Hot
or Not?
by Cynthia Nellis
When Fashion Trends Die
It's a fashion follower's worst nightmare -- worse than looking
fat, more humiliating than wearing the same dress as another
party guest -- it's the dread of looking last year.
Fashion trends, sometimes referred to as fads, are notoriously
fickle. The fashion industry is always on the hunt for what's
new, what's hot. For every new, must-have handbag, there's
another that gets tossed aside like, well, last year's trend.
The Fashion Cycle
1. First, there's the emerging trend (the
American Marketing Association refers to this as the "distinctiveness"
part of the cycle where the trend is highly sought after.
You know this as when you see that great hat/dress/shoe on
the runway, red carpet or music video.
2. Next, comes what the AMA calls the emulation
phase, where everyone wants a piece of the trend. You'll see
it in fashion magazines, newspapers, internet and TV during
this phase.
3. Finally, the trend becomes saturated in
the market, usually at very low prices. With trendy items
like a must-have designer handbag, the item becomes widely
available as a knock-off.
Most of us will buy it somewhere between phases two and three.
Only celebrities and fashion industry types have access to
fashion fresh off the runway that hasn't appeared in stores
yet, like in the first phase of a fashion trend.
At the second phase a look is often available in high-priced
designer collections. Only in the third phase, when a look
makes it to the mass market, does it become affordable for
most consumers.
Twenty or 30 years ago it might have taken a few years to
make it from red carpet to mass market, but today's manufacturers
have put the fashion cycle into hyperspeed. Sometimes a hot
trend makes it into lower priced retail outlets in as little
as a few months.
In or Out?
Affordable trendy clothing (sometimes called "fast fashion")
is a double-edged sword: it makes fashionable looks accessible
to those of us on real-life budgets, but when the market is
totally saturated with a look a trend loses its appeal. It
basically helps to kill the trend quicker.
So how do you know how long a trend will last? A few
general guidelines:
 •
Generally speaking, most fashion trends stick around for at
least a year. Some trends, usually the most understandable
ones, last longer. For example, the personalization or initial
craze started with Sarah Jessica Parker's "Carrie"
necklace during season two of "Sex and the City"
in 1998. The look saturated the mass market in the fall 2003
with initial handbags, sweaters -- you name it -- a full five
years after it started.
• One school of thought says that fashion cycles about
every 20 years. Thus, the minis of the '80s have come back
into favor now (as did the nameplate necklace mentioned above,
which was hot then, too).
• A big part of deciding on how long a trend is viable
depends on where in the fashion cycle you bought the trend.
If you bought it as a knock-off or at a discount store, then
you should count on it being in for just one or two seasons.
Because the fashion industry often lumps together Spring and
Summer, Fall and Winter, that gives you approximately six
months of wear out of a look before it looks dated.
• Although there is no hard-and-fast rule about how
long a fashion trend will stick around, you can bet that the
more-difficult-to-pull-off looks (Uggs, large cuff jeans,
trucker hats) are just fads that will fade. That doesn't mean
you shouldn't have fun buying them, just know that they aren't
looks that will be fresh this time next year.
• Buying power can keep a trend on life support. Sometimes
consumers love a look so much they just won't let it die.
Capris, crops, tank tops and flip flops are all examples of
former trends which actually became wardrobe staples.
 •
The higher the profile -- boho chic and mod are recent examples
-- the more likely it is that the trend will look dated by
the same next year. Likewise, the more radical the cut, color
or print -- microminis, army jackets, mod graphics -- the
more certain that the trend will be long over by the same
time next year.
The best defense against quickly changing trends is to have
a wardrobe stocked with mostly classic looks: jeans, T-shirts,
blazers, little black dresses. Use trendy items as an addition
to a core wardrobe to give it some kick.
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