Hello readers! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. As the semester comes to an end in 3 short weeks, I thought I would go over what I’m learning in HFM 060: Fashion Forecasting: Seeing Into The Future. I took this course because I’ve always wondered why certain trends happen. Is there a science behind it? What mathematical formula do retailers use to know what people are going to want to wear?
In reality, it’s more complicated than that. Trends are formed based off a tremendous amount of research and what is happening in the world at the time. The process is complex and definitely very interesting, which makes learning about it exciting. My professor, Suzanne Piazza, started by introducing us to simple fashion vocabulary. This was very informative because these terms are important to know. Then, we learned about business within fashion and how to be successful in dealing with business. Next, we learned about the history of fashion. This was my favorite part of the course because understanding why people dressed and designed they way they did in certain time periods is very interesting to me. We each did a project on a decade of our choice which made this topic fun to learn about. Then, we learned how to formulate a theme for a fashion forecast. A theme is the topic of your prediction that has a unifying, dominant idea. Inspiration for themes can found almost everywhere. Next, we learned about color theory. I never knew color could be so interesting! Color affects us so much and we don’t even realize it. Color is a vital part in forecasting a trend because consumers aren’t going to buy something if they don’t like the color. When forecasting fashion, your consumers are your real customer, so you have to please them first. This makes the job of being a fashion forecaster risky, but most of the time rewarding if you’re good at it. Finally, now we’re working on our final project of forecasting our own trend for Fall/Winter 2016. This project is really cool because we’re using resources that actual retailers use like trend forecasting services. I’m excited to see how my project turns out.
Overall, this semester has been the best learn experience I’ve ever had. It’s exciting and rewarding to learn about something you’re passionate about. I’ve not only learned so much from Professor Piazza, but also from myself and my classmates. I would definitely recommend this class to anyone who is interested in any part of the fashion industry because it is very informative. I can’t wait to come back to FIT next semester.
Have a great week everyone!
Thank you for reading,
Kenzie Davis