Trends and Trend Forecasting for Sustainable Fashion Brands

Crucial to our understanding of the market and our customer’s preferences, trends drive every industry in the world. And nowhere else can the direct correlation between trend forecasts and decision-making be seen more clearly than in the fast-paced world of fashion.

Even the words “trend” and “fashion” are synonyms of the other, denoting a surge in popularity for a particular product, style, or behaviour. Throughout the history of fashion, experts have debated the direction of influence in the phenomenon of clothing trends - does cause and effect work in a “trickle down” or a “bubble up” motion? Are designers influenced by what they see on the streets, or do people make their choices based on what they see in fashion marketing and stores?

Whatever direction you believe this influence moves in, the driver for changes in trends is an underlying power to shift opinion, and in time, encourage people to take action. Brands with the ability to predict what might cause the shift will, therefore, give themselves a competitive edge.

Following trends in the mainstream fashion industry and providing sustainable fashion do not have to be mutually exclusive practices. Fortunately, the fashion industry has shifted to embrace a greater focus on sustainability and ethical fashion from designers. While this change brings with it its own challenges, it is also possible to both follow trends and participate in trend forecasting and produce sustainable pieces at the same time.

The market is constantly evolving and in order to retain your competitive edge, maintaining an informed oversight of the shapes, colours, design details, prints, fabrics, silhouettes and styles that will impact future fashion trends is critical. 

Trends are influenced by a vast and complex set of factors. Yet, despite the mystery that shrouds the billion-dollar forecasting industry, the ability to research and forecast trends is something that you can learn to do yourself as the owner of your own business and brand. 

Whether it’s setting aside time to scour social media for the latest fashion industry buzzwords or making headway into consumer research, read on to learn the principle ways of future-proofing your company.

It’s almost impossible to open a fashion magazine or read a fashion blog today without seeing a mention of the “sustainable fashion trend”. And although we know that this is one trend that is NOT a trend, we can see micro-trends within sustainable design. 

Within this wider new-found love for sustainable and ethical goodness, there is constant learning and discovery; things that seemed sustainable last year may be found to be harmful later. To take a recent example, bamboo was heralded as a super-eco fibre, but news released about the not-so-ethical manufacturing practices of some bamboo fibres, meant makers started to move away from that fibre in search of something else. There are lots of similar “movements” in response to new data, so I thought we could take a look at some of the current and most popular ones.

Sylvia Rancani is the founder of The Denim Window™, a 360˚ showroom based in Amsterdam, that will help you experience what it takes to produce sustainable denim garments. In this bitesize 12-minute lesson, learn from Sylvia's insight on how trends play a role in both understanding your customer and understanding industry innovations, in order to produce garments that will sell.

The Denim Window™ selects premium denim companies each with a unique category, to showcase all of the steps involved in producing a denim garment: from fibre producers and fabric mills, chemical suppliers for your laundry and finishing, to garment makers and trims suppliers. The intention is to give visibility to producers, and engrain transparency in what is a complex sector of the textiles and fashion industries.

So what knowledge can you glean from Sylvia on the current denim industry, and where you as a sustainable fashion designer fit within it?