S10 E1 The Secret Tool: Inside the World of Trend Forecasting with Jane Kellock

This week, we're joined by Jane Kellock, Founder and Creative Director of Unique Style Platform (USP), one of the UK's leading trend forecasting consultancies.

Jane's career has taken her from designing womenswear and leading design teams at Topshop to becoming one of the UK's most respected voices in trend forecasting. Along the way she's worked with WGSN, Stylus and Debenhams, helping brands understand not just what's trending now, but what's coming next.

In this episode, we dive into how trend forecasting has evolved over the years, from the early days of carrying film cameras around trade shows and shopping trips, to today's world of AI, algorithms and endless streams of consumer data.

We also explore one of the biggest challenges facing buyers and brands today: how do you balance instinct with insight? Jane shares why having a clear point of view matters more than ever, how to avoid blindly following trends, and why some of the most valuable inspiration can come from completely outside your category.

Whether you're a buyer, designer, merchandiser or brand founder, this episode is packed with practical advice on spotting opportunities, understanding consumers and building products that feel both relevant and authentic.

Key Takeaways

1) Trends should inform your decisions, not make them for you: One of the biggest misconceptions about trend forecasting is that it's simply about predicting colours, prints or viral products. Jane explains that forecasting is really about understanding cultural shifts, consumer behaviour and the wider forces influencing how people live, shop and spend. The strongest brands don't copy trends directly - they filter them through their own identity and customer lens. As Jane reminds us, not every trend is your trend.

2) Don't lose your gut instinct in a world obsessed with data: With more data available than ever before, it can be tempting to let spreadsheets drive every decision. But Jane argues that some of the most successful products come from experience, intuition and a deep understanding of your customer. While data is a valuable tool, it shouldn't replace creativity. The best buyers and designers know how to balance insight with instinct, using both to make confident decisions rather than relying entirely on one or the other.

3) The best inspiration often comes from outside your category: Some of Jane's biggest sources of inspiration aren't found on a fashion catwalk. From hospitality and interiors to gardens, travel, architecture and everyday observations, she believes the best trend spotters are naturally curious about the world around them. For buyers, that's a valuable reminder that trend awareness isn't built solely through reports and social media feeds. Sometimes the most useful insights come from getting out, exploring new environments and paying attention to how consumers are living their lives.

To learn more about Jane's work, consultancy projects, trend subscriptions and upcoming events, visit: https://uniquestyleplatform.com/

And if you'd like more trend analysis, buying insights and conversations like this, join us at: https://www.jointhebuyersclub.co.uk/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Hello and welcome to Buying and Beyond, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of retail buying.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

We're Kate and Lynn, and we are talking all things retail buying and beyond with real people in retail.

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So grab your drink of choice and come and have a gigger with us. This episode is sponsored by the Buyers Club, and a membership created for buyers by buyers.

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If you work in retail buying, you'll know that this role is unlike any other. It's creative, commercial, fast moving, and incredibly rewarding. But it can also be high pressure and full on. The Buyers Club exists to support you through it all.

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If you want to feel more connected, more confident, and more supported in your buying career, head to our homepage for more information on how to join our club. Now let's get into today's episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

So today's guest is Jane Kelleck, founder and creative director of the Unique Style Platform, one of Fashion's most respected trend forecasting consultancies. Jane began her career in her design, including some time at Topshop as head of design, can't wait to get into that, before moving into senior forecasting roles at WGSN stylist and as a colour forecaster for Debonim's. Over the years, she's become internationally known for her expertise in colour, consumer behaviour, and future trends, working with global brands, designers and retailers to help them understand what's next. Hi Jane, thanks for coming and joining me for us.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Thank you for having me. It's so lovely to have you on and to hear about everything that you've done in your incredible career. There are some big names mentioned, and then that's led you on to be internationally known, which in its own right is phenomenal. Shall we go right back to the beginning and just how did you get started in retail?

SPEAKER_00 2:22

So I did a degree in fashion and textiles, specialising in knitwear, never did knitwear ever again. It was too far too complicated and technical for me. And then obviously moved to London because that's what you did in those days. And my first few jobs were working for uh as a fashion designer for suppliers. So I kind of cut my teeth on the real boots on the ground kind of design for the high street, really. And then I suppose my most sort of prominent job was when I moved to be a designer at Topshop. And I didn't really understand what being a designer for retail was all about and how that differed from being from working for a supplier. But I soon learned that it was much more about concepts, understanding the consumer, and working with buyers and helping buyers to sort of make decisions about the future. So that was a job that really sort of set my career on its pathway, if you like. And I loved working in retail because I was never very good at this sort of detailed part of the production process. I always liked the concept. And then after Topshop, I moved abroad for a while and worked for a big retailer there in Canada. Uh, and then came back and did various freelance jobs. Did the classic thing of having children and then becoming a children's wear designer for a bit, and then went back to college for a little while. This is a long story, by the way. Went back to college, did a postgraduate course because I wanted to get back to really what I'd gone into the industry for, which was designing. And I kind of was a bit weary of being asked to copy a sweatshirt or to, you know, the way that retail design works, sometimes, depending on the brand you're working for, can be very much through the eyes of the buyer and not the designer, although I think it's changed quite a lot these days. Went back to college and did this postgraduate course, and then heard about a job at JavaN. I didn't really know a lot about WGSN, but I did know that I liked the concept part of being a designer. So it made sense that I would want to work in trend forecasting. And trend forecasting was very much at the very beginning of the process. It was people, it was a kind of secret thing that people didn't really understand or know what it was all about.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

And almost every retailer has this, you know, has a subscription to WDSN, or at least all has in the past. So it's really interesting to hear talking about it, I guess in its real infancy, that you'd been at Topshop, but it didn't have that connection to this trend forecasting agency.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Yeah, we hadn't we had never used I mean we used books because trend forecasting books were always a thing. And yeah, Lee Adelcourt was the high priestess of trend forecasting, and we all went along to her presentations and loved them. Uh, and I always felt really not emotional, I suppose maybe a bit emotional when I listened to those things because it really resonated with me that that was something I was interested in. I was always interested in the bigger picture and understanding the cultural zeitgeist, but none of those things had titles or names at that point, and I didn't really know what it was, really. But then once I got to WGSN, I was in a company full of other people like me that were really interested in all those things, and yeah, it it was a secret thing. In fact, I think WSN back in the day was sold as this kind of secret tool that if you had it, that you were going to somehow have some information that other people didn't have.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Amazing.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Which is funny because, like you say now, everyone has it.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Yeah, and I think us, you know, we've started at different points in our careers, and for us, WGSN has always been like ingrained, it's always it was it was the tool that every retailer we've worked for, or you know, friends have worked for. It's so well known, and it's amazing to think that at one point it was this secret tool that was kind of being used and starting to sort of be introduced. So, how did it get started? How did you sort of get involved? What was it that you were doing at WDSN? You know, how were you sort of starting to predict those trends?

SPEAKER_00 6:22

It's funny because I was thinking about it the other day, and actually, it was even before digital cameras. So we would go and take photographs, actual photographs, and we were all in this little office, well, quite a big office on the Edgeware Road above the Tesco's, and we'd take our photographs to Snappy Snaps on the Edgeware Road and get them all processed there, and then someone would have to scan them all in so that we could upload them to put them on the website. So it just shows how much how much things have changed from then to where we are now. So it was very much primary research. You know, we would be out on the streets taking photographs, going to trade shows, ripping things out of magazines, you know, old school style, really, in the same ways that the designers would do in industry, but we would just do that. Well, that's all we did, you know, and that was what for me was the most exciting thing because that was always the part of the process that I absolutely loved. But most designers in a retail environment only have, you know, sometimes just a week to do that kind of research. They don't do it every single day and they don't travel all the time just for research. I mean, there was a point where we were given a budget just to choose a city we wanted to go to to do research, and there was no agenda particularly. At one time we went to Budapest, we went to the folklore museum, we traveled, we went to a flea market that was like an hour outside of Budapest that apparently Machia Prada went to to get her kind of vintage dresses. So we would just kind of think like a high-end designer, like we would really be looking at the concepts and the things that inspired us from a sort of human point of view and from an inspirational point of view.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

And to be fully absorbed, I guess, absolutely completely and utterly absorbed in it every day. And as you say, these days, designers are having a quick look to see if there's a trend, but then they're also very much being quite reactive, I think, these days, and very much pulled into actually what's going on with trade, and trade moves so quickly. So to be able to have that luxury of just really being engrossed in everything and and and as you say, that kind of concept design.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Totally. And to be honest, I still think that a good designer will still think like that. And obviously, they'll still look at they'll they'll look at social media and they'll look at all the things that are happening online. Obviously, but I think that that kind of instinctual gut reaction to things is something you have in you. And if you're a good designer, you have that, and you will do that anyway. It's almost your entire life. Everything you do in your life is part of you, it's not just something you do at work. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

So we stopped at UGSN because we've got so many questions about WGSN. Continue on with your career today.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Oh, so after WGSN, so Mark Worth, who's sadly no longer with us, who started WGSN, he sold the business and he started a new business called Stylus. And I was there at the very beginning of that. So it was about three of us in an office and above Marleybone Station. Again, being part of something that from the very beginning is really exciting. So we kind of put a team together, and I was the oh, what was that called? I can't remember. The VP of Colour. Uh I can't remember what I was called. Anyway, I started that and ran the sort of creative team there for a while. Again, loved that. We had a great team, it was smaller than WGSN. We'd kind of gone back to the beginning again. It was a slightly different approach to trends because it was bigger picture, so it was more for bigger brands, different types of brands. It was beyond just fashion, but I ran the fashion side of things and the colour side of things, and that was great. And then I had a bit of an epiphany. I was at the design museum, the Paul Smith exhibition at the design museum, and he had created his design studio in the museum, and he had computers and everything, um, but there was loads of rolls of fabric, and there was loads of actual physical things, and I thought to myself that we really had in trend forecasting, we'd moved away from the sort of human and the physical side of the whole process, and that everything was online and all our primary research was starting to be online. And I thought, well, you know what? I know that people really need what designers and buyers need in industry is physical as well as uh digital. So, particularly around colour. So I thought about how we worked with colour and uh at stylus, and we didn't produce anything physical, so I thought I really would like to start my own business around colour. I was also doing freelance colour consultancy as well, and I was constantly in a shop buying a pair of socks, matching a colour, getting a pantone colour. You know, you know yourselves if you've worked in buying, but you know, colour is a physical thing. So I thought I'd love to start something where we actually provide physical colour swatches. Obviously, trend books provide colour swatches, but I wanted to create something that was sort of in the middle and the intersection of a trend book, a digital pro a digital offer, and then something that creates physical colour swatches as well. So I don't know, I can't even remember how I actually had the confidence to do it. I just thought, oh, I'm gonna create my own website. And had been writing a blog for many, many years with somebody that I worked with at WGSN called the Women's Room, and we'd built a lot of followers over time. It was pre-Instagram, and we were writing it every day for I don't know, 10 years or something like that. And we'd create this community around the women's room. We started talking about style for older women and fashion and culture and all the things that we were personally interested in, and it had built my confidence in writing, it also built my confidence in creating a community and also digitally as well, creating a website. So I thought, oh well, maybe I could create some sort of trend forecasting platform, and that's where we began at USP. The Unique Style Platform was born.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

