Why were there so many polo shirts on the runway this season? And all those see-through dresses on Instagram? Why do silhouettes shift from skinny to baggy, and back again? And how did ballet shoes become so popular?
It’s nice to think that all of these trends are the byproduct of a spontaneous cohesion of taste among people around the world, but really, the popularity of these styles – particularly when they shift from runway to retailer – is the result of a considered process of pooling and analysing data known as trend forecasting. Since trend forecasting as we know it began around the 1960s, people have attended fashion shows, scoured magazines, studied street style, surveyed stores and, more recently, scrolled through social media to sell brands information about what people were buying now and what they would likely buy in the future.
