Shoe designing has always been my first passion. However, if I decided to change careers, I would love to be a trend forecaster. Researching, gathering, traveling the world, and participating in creative events from fashion shows, art shows, and even social or political talks, is not a bad way to spend your days. Can I be a shoe and accessory trend forecaster, please?
Let me introduce to you, Geraldine Wharry, a trend forecaster based in London. I met Gerladine in 2005, during my in-house days at Rip Curl. She is a very cool, culturally rich, woman who goes after her dreams. We’ve kept in touch over the years, and her career path is amazingly interesting. From fashion designer to creative director, and now building her own creative services firm called Trend Atelier, you definitely want to follow her social media platforms. Her life, work, and the images she posts are extremely inspiring.
Since the launch of her trend webinar series, I’ve done my best to participate in as many as I can. I’m very impressed by the presentations, and her point of view. I’ve found that most trend service companies offer the usual catwalk analysis, key items, and street style. Trend Atelier’s trend forecasting services are conceptual and thought provoking. The images and videos are inspiring, and the content take away allows you to develop and translate your own trend ideas. I like having the combination of creating my own analysis, in addition to the runway shows, key items, etc.
I’ve been very inspired by Gerladine that I wanted to interview her for my blog, and share her amazing gift to inspire other creatives and companies. It’s also fun to hear about other creative jobs, and what inspires them everyday.
How did you get into trend forecasting?
GW: I evolved into trend forecasting when I moved to London after being in Los Angeles for six years and New York for five years. I knew I wanted a change- staying in fashion, but approaching it from a different angle. And I’ve always been drawn to creative research and putting together the conceptual direction of collections. Whilst managing the womenswear collections at Seven for All Mankind and Ripcurl, I was interfacing with trend services and doing my own trend research. So when I joined Wgsn after a few months in London I was thrilled and it felt like a natural progression, one of those right time/ right place life events.
Why did you start Trend Atelier?
GW: I started the company because I’ve always wanted to have my own business. So I just had to bite the bullet and founded it in 2011. It grew organically from then on. At first more as a consultancy working with private clients, and now I still do that, but I also create trend reports. So the company is both service and product driven.
I wanted the company to be a cesspool of ideas. Atelier in French, my native tongue, means workshop or artist studio. What I love about Trend Atelier is providing future trends insight as well as creative mentoring to clients. I think I was meant to have a business like this. My mother is a teacher and I love working with people to unlock their full potential. And my father is a filmmaker, so the trend forecasting taps into the fact I grew up around images and story telling.
Tell us about your trend forecasting service?
GW: We specialize in Macro trend reports for the style industries so the reports are created to inspire designers and we feed into them insights and new developments in fashion, design, arts and culture, color, consumer behavior, architecture, materials, as well as the latest in socio-economics, popular culture, business, science and technology. On the one hand, we have the seminars, webinars and targeted trend research/ reports. But we also collaborate one-to-one with fashion labels on bespoke creative strategies which lead to best-selling products. Sometimes companies have a great product but need help editing or clarifying their image, so that’s where we step in.
What is different about your service vs. other trend forecasting services out there?
GW: What is unique about our service is it’s very conceptual and creative. Instead of a catwalk analysis or street style report, we’re giving an overall view of what’s going on in the world or fashion. So any true creative or designer, artist or someone who is curious in life will be able to take our findings, get inspired and adapt them to their needs. As a result, our audience ranges from fashion, textile and interior designers to bloggers, fellow forecasters, web designers, filmmakers, make up artists, jewelers. It’s really interesting to see how companies interpret our forecasts.
How do you gather your information? Is it something that inspires you? What starts that process?
GW: I call it “Hunting & Gathering”. This is the name of the methodology I have created as well as Fashion course. And I will have an online course about this soon because it’s been a big success.
There is an element of inspiration when my antennas pick up on a certain bit of news or an image. But there is also the fact I have been in the industry for 16 years now so have this built-in trend tracker which helps me see immediately if something is relevant, new or not. So there is a balance of instinct, intuition and data. It’s key is to have a broad viewpoint and not let your personal preferences cloud your judgment. Sometimes what starts the process is a single image – sometimes it’s a cluster of items found in research, discussions with experts or seen at industry events.