I was just gonna say, when I was looking at Unique Style Platform and looking at it, and I was like, wow, the acronym being the USP, which is exactly what each retailer should have, is if you're a brand or a business, you all have to have a USP. I love that you turned that into the unique style platform.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah, and I also like the word unique because I feel like that's something that if we go too far down the route of following trend forecasting, we don't end up being unique. We're there to inspire innovation and for people to create their own unique trends and own unique fashion out of what we offer them. We're not there to give them it, we're not there to be prescriptive, we're there to inspire. And the word unique is really important to me.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

I completely agree. It's how you translate those trends for your customer, for your brand. And it needs to be individual. It needs to have your own kind of spin on it, your point of view. And I think that's kind of the problem with these days sometimes, is that actually people are maybe a little bit more risk-event, a little bit unsure of what to do, and take things kind of as they are, sort of okay, like, oh, that's what the trend is, that's what we need to do, even if it's got nothing to do. I think there was a trend, wasn't there, sort of two summers ago, and it was that really bright lime green, and suddenly everyone's bringing things out in that bright lime green, which was absolutely nothing to do, or not even relevant to some people, but you saw it everywhere, and then it's like, well, everything's starting to look the same.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a really important point. It's like taking the information and making it relevant to your customer. Don't just jump on any trend bandwagon. And then trend forecasters get accused of being the ones that do that. It's not us that's doing it, it tends to be the brands and the retailers.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Totally agree. So, how do you start with it? You know, we're kind of thinking about looking at what trends might be coming. We often talk about this kind of macro and these micro. And how do you sort of what would you say sort of the biggest influences are? Is it looking at cultures, you know, where people are living, how people are living, and and how has that changed over the years with things becoming so much more global and there being sort of less differences, I guess, from sort of country to country?

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Yeah, it's interesting actually, because I was thinking about how we used to do it at Talkshop before we had trend forecasting, and we'd very much be kind of about, you know, we'd go to clubs in Glasgow and uh events in Liverpool, and we'd be really out there understanding who the consumer is and what the trends are within each of the individual areas because everything was quite niche and it wasn't global, and you didn't see what everybody was doing everywhere all the time. And you're right, everything has become so global that it can become very sort of generic and very samey. And you there was a point, I think, on the British High Street where you know there was when there was quite a lot of retailers that were just doing the same thing, and you couldn't you could have put six retailers' collections in the same room and you wouldn't have been able to under differentiate between any of them. I think that's changed a lot actually, uh, because a lot of them don't exist anymore, sadly. But the way that we start the process is very much looking at the bigger picture. So something that actually I started doing when I was at WGSN, WGSN was bringing together all of the teams in one place from around the world. And as I say at the beginning, we were a very small team, so it was just the UK. But then as we grew, we would have what we called our trends day, and I believe they still do it at WGSN, where we would all get together and we'd discuss the things that we were interested in. And there was no agenda in terms of like what it had to be, it could be anything. I remember somebody very, very early on saying, Oh, I've seen this thing called Facebook, and I'm really excited by it. It's a thing where you can share information and you can talk to your friends, and we were all like, Oh, what's this? You know, so it's it's just taking all of the ideas that again your gut reaction and your you're interested in your gut reaction is telling you that this is an interesting thing, and it could be anything, it could be interiors, it could be hospitality, could be somewhere you travel to, it could be a design or a brand. And we'd put together, everyone would put together a number of slides and they would just share that information, and that would be the starting point. And then we would start to pull together things that kind of patterns that would be emerging. So, you know, if we were talking about uh, for instance, the one that I always talk about is vegan food. So that was again a niche idea back in the day, and people would be like, What's this vegan thing? You know, we don't understand what it is, and that would be then it would grow, and then there would be vegan beauty, and then there would be, you know, lots of different spin-offs from this idea of veganism. So just taking all this of the threads of information and the patterns that we see, and then plotting them out on a board and saying, right, okay, this is a big picture thing, this is a smaller, more underlying idea, and then visualizing it as well, putting visuals with it, uh, and then just kind of creating what we call our macro trends. So these will be the big picture ideas that will be driving the future of retail, the future of the consumer, the future of product, all of the big picture things that happen at the very beginning of this of the process. And then the next stage from that will be looking at how that product comes out of that. So, you know, if it's if it's a vegan trend, for instance, I mean that's very old now, but you know, it'd be looking at sustainability, it'd be looking at sustainable materials, it'd be looking at new processes, ethical pro uh ethical ways of creating product. So there's all sorts of ways of kind of taking a big picture idea and then creating something that is product related underneath that. But then also obviously you take the trends and then you see how they're evolving, and then there are fast-moving trends on top of that that will that will be drive driven out of social media or TikTok or you know, there's a lot of different ways of looking at it from very big picture to kind of evolution, then through into quick trends that are happening at as as we speak.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Absolutely. So going back to sort of what you mentioned about Topshop back in the day, do you think that sort of real hands-on living, going and really experiencing what your customer's experiencing, do you think that's what made it so culturally influential at that time? And I'd love to know your thoughts on what you know, the revamp and the comeback for Topshop. Do you do you think that kind of really like added to its uh brand identity? You know, and that it's it wasn't just fast fashion, it was really going into and being influenced and inspirational and like you say, so unique at that time.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

Yeah, I think I think we the fact that we were we were the customer, you know. I mean, I didn't work there in its proper heyday, you know. When Jane was like Jane and I were Jane was a buyer when I was a designer. So Jane and I sort of grew up at Topshop and we traveled together and you know, we we kind of we cut our teeth in Top Shop and then I left and then Jane went on to make it amazing. But I think at the time that I was there and and afterwards when she was leading it, I think it was like we were living the brand. We were those young girls, we were those people clubbing, we understood them. You know, we were all from different parts of the country, so we understood what the girl in Hull was doing versus the girl in London, and we lived that life. And I think having that sort of cultural approach to it is so important. I think people nowadays have caught on to that, but I think back in the day, they didn't really understand that that was how you know you had to understand that customer and be that customer.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

Yeah, yeah. No, I do know what it's really funny because I feel like when Kate and I were accessorised, it was very much like our journey was we were being the accessorised girl, weren't we, Kate? And and a lot of a lot of the people there were travelling to Ibita and going to Coachella and you know, living that life, wearing all the accessories.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

We had the headband with all the bangles and all the rings and the necklaces. We were accessorized with the bags, with anything they had, a scarf, belt, we wore it all at the same time. Whereas now I think there's a little less customer loyalty, people are a little bit less like affiliated with just one brand, people are a little bit more particular, and there is, I guess, maybe more choice. It's easier than ever, I guess, to start a brand, maybe not as easier as ever to stay solid and anchored as a brand. But definitely back then, I think there was something about being all-encompassed by a brand and wanting to be that person and it being quite inspirational.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yeah, absolutely. And you're creating you're creating an aspirational version of it, you're creating what you'd like it to be. So you're creating what you'd like to wear on a Saturday night to go clubbing. And you're trying it on in the office, and everybody's looking at it and everybody's talking about it. You know, it's really important to understand every aspect of it from the fit to where they're gonna wear it to what the occasion's gonna be. You know, I think you're right, you just have to live the brand. And I think that's what's interesting about some of the young, the younger and newer brands that are out there. For instance, uh Dams and Mada, I love that brand. You can see who that woman, that girl is, you can see who she is, and she doesn't have to be young. She can be, I wear Dams and Mada, you can be any age to wear it, but you've got a sort of certain attitude, a certain way of looking at the world, a certain way of living, and they completely encompass it.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Yeah, I think you're right. And it's brands like that that grow so quickly and can stay solid. It's when you're not really quite sure of who you are or what you stand for, or kind of trying to cover too many things, or too many people, or too many customers, that it doesn't, it's not particularly clear. You need to kind of really quite niche down and be quite specific.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Yeah, absolutely. And it's having a point of view and that's And that comes down for me to design. You can't have a point of view unless you've got a clear design handwriting. And that's what a brand like that has. And you know, it you have to stand out, you have to be unique these days because there's a lot of people doing things that are cheap or uh basic or you know that you you've got lots of brands that do that. And if you want to create a brand, then you have to have a clear point of view and understand who your consumer is.

SPEAKER_02 22:25

Yeah, absolutely. And how how do you think the role of a trend forecasters changed from back then to today? Is obviously it's just like we've talked about this in so many fast-moving trends. There's obviously, you know, a lot on sustainability and overconsumption. How has how has a trend forecasting role adapted to all of those? Obviously, the geopolitical issues we're having. Like, I mean, there's so much. I mean, we know how much has impacted a buyer's role. How much do you think it has has sort of impacted in your industry?

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Well, I think it's it's a tricky one because I think that everything is out there for everyone to see all the time. So, in a way, everyone can be a trend forecaster, you just don't have the time to do it. So, you know, if as a buyer or a uh merchandiser, you can see what's happening. It's like, what do you do with that information and how do you make it relevant to your brand? And I think that's what trend forecasters do. I think back in the day we didn't even really look at the catwalks because you didn't get the information until months after they'd happened. So it was very much instinct and understanding a consumer and going with what you thought was going to happen. You had no data. I mean to have data on best sellers, obviously, but you didn't have data like AI or whatever. We can talk about that later. But you know, it's it's changed a lot. But I think it's again going back to that idea of like understanding what's relevant for your brand. And I think that's the thing that we like to what that's why we like to work with people on a consultancy basis, because then we get more involved in what actually does work for their brand. We understand their consumer a bit more, and we try to make our information relevant to them. So, yes, we think orange is going to be really important for spring summer 27. But if we're working with a brand that's never sold orange and you know they've got a massive resistance to it, how do we make that orange we make r relevant for them? So we make the red that they've been selling a bit more orange. You know, it's it's that it's that simple. So it's being relevant and commercial while still pushing people forward. Yeah, because I think that's the role of a trend forecaster is to help people to innovate. But when it comes to things like sustainability, I mean it's really difficult. Again, trend forecasters could be blamed for creating this endless cycle of newness, but that's not something we talk to our subscribers or our clients about. We talk to them about sustainability, we talk to them about the new materials that are coming out and how they can work on more ethical processes, etc. Sometimes they want to hear it, sometimes they don't. We have no control over that. But what we do say to them is if we're giving you a trend, we want to give you something that's got a longevity and it's sustainable in terms of the way that it can evolve throughout the season. We don't want to just we do talk about quick trends, but we try to make them relevant to something that's got a little bit more of a lifespan. So and it's difficult because, as I say, we haven't got any control over how they use that information. But we try to, well, I mean, I often say there is no such thing as sustainable fashion because people talk about sustainable fashion in a way that you know suddenly you're going to put it in in a kind of recycling bin and it's not going to exist anymore. That's just not true. So we talk to them a lot about vintage, we talk to them a lot about resale, we talk to them a lot about you know how to encourage consumers to build within their own wardrobes. Yeah. So we we cut all those messages across in a way that hopefully helps them to be sustainable, as sustainable as they can be, because really, you know, what's sustainable fashion? It's a really tricky subject.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

It is, isn't it? It's a it's a complicated word. I think also where where the confusion can sometimes lie for people when they're thinking about jumping on the next trend or being a trend, people almost think about it this is being very generalized, but as a colour or a style that they have to have. But actually, a lot of trend forecasting, as you've talked about, is actually the way people are living, actually new materials that are coming through. So the trend is sustainability. The trend is, as you say, like resale. It is actually okay, well, what are you gonna do for it's it's looking a lot broader than just the new item you have to have. It's actually how people are living and how a customer wants to buy. It could be actually the trend is that people are buying less.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Totally, yeah. People don't want to hear that. Yeah, but it's true. You know, the clients that we talk to are in the business of giving people more stuff that they don't need. So they really don't want to hear a lot of the things that we have to say, but we say them anyway because it's important that we do, because that's our job.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Yeah, yeah. And you're also not just influencing product choices, right? You're influencing like the direction of the brand and store experience and the you know, the end-to-end journey with the consumer. So I think it's quite it's really important to say that, right? Because it's not just about what's the new product range, it's about what's their brand identity and how are we moving with that?

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Yeah, absolutely. It's a lot to do with being authentic, and a lot of brands struggle with their messaging and their marketing, and and so we talk a lot about that kind of thing. Like what resonates with consumers, particularly the mysterious Gen Z that everybody's chasing. You know, what do they want from a brand? How do they connect with a marketing, or if at all, how do they connect with a marketing campaign? So we we do a lot more than just look at what the latest colour is or what the latest skirt length is.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you starting to look at Gen Alpha now as well? And how are you sort of seeing that? That feels like from what I'm hearing, you know, little bits of information people are starting to think, okay, this is gonna be the next one coming through after Gen's, and actually how they're thinking and living is very different because they've grown up almost with over consumption and over so much digitalization. Like, what are your kind of initial thoughts on how that's gonna change?

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Well, they're really interesting, group, because they're almost rejecting all of the things that you know, Gen Z and millennials are so keen on. You know, they're not being heavily online, they're they're they're doing all sorts of you know human kind of activities, and and a lot of the parents that are coming through are don't want their children to engage with technology. You know, there's a whole shift coming, like anything, you know, you go one way and then you shift completely the other way. So, yeah, generation alpha are really interesting ones to observe. And again, they're what they're they're a generation that lots of brands really can't get their heads around because they haven't they don't have a lot of brand loyalty, they shop in a different way if they shop at all, and they're engaging on a completely different level that most kind of conventional retailers find really hard to understand.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

There's gonna have to be that shift, isn't there? Because we are moving so heavily at the moment into digital products and digital things, and we've mentioned it a few times now. AI, it comes up in almost every conversation I feel like I'm having these days. And it's one of those things that definitely with Gen Z, it feels like it's almost innate. They talk about chat GPT, chat's a friend. So you can overhear conversations where they're like, oh, chat said, although, you know, blah, blah, blah, chat list, yeah. It's almost like it is just another person, part of their friendship circle, someone that's given them advice. Whereas you're saying then we're kind of moving potentially away from that. But AI is really determining quite a lot of what's happening at the moment. So, how are you kind of reacting to that? And what are your thoughts on how that's impacting the roles? I know we've got our own kind of concerns with how that impacts the role of a buyer, but what about designers and trend forecasting?

SPEAKER_00 30:05

I mean it's an interesting one. I was actually just saying before I came on this call, I wish AI would leave me alone, because almost everything that you do is like, would you like chat uh uh chat GPT or would you like AI to be involved? And it's like, no, just leave me alone. I don't want your help, thank you. And I just think that it's really interesting from the sort of younger generation's perspective, because I always say in in trend talks, you know, no consumer is just one thing, everybody's like a little bit of everything, and people are very like, oh, all of the younger people are just fine vintage and and resale, and then on the other hand, they're online all the time, and they just chat to chat GPT and they only have virtual friends. I don't think anyone's just one of those things. I would say, you know, you have the Love Island consumer, and then you have the Greta Thunbergs of this world. So everybody's a little bit of all of those things, and so I'm hoping because that the younger generation are more savvy in terms of technology, that they can see the difference between a real friend and a chat friend, and I think they can. I think a lot of the younger generation that are very, very aware of the environment don't use chat GPT because they know that it takes a lot of energy and they really disapprove of it on many levels, and they can see what's fake and what's not real. They really can, they're not stupid, they're more savvy than any of the rest of us. Yeah, but from a design and a trend forecasting perspective, I think it's got a place, absolutely, and data as is relevant and it will be continue to be relevant, and it's really interesting to see what data's predicting. It can only look backwards, it can't look forward. So I have no doubt that it's gonna uh it's not going to take away a trend forecast for a designer's job. What worries me is that the powers that be at the top of companies who don't necessarily understand what designers and trend forecasters do from a human perspective will push towards data and AI because that's what they understand. They like a spreadsheet. And I understand the need for a spreadsheet, but it's not the only thing that you need within a creative process. You need human interaction, you need instinct, you need to understand the psyche of your consumer, and you need to understand the zeitgeist that's out there. And all of those things are human things, and they are what makes us buy product. What makes us buy product is emotion, it's tactile, it's going into a shop or going online and seeing something beautiful that you want to interact with and you can't not have. And data can't produce any of that. In the same way, it can't produce an original music, it can't produce an original script, it can't produce original creativity. It can emulate that and it can create versions of that, but it can't create anything original. So I see its place, but I don't embrace it from a creative point of view in any sense. That probably makes me sound ancient, but I don't care.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

No, I'd completely agree. I definitely had a situation where I for a technology first company, they saw themselves as a tech first company versus a retailer. And I definitely was in sign-offs where it's like, but what does the data say? What does the data say? And it's well, some of these bits are actually completely new. We've got no data or anything like this, but gut says this is what to do. And I think it sometimes depends where that leadership's come from. Because if you are very black and white and you want to see the numbers behind it and you want the confidence behind it because you want to see that something's been proven, then you're only ever going to want to see what the data has. Whereas if you come from more of a creative point of view, a creative background, you're a bit more okay, balanced with your view. And I think that's the thing sometimes with being a little bit more risk-averse, with sort of being like, okay, people talk about fail fast and just like try it and see. But also people, especially when numbers are involved, if maybe people are a little bit, you know, profit concerned about profit, might be a little bit more reluctant and actually want to have some concrete things behind it. But I'd say the beauty of having the originality and things that are kind of designed or inspired, or as you say, like original from your own minds and going and seeing things on the ground, not just having something that was worked and then, like, you know, well, it was a navy stripe. Well, we're not going to do a pink stripe. It's well, well, actually, we could do a pink spot, or we could just do it completely plain pink. Who knows? Like, they may not want that anymore. And it's also that knowing when a trend's going to end, and I think that can only ever be a personal and a gut feel. I don't think data can ever really quite tell you that, other than I guess, seeing numbers slightly starting to decline. But by that point, you probably should have stopped it already.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's where the relationship between a designer and buyer is so important. If you have a good relationship, obviously the buyer's looking at the numbers on a continual basis and hopefully watching that trend and watching the numbers go down and thinking, right, okay, what do we do next? But then they're coming to the designer and saying, What do we do next? And the designer's saying, Well, I've just been to LA and I've seen blah blah or I've just seen this on the streets, or you know, it's like you're the designers there to pick a little bit and provide that commerciality, and that's the sweet spot between the two the relationship that that really works. But when you are constantly being pushed just to provide data for something, then you're losing that sweet spot somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

Yeah, absolutely. You're in real danger of losing our gut, if you know, if we're gonna say it like that, you know, it is. I think Kate's completely right. I've been in sign-offs as well, where you've had to back up your buying decision, and it really is based on your experience of your customer and knowing that you should be putting that forward. And if we're being stopped in sign-offs because the data's not telling us that, how are we gonna give those choices and real hands-on experience a chance, you know? And and it's all in the word creative. How can you really be creative with AI? I mean, I I think AI is coming and it's and it's well, it's here, obviously it's not coming, it's here, it's right in our faces. It's it's here to help us be more productive, right? It's here to help us be less bogged down by what has been brought into a lot of roles through the you know, post-um situation. There's been a lot of things been brought into roles that we really weren't doing before. So I feel like it's there to tackle those issues and let's go back to doing the jobs that we were doing before overconsumption really kicked in. And and and that word creative, how can you, like you said, AI doesn't look forward, it only looks back, and it's all about what you put in it, right? So we need to have that sort of you know, forum to be creative. And I'm not sure you can be that authentically creative on AI.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

No, I agree, and I think that's the worry for younger designers, and I see this quite a lot, is that you go through university and you're really creative and you're encouraged to be creative and think outside the box and think about sustainability and all of those things. And then you, if you work in retail particularly, you get into retail and that's like where's the data? And it's like, well, you're not learning to trust your instinct. You that part of the process of becoming good at your job is learning to trust your instinct. And if you're not allowed to do that, I have got friends who've been told that they can't say in a sign-off, I feel that this is the right thing to do. They have to provide data. Feeling, as I said before, and emotion is so much part of what we do. And if we lose that, yeah, then we've lost the plot, basically.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Totally agree with you. Totally agree. And I think there's a real need for design teams. And it I think starting at a company like Accessorize that had such a large in-house design team, it and and used external resources as well, because it knew how important like design was to the handwriting. Versus some brands we have today. There was a an assistant buyer I was speaking to one of our events, and she'd been a BA at a fast fashion retailer and then moved to a more established retailer. And what she when she first started as an assistant buyer at this more established retailer that was not fast fashion, she was asked for a tech pack and she was like, sorry. And she saw this huge design team and tech packs, and she was like, What? And what she'd learned in her previous role as a BA was to screenshot a picture and then send it out to a factory saying, Can I have this in blue? And can you change the buttons to be pink and square? And that was that was their entire design process. So when she joined this other retailer and they're like, Could you send some design briefs out? She's like, Yeah, sure. And they were like, What is that? Where's your tech pack? And she's and she told me this story. I could not believe it. And I think she was in shock as to what had happened and could not believe what there was now, and was like, wow, no wonder this brand has so many beautiful products, because that's how it's done. But it shocked me and her the process that she she'd been introduced to.

SPEAKER_00 39:10

That's so sad, isn't it? And it kind of makes a mockery of like, you know, going to college for four years and training and understanding construction of garments and fabric and all of those things that make a beautiful product, like you're saying, it's really sad.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

Isn't it? And then you sort of there's no, there were no fit models, there was no fit sessions, there was nothing about kind of fabric quality, about being really specific about the styling, the shape, the measurements, the like all of those things, the detail in it. And as much as we know some of these kind of some retailers work very, very quickly on their turnaround and you know, producing something that has been seen somewhere and turning these trends into sort of real products. In all honesty, I didn't quite realize the basic level going on behind the Yeah, I might I've heard that before actually.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

And it's sad because a lot of the time they're copying smaller individual brands that have created the product from scratch, which is completely wrong.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think I think what what's interesting is that there are some companies out there that don't have design teams and don't look at trends and don't really understand that world. And I I'd really love to know what your sort of advice would be to a buyer that finds themselves joining a company like that. And you know, often sometimes people move from big companies that have had that set up and into a smaller retailer or brand that haven't had that functionality because maybe the idea's grown from the founder's kitchen table or something. But what would your advice be to a buyer that's finding themselves in a company like that and and really wants to bring in that kind of trend analysis side of things and show to show that sort of brand owner like how that could really boost their business?

SPEAKER_00 40:52

I think yeah, I think you're right. And I think more and more businesses as they're struggling are doing that, they're getting rid of what they see as kind of uh a nice to have rather than a have to have.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:02

And and we've spoken to quite a lot of buyers that have been put in that position recently, and it's really hard because it's two jobs, it's two jobs that you train for. You know, it's not just it's like being a designer and a pattern cutter, those are two jobs. It's really hard because having that time to think and it's thinking time that makes you good at thinking about trends, and it's it's research and it's having the ability to be out and about. And if you're a buyer, you're you're worrying about quantities, you're worrying about pricing, you're worrying about what's selling. There's a whole load of actual practical processes that you have to think about on a daily basis, and at the end of the day, your job is about making money and providing a good bottom line. So then adding on trend forecasting on top of that is really difficult. And so, what's the solution to that? Well, obviously, you can sign up to a subscription at unique style platform. That's one thing. And what do you what do you get in that subscription just to give gift and text? Uh we would look, we look at uh we'll do catwalk analysis, so we look at all of the catwalks. So that in itself is a job, and you know, just printing off the because I remember in certain jobs that I've done, sometimes the most junior member of staff is just asked to print off all the images from the catwalks. That isn't enough. You need to analyse what's important for your brand. You need to understand that if red's on trend, is it right for your customer? You know, what's the latest fabric, what's the latest print, etc. etc. Because everybody looks at catwalks these days, rightly or wrongly. That's what people do. So you'd get that, you'd get sort of ongoing inspiration. So we do a lot of inspiration around what's happening in terms of culture. So we do what we call our European Inspire. That's a weekly kind of roundup of something that we've seen that might be a TV programme. We're just about to do one on the new uh TV programme about Isabella Blow and Alexander McQueen's relationship because Joan Collins is about to star in an adaptation of that story, and the outfits look amazing. So we create a colour palette around that and we'll look at the at the visuals from that. So it's very much sort of inspiring and an aesthetic inspiration. And then we'll do kind of you know, need to know. So, what's happening in terms of actual product, what's the latest uh prints that are happening? Uh, we'll do seasonal colours, so we'll look at colour up to two years ahead, and then we'll do macro trends for the big picture things that are influencing the kind of cultural design and and all of that is is just us looking at at that kind of information on a daily basis. So, for a buyer to be able to do that on their own is really hard. But if you're in a small team and you don't have that kind of resource, you know, I would make sure you talk to the people that are wearing the brand. So if you're a younger, more fashion-forward brand and you've got younger people in the team, talk to them, ask them what they're seeing, what they're doing, get them involved in creative meetings, have at least once a month a creative meeting where you talk about ideas, what's coming through, not just about bestsellers, but what colours are you seeing that are starting to grow? You know, look at beyond just the bottom line and what's exciting you. You know, it's about keeping. That kind of that excitement as part of it because it's really hard to do that wise, you know, especially if you're struggling, it's almost impossible.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

Yeah, and I can head above water. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's really hard for some retailers, like I said before, that don't really understand the benefit. You know, I mean I've I've worked in a retailer where they didn't didn't really have any of that. So I started introducing sort of trend days once like twice a year, where we would get out the office, go somewhere. I mean we went to different, we went to really random places. We went to the zoo, I hired a room in the zoo, you know, just to get people out the building and into an environment that's completely alien. You know, we went to a we went to a climbing wall one year, you know, it was so good to just get people out and get them thinking in a different way. So I think that that really helped, I think, a lot of people in in that business. But it is it is quite hard to get people on that journey if they haven't been in those businesses where they can see the benefit of it.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Yeah, and that's one of the things we've been talking recently about how we move our business forward and how we work with people because what I like to do, and one of the things that I think like sets us apart a bit is that we like to have that human connection with people. So we like to have you know in-person meetings uh and have a relationship with our subscribers. And one of the things we've been talking about is doing some kind of trend day for brands that maybe don't have that facility or don't understand how to do it. Because you know, if you if you haven't worked in a business that's had has that sort of setup, like you say about the girl that didn't know what a tech pat was, like she doesn't know what trend day is, or you know, just having that opportunity to get out of the office, sit with a load of people and talk about things that are inspiring you and exciting you, it's just quite liberating. And also, I think one of the things that we found is in bigger companies is that often people from different parts of the business don't get together. So you have design, you'll have buying, you'll have visual merchandising, you'll have retail, you'll have online. So that's five different departments that don't they'll talk to each other when you get to the end of the process, when you know the product's made and the VM are saying, okay, what's the story? And the online are saying what's what's the concept, but you don't have it at the very beginning of the process, and that's really key because that's a bit where ideas formulate and it's really exciting. And if you're all on the same page from that part of the process, and you're all talking to each other, and you're talking about the fact that you know people are really interested in the outdoors or gardening or whatever it is, immediately VM have got an idea of what the concept's going to look like in the shop window. Online are going, yeah, no, oh, I know how we're gonna make this look good in a campaign, you know. So having that ability to bring everyone together, we've found has been really, really successful because people don't either there's no one to do it within a business because no one takes ownership of it, or there just isn't time. Whereas if you set a bit aside a bit of time and go, right, okay, we've got an afternoon and this is what we're gonna do. People absolutely love that.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Absolutely. I think you're totally right. I can just remember we we we started bringing in commercial finance and merchandises, and they're you know, they sat in this room at the zoo and they're like, What are we doing here? But after that whole day, they really understood a bit more about why, you know, we all go through the same processes. We do a strategy meeting, then we then we do a product review, then we do a sign-off, but they're at the beginning of the journey and the understanding they're understanding a bit more about why they're for why that number's being forecasted, other than just to grow by X percent because that's the budget that we've been set by the company. Like we they understand how that trickles down more into the individual departments because they've been on the journey. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

And I think it's even more important for the merchandisers because often they're not the most creative people. Why would they be? That's not their job. But if they do understand it, they really get behind it and they get quite excited by it.

SPEAKER_02 47:54

It's really great. Like, okay, hang on a minute.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Yeah, I feel like it can really alleviate questions that then come up in a sign-off, and it can actually speed things up, make processes a lot easier and smoother and cleaner once you get to that point because they've known from the beginning, but also they have the ability to input from such an early stage, and I think their way sometimes of looking at things can be really interesting and give you a much more balanced view sometimes on kind of analysing all the different aspects of the of the business, too.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

Yeah, I definitely agree. Yeah, and then again, they yeah, they love it, they really like to. I think that's sometimes why we give things like names, you know, like we'll create some sort of like label for some trend. Because then people start referring to it within the business, you know, they'll talk about uh I don't know, joy maxing is one of the things we've been talking about. So bringing joy into the environment the retail environment and product and everything else. So if you start talking about that from the very beginning and then and everybody's on board with it, then people start saying, Oh, look at this, this is very joy maxing, you know.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

The kiddot stuff.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

Yeah, no, exactly, exactly. Yeah, giving it a name really means that people identify with it so much more, and instead of it feeling a bit sort of conceptual, almost like people that need things that are a much more kind of tactile and can actually hold on to it. And let's face it, often if you are commercial financer or merchandising, you like things black and white to be able to give it a name and something to hold on to makes definitely something they can properly refer. I love how you've mentioned maxing as well, because I feel like this is a term that seems to be everywhere at the moment, isn't it? Maxing. Yeah, really if you want something, you you're going hard for it, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:37

Yeah, totally. I think one of the things that we do, I think, as well, that helps is that we we provide what we call our cultural drivers. So when we come up with a concept, we don't just go, oh, it's joy maxing. We give some examples of where that idea has come from. Yeah, and that idea could come from a variety of different sources, so it's not necessarily always fashion, it can be anything really that that kind of taps into this concept, but it's an actual proper example, so people don't then think, oh, they've just made that up, because sometimes trend forecasting can be a little bit esoteric and a bit too airy-fairy, and I think that puts people off. If you're too conceptual and not realistic enough, and I think that's one of the things that I wanted to make sure that we did, because I came from a background where I had to sit in a sign off and justify what I was talking about. So if I started talking on some kind of conceptual level, I lost the person in the room. But if I could say, you know what, this dress is a bestseller at blah blah blah, or this dress shape is key because so-and-so wore it at the Oscars, or King Kardashian wore it on the keeping up with the Kardashians, or whatever the example was, it helps to base it in reality and it helps to sell the idea. Because at the end of the day, what we're doing as trend forecasters, what designers are doing and what buyers are doing, is they're storytelling, they're storytelling to their teams, their to their uh managers, to the MD of the business, to the VM, and right through to the customer. And that that story has to start with a concept and then see be seen through into the product, and then that's where the emotion comes in because it's got a meaning.

SPEAKER_01 51:20

It's like having a context, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 51:22

A reference.

SPEAKER_01 51:23

It is a form of data that's driven by gut and then and you know, taking the initiative and creativity, but it is it's kind of like it's giving a real source for where that's come from.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

It just gets around that that really annoying. What does the data say? You can then macro lifestyle evolution of this idea is, you know, in a less willy way, that's something that they'd understand, is this, and then it takes the conversation away from it always being having to be about data.

SPEAKER_00 51:52

Yeah, totally, 100%. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:54

Well, how would you sort of whoop from platforms like WGSN and Stylus and Fashion Snoops and other kind of trend forecasting? Like, what are you kind of, what would you say your sort of, I don't know, like your top three, not to make it too sign-offy, but what what would you say, you know, are you kind of like yeah, what's the data? What are your kind of key anchors or like the things that you live by that you're like this is why you should choose or why you would choose you?

SPEAKER_00 52:22

Um I think we're increasingly moving away from the data-based information. So, you know, we've played with the idea of working with AI, it's kind of worked and it cloaks, and we see a lot of people moving towards the more data-driven information, and that's just not the way I think we should be. I think we should be inspiration that provides a starting point for the beginning of the process. And I think that that on our website, along with that human connection, with having those meetings in person where we bring teams together and talk through our ideas and create kind of an excitement around the process, is definitely one of our selling points. I think that we also work a little bit closer to the season because I think it's really, really hard to predict up to two years and ahead the way that things are right now. I don't think it's realistic to do that. I mean, we do do it with our colour and our macro, but we try to continue and monitor the evolution of our ideas and our colours. So, for instance, with colour, we'll do what we call our longevity colours. So we'll these will be colours that we think are going to continue, and we'll constantly monitor and do updates to uh to our colour forecasting