As is made clear in the preceding sections, trend spotting is by no means a formalized profession and manifests itself in many different forms and industries. It can therefore be fair to say that nearly any sort of education can contribute to one’s success as a trend spotter.
Trend spotting consultancies use a variety of methods and produce many different products and services. That said, there are some methods and offerings that repeat across trend spotter type and industry of focus. These are discussed below.
I’ve heard from several Bay Area residents that people are starting to layer their sagging jeans over another pair of jeans, turning an already pronounced fashion statement into one even more pronounced one. I have not seen this double-jeaning myself yet, but am keeping an eye out and am most intrigued indeed! The entire jean-sagging [...]
Let us consider the major trend spotting company formats in greater detail:
The other day I stumbled across a movie called ‘TiMER’ which presents an interesting and enjoyable discussion of the use of technology in the world of romance, dating, and marriage.
Most books provide an escape from daily life or offer information about a specific subject. Jeremy Rifkin’s Empathic Civilization does both, and also has the power to fundamentally change one’s entire worldview. As for escape- The Empathic Civilization removes readers from the specific minutiae of everyday life, encouraging them instead to focus on big, broad [...]
UP THERE is a documentary about the art of hand-painted advertising murals. Apparently, vinyl has replaced hand-painted pieces in pretty much every US city except for New York and Los Angeles. This is an amazing art- one that takes years to learn. The men interviewed describe apprenticeships which hearken back to the way things were [...]
Millennials Go to College is a continuation of the theory presented in Generations- that the United States has seen four repeating general cohorts since its inception, and that these cohorts have a significant impact on national trends. Millennials focuses on one of these cohorts in particular- the Civic generation. Today’s manifestation of the Civic generation is what authors Neil Howe and William Strauss call the Millennial generation, and what many others refer to as Generation Y.
Millennials Go to College discusses the implications of this generation entering university grounds. Strauss and Howe argue that, because this generational cohort is inherently different, it must be treated differently by university administrators and faculty- lest they suffer backlash or loss of prestige and interest.
Guess what? I’ve written a book on trend photography!
A couple of days ago, The Cool Hunter posted a piece titled “The Anatomy of Cool” which describes the ephemeral nature of “cool” and also details bit of the company’s philosophy and approach to cool hunting and trend spotting. Below are some notable excerpts from this post:
