In the last trend report I received, there was a detailed report on dresses, skirts and tops – of course, the fashion industry is largely oriented towards women. But as a man in my early 40s, none of these trends suited me. That’s not entirely surprising. But even in the trend reports on the latest sneakers, there was nothing that appealed to me. Is that because of me? Not entirely. It’s because an editor has to decide on a small number of trends, even though he could report on so many. I’m sure there’s a sneaker trend that would suit me, it just wasn’t chosen by him. If a report on all possible trends were set up, an almost infinite number of pages would come out. However, it would be far too general, far too much, and thus inconsclusive, because what is one supposed to derive from it?
In the best case, a report should list the trends per gender, age, category, culture, background, occasion, etc., so that it also fits the reader. Because for a 20-year-old English woman, something completely different is the trend than for a 30-year-old Italian woman. There are also differences for men. For a 50-year-old banker, for example, something quite different is in than for a 25-year-old student.
Since such distinctions are very relevant for us at Picalike, we tried to get an indicator with the following parameters:
Gender: 3 (men, women, unisex)
Age: 6 (Baby, Child, Teen, Young Adult, Adult, Senior)
Occasion: 6 (Basics, Casual, Chic, Business, Sporty, Rocky)
Categories: 7 (Dresses, Blouses, Trousers, Jackets, Shorts, Shoes, Sweaters)
Attributes: 4 (colour, pattern, length, extras)
Type: 2 (Extrovert, Introvert)
Season: 4 (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter)
Weather: 5 (Warm, Cold, Rainy, Sunny, Snowy) Ba
This simple list, which we try to make even more precise every day, would already generate over 30,000 reports. That is a lot of effort! And unfortunately still far too much. Fortunately, we are developers and can have our artificial intelligence monitor this so that it only returns us the relevant results.
When I look back, I see the long way we have come, although we still want to go much further. For example, it was a special experience when we received the first sketches of trends to better visualise the data from the reports. That was our beginning. Now, with OSA and especially with our trend analysis, we are already quite a bit further along. Nevertheless, the sketches of trends are still an event. That drives us on. It remains exciting!