The last fashion shows for the A/W 19 season took place around 10 days ago, but this rather short time frame is enough for data analysts to elaborate all the trends from the latest shows.
London-based data analytics firm Edited for example detected some of the major trends for the next season in exotic animal prints (with a particular increase in zebra prints and embossed crocodile motifs), teddy bear textures, puffer material also used for scarves (but that was already a sort of minor trend), while colour-wise beige will becoming even more popular (let's not tell it to Kaffe Fassett), together with a vivid shade of red.
Founded by Geoff Watts and Julia Fowler 10 years ago Edited produces data analytics for clients with different price points, going from high street retailers to brands and luxury houses. Edited uses Artificial Intelligence techniques, machine learning and image-recognition technology. This allows it to analyse the price of billions of items, product stock-keeping units and sell out date, so that retailers and brands can identify the right products and sell them at the right price. The system also allows to evaluate commercial data and competitor assortment, and study tracking sales records and inventory, collecting information on colours, styles and sizes.
One of the benefits of data analytics is that this technology allows to identify unsuccessful products from various categories (so from menswear, womenswear and children's apparel to accessories and beauty...) and reduce waste. As stated in previous posts, this technology can elaborate a wide range of information, from trends to sales from several sources and all over the world, taking into consideration not just retail data and runway reports, but also social media, and bloggers/influencers covering specific trends. Such technologies can therefore facilitate the work of in-house forecasters (or destroy this job...) and reduce the time spent on analysis, as millions of data can be elaborated in a short time. Everything changes so fast in the fashion industry, so data science is the perfect technology for this industry.
There are several services offering data analytics, from free ones such as Google Trends that basically shows a search interest on any keyword (that can be analysed by date, category and geography) to subscription based services like Edited, Spate (the latter predicts trends in food, beauty and fashion) or NextAtlas (mainly focused on spotting emerging trends from social media influencers).
Different companies have been using different services focused on predictive analytics to build product ranges, work on prices, tackle changes in product fabric, design details and colours and identify weaknesses that slowed down their performances. In this way styles favoured by consumers can be recreated, others can immediately be suppressed (think about Stitch Fix using data science to predict styles that customers may want to buy). In a nutshell data tools are trendy and their usage will definitely increase.
While these are intriguing times for big data (H&M recently hired whistleblower and former research director at Cambridge Analytica Christopher Wylie) this science may be able to analyse the social media behaviour of millions of users and followers or explore information from different platforms including Instagram and Twitter, but its has got one main limit - data can't provide you with a great idea for a trend, but it will help you enhancing your products and vision by registering when that rising trend may turn into a massive hit or when it may start to decline. So, while data-based tools are currently incredibly trendy, it is unlikely that design will follow data (but if it will ever happen the fashion designer will probably become a human/tech hybrid in urban street clothes à la Technical Boy out of Starz's TV series American Gods...). The human factor (think about textile experiments by artists and designers reworking traditional techniques in modern ways) - something that can not be quantified, analysed and optmised by machines - will indeed still remain the driving force behind a creative industry like fashion and that's probably terrific good news.
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