handbags, sweaters -- you name it -- a full five years after it started. So as long as you have a clear differentiator in your times, you can dictate the trend, but otherwise saturation would hasten the natural killing of the trend.
• A well googled school of thought says that fashion cycles about every twenty years. Thus, the micro minis of the '80s have come back into favor now (as did the nameplate necklace mentioned above, which was hot then, too). So if you are betting on a trend, keep an eye on history to bail you out of trouble, whenever you are short of ideas.
• A huge part of deciding on how long a trend is viable depends on where in the fashion cycle you bought the trend. If you bought it as a knock-off or at a discount store, then you should count on it being in for just one or two seasons. Because the fashion industry often lumps together Spring and Summer, Fall and Winter, that gives you approximately six months of wear out of a look before it starts giving you an outdated look.
• Even though there is no hard-and-fast rule about how long a fashion trend will stick around, you can bet that the more-difficult-to-pull-off looks (Uggs, large cuff jeans, trucker hats) are just fads that will fade. Does that mean, you shouldn’t be buying them? No, don’t get too serious, as it doesn't mean you shouldn't have fun buying them, just know that they aren't looks that will be fresh next year, around this time. So get wiser and buy large cuffs jeans in that time of the year when the people love flaunting it.
• Apar from all the reasons listed there, have faith in economics, as sheer buying power can keep a trend on life support. Sometimes consumers love a look so much they just won't let it die. Capris, crops, tank tops and flip flops are all examples of former trends which actually became the staple diet of your wardrobe!

So after going through the above points what is it that you can take away from this piece on the Fashion Networks Blog? The best defense against quickly changing trends is to have a wardrobe stocked with mostly classic looks: jeans, T-shirts, blazers, little black dresses. Use trendy items as an addition to a core wardrobe to give it some kick.

For more advice on fashion trends and networking with people who matter in the fashion industry, I recommend that you join Fashion Networks(www.fashion-networks.com) . Keep plugged on to the blog, till the next article.


Kartik Kannan, Fashion Evangelist at Fashion Networks

Sometimes I wonder, what would happen one fine day, when a I wear a dress and go to a party to realise a fashion follower's worst nightmare – which would be worse than looking fat, more humiliating than wearing the same dress as another party guest -- it's the dread of looking anachronistic and totally out of sync with fashion।


Fashion trends, if you have noticed are referred to as fads, are disreputably fickle। The fashion industry is always on the hunt for what's new, what's hot. More than style and substance its what's new that seems to win. For every new, must-have handbag/sandals, there's another that gets tossed aside like, well, last year's trend॥and gets relegated to the attic.


The Fashion Cycle

1. First, there's the emerging trend of products that are going to strike it big.You know this as when you see that great hat/dress/shoe on the runway, red carpet or music video. It's hitting you in the eye for attention and you make no bones about your natural pleasure towards the product.
2. Next, comes what is called the emulation phase, where everyone wants a piece of the trend. You'll see it in fashion magazines, newspapers, internet and TV during this phase. This is basically a wave which every one wants to be a part of, to feel good. If the world is talking about Paris Hilton, then its just Hilton on page 3, thank god the stop press exists…. to jump into the wave at the right time.
3. Finally, the trend becomes saturated in the market, usually at very low prices. With trendy items like a must-have designer handbag, the item becomes widely available as a knock-off. But you will be surprised to know that sales sometime surge during this phase depending upon the country. For instance, Harry Porter mania came a year late to the subcontinent than it did in the other parts of the world.

Most of us will buy it somewhere between phases two and three। Only celebrities and fashion industry types have access to fashion fresh off the runway that hasn't appeared in stores yet, like in the first phase of a fashion trend. It takes some one with an innate sense of fashion consciousness to spot the emerging trend and boldy make a statement about it, which then makes news to come down to stage 2.

At the second phase a look is often available in high-priced designer collections. Only in the third phase, when a look makes it to the mass market, does it become affordable for most consumers.
Twenty or 30 years ago it might have taken a few years to make it from red carpet to mass market, but today's manufacturers have put the fashion cycle into hyperspeed। Sometimes a hot trend makes it into lower priced retail outlets in as little as a few months and as the argument starts, 20 or 30 years back, we relied on magazines to get us the trends, then the television media came along with fashion channels and changed the scenario. But an even bigger media wave is splashing a click away from where you are in the form of social media trends. The biggest advantage in such a networked web 2.0 world is for us to eaves drop on conversations that happen through out the web on fashion.

One such network were high quality fashion discussions happens is Fashion Networks, a global portal having diverse influential people come and pour out their views on the fashion industry. Stay hooked on to the Fashion Networks Blog to know more about this new business networking portal and for trends in the fashion place.