NYC Study Tour: WGSN

Part 1 - Research:  

WGSN is the worlds leading trend forecasting agency. They do thoughtful research on color, styles, silhouettes, and other themes that will be seen in fashion, lifestyle design, packaging, and furnishing. Their trends are forecasted two years in advance so that brands can develop their lines and products before trends hit the market. 

Part 2 – Observations:  Thoughtful observations and reflections made during the appointment itself.  What did you learn about the industry?  Specific jobs?  Your own potential career path?              

I really enjoyed this visit. WGSN is a service that we use so often in all of our fashion merchandising classes. We are also required to take a class in trend forecasting which is what WGSN does so that was pretty amazing to see it translated into a career path. I think that trend forecasting is kind of a hard industry to wrap your head around. It's difficult to grasp what ways there are to predict trends that haven't happened yet but I think that they did a really great job of explaining how they research and identify core trends that have an overarching meaning but can be interpreted differently. I found that it was really interesting to hear about how WGSN influences not only fashion trends but also trends in home and lighting design, to food, to luxury hotel experiences. I thought what Ellie had to say about her job was really really interesting. I feel like often I find that merchandising can be really creative and I want a way to use more of my academic skills like writing and reading and researching. So when she was talking about her projects that she works on that involve weeks of reading and diving deep into a product category I felt like that could be a good medium for me. I love doing that sort of thing but its also a way for me to still be within the fashion industry in some capacity. Plus she gets to stay in luxury hotels every now and again which wouldn't hurt. I also loved the short tour we got to the WGSN office. I am beginning to see that a corporate office can still be fun and playful and relaxed. A lot of the employees wore jeans and had a fun desk setups. I mean who doesn't love an office twining board?!

Part 3 - Weekly Question:  Discuss something Sean or another speaker said that resonated with you.

I loved that Sean went over the new trend concepts with us. I believe they were for 2019, which would be two years in advance. I really loved getting kind of an insider preview of them and also going through and hearing what he had to say about them all. I really enjoyed the global trend that talked about the new creatives. While scary, it's so intriguing that they’re seriously considering how robots will take over manual tasks. But the jobs that will remain are the ones that involve you being creative because that's something we cant program robots to do yet. It was so bizarre and such a great general idea that I could really see inspiring some shifts in fashion.