fashionthunder.com

When a fashion-conscious friend of mine saw a poster of Uma Thurman decked out in a bright yellow motorcycle jacket and matching trousers for the movie Kill Bill, she turned to me and hissed, ‘Shit – that means we’re going to look like bananas all summer.’ Actually, Uma’s violent yellow outfit never quite caught on – although her sneakers, made by the Japanese brand Asics, did. Movies, particularly when they become popular culture phenomena, clearly have an impact on fashion trends, along with the music industry. Apart from these obvious sources, though, where do trends come from? Why are the stores full of pink one season, green the next, blue the season after that? Why does cowgirl follow flapper; 40s take the place of 70s? Is it some kind of conspiracy? Do the fashion companies get together in a top-secret location every autumn and decide what they’re going to foist on us the following year? Not quite – but almost. ‘I’m not always entirely sure where trends come from,’ admits April Glassborow, senior buyer for international designer collections at Harvey Nichols. ‘But I tend to think they’re started by the fabric mills.’ Fabric suppliers are indeed among the first links in the fashion chain. One of the most influential events of the year is Première Vision, the fabric trade show held in Paris at the end of September. As many as 800 fabric manufacturers from all over the world – Italy, France, Japan, Portugal, Switzerland and the UK are some of the most influential markets – display their wares to design teams and buyers. It’s one of the few trade shows where you can spot designers like Christian Lacroix and Dries Van Noten stalking the aisles.
The fabric merchants are armed with formidable marketing skills.
They have regular clients, and new wefts and weaves to sell them. Occasionally they’ll be asked to come up with a specialized fabric for a designer; but they may let slip details of the product to a rival. Similarly, if an influential designer has picked up on a certain fabric, clients who arrive at the stand later may be tactfully encouraged to follow suit. Technology naturally affects trends, too: the resurgence of tweed was provoked by manufacturing developments that made the fabric lighter, more supple and easier to manipulate. Every year there’s a new way of treating denim, to give jeans a look that is subtly different from the year before.
At the other end of the chain, if retailers tacitly agree to support certain colour or fabric trends, it means heightened customer demand, guaranteed sales, and less remaindered stock – which they might have been saddled with if they’d veered off-message. Hence, fuchsia one summer, lavender the next; this season linen and denim, next season velvet and corduroy.
But if the secret meeting suggested above does not actually take place, how do they know to stock similar stuff at exactly the same time?

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