Trend Prediction Is a Joke??

Today I received a lecture from Yvan Rodic, the extremely talented man behind Facehunter.  Although the whole talk was insightful into the world of blogging there was one thing he said that really stuck in my mind, "Trend prediction is a joke."  As I am currently researching trends and trying to predict four for 2012, this came as somewhat of a shock, but as I started to think about it more it made more sense. The points Yvan made were that trends are much more random than what they used to be.  The concept that thinking a group of people will all wear the same thing is a naive way to think about fashion. Trends can be created by seeking them out.  It is not so easy to predict what will happen anymore as everything is changing at a rapid speed. The trends are supposedly taken from the catwalk which create a visual show, but no one ends up taking the looks literally, as they are for show. People will live within their means & it is an organic process to be inspired by what's around you.  "Fashion is becoming something one creates rather than follows."

Although I do not agree with every point made, there is a very valid argument.  Trends can be sort out in a group of people.  If black is stated as the new 'in' colour then it is very simple to walk down any street, especially somewhere as diverse as London, and find 10 people wearing black.  The same can go for any type of trouser cut, or dress length etc.  If you look at blogs such as 'what katie wore'  you see someone with a very diverse way of dressing.  More and more people are taking this approach of trying to challenge themselves with the way they dress in order to achieve more individuality. They do not necessarily follow a 'trend' but rather a feeling of how they want to portray themselves.

This does not go for everyone though.  There are groups of people who will buy a certain magazine, or read a certain blog, for inspiration of how to dress.  Without being told what to wear they almost feel socially unacceptable and out of the loop.  The demographic of this person could vary greatly from the girl in her 20's who lives for the weekend, to the woman in her 40's who works at Vogue under the critical eye of Anna Wintour.

We are now lucky enough to be growing up in a generation where we can access what people are doing, thinking and wearing anywhere in the world, and we can access it fast.  Due to this, all the information we receive has been sped up, and we get bored of it just as quickly as we get it.  This in turn could mean that the Fashion cycle is out of date. A young girl in a remote town in America (ie. Tavi ) can see the latest catwalk show from Paris, interpret the trends, and create her own style from this all within 24 hours of it originally taking place.  Are we not going to get bored waiting 6 months to wear these 'trend's' or simple forget about them?

To me there is something far more interesting in observing what people choose to wear rather than what people are told to wear.  Not trying to define people into categories and analyzing their 'trends', but just watching an organic growth in fashion, starting from the street and working its way up.