Generation Jones and the death of beige
Global trend forecaster The Future Laboratory made a number of challenging points at its recent 2006 Australian Trend Briefing.
Among the claims made at the gathering, hosted by Melbourne fashion forecaster Fashion Forecast Services, was the suggestion Australian retailers were seriously under-utilising the potential of mobile phone-based fashion retailing.
"Australian retailers really have not got to grips with mobile marketing," claimed Future Lab co-founder Martin Raymond, who cited UK youth fashion retailer Top Shop as a leading proponent of mobile and location-based sales.
"Top Shop can send messages to consumers' mobiles saying 'if you come in to the store within half an hour we'll give you a 20 per cent discount. If you come in with 10 friends we'll make it 40 per cent', a very enticing proposition for its target market and very easy to do if you understand the technology."
Australian retailers should also be aware of other emerging trends in retail technology - including the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to allow shoppers to pay for goods via their mobile phones, he said.
Technological advances aside, a number of market sectors were thus far under catered for both overseas and in Australia.
These included a growing demographic of consumers in their forties, dubbed "Generation Jones" and typified by "affluent but unsatisfied" consumers born from 1954 to 1965.
"Generation Jones is very brand-conscious. These are the people that came of age with Calvin Klein."
While a smattering of Australian fashion labels - including Country Road - were "quintessentially Generation Jones" brands, the demographic was largely ignored by Australian department stores, he Raymond said.
"This demographic is not interested in discounts. They're proud of their achievements and want to spend their money. It's worth noting that [UK department store] Harvey Nichols is now specifically targeting this market."
Another key global trend was the concept of "fractional luxury".
"This is a move on from [the 'affordable luxury' trend of] 'masstige', and is about giving consumers the opportunity to purchase a share in luxury that they wouldn't usually be able to afford.
"Women in New York are clubbing together to buy high-end designer wardrobes and then leasing out the opportunities to wear that wardrobe throughout the season."
Raymond said retailers should also be aware of the increasing number of affluent, internationally mobile consumers, dubbed "transumers".
"Leading airports around the world are increasingly seen as luxury playgrounds and more and more high-end labels are launching their early season releases via airport terminal retail outlets."
Future Lab creative director Chris Sanderson delineated broad fashion trends including a "return to colour during the "noughties".
"The beige and oatmeal decade is over. The transformation from a manufacturing to a creative economy means more colour. Blue - a very millennium colour - will be added to with greens, yellows, oranges and violets."
The move represented a trend towards "Neo purity", Sanderson said.
"Green in particular is fresh, vibrant and strong and we may see its increased use not necessarily in the fashion palette but as a communication or packaging colour."
The next five years would also see a growing trend towards "maximalism", representing a move away from the clean lines and neutral palette of minimalism, which had held sway in a variety of forms since the nineties.
However, with many consumers increasingly seeking transparency and integrity in product, the contrasting concept of "Nu Austerity" - in which product would be stripped back to reveal the processes and materials that made it, allowing the consumer to "read the story of the product" - would also be evident.
Coming Autumn Winter fashions would see a trend towards gothic fantasy, including strong black notes and a "bruised palette" of muted violets, blues and greens as well as oxidised or tarnished metal finishes, while textile design would be influenced by the richly illustrated botanical drawings of 19th-century botanists and marine artists, executed with contemporary technologies.
For summer 07 (northern hemisphere) Sanderson predicted a 1950's style return to a soft but vibrant fashion colour palette, while a growing trend in textile design epitomised what he termed "graphic havoc".
"The new generation of [textile designers] have no taste at all - which is great. We're seeing a real exuberance emerging from abandoning all the established rules."
This year's briefing represented the first instance in which Future Lab's findings had been presented in Australia ahead of other countries in the world, Fashion Forecast Services principal Sharon Rae confirmed.
"It's a huge privilege for Australia to be first off the mark," Rae said.
The presentation represented the fruit of in depth analysis of broad global trends and was "not about straightforward fashion forecasting", said Future Lab's Martin Raymond.
Instead data garnered from Future Lab's LifeSigns Network - a group of 2,500 thinkers, doers, creatives, designers, writers, analysts, stylists, musicians, DJs, gamers, trend scouts and cultural academics whose sole purpose was to report from places where the future had "already happened" - would give fashion professionals invaluable insight into the broad trends influencing consumer behaviour, retail and fashion.
"The future doesn't happen all at once; it happens at different times in different places. We work with thousands of experts across the globe to get an idea of where these defining trends are heading.
"Really, we don't just make this stuff up," he said.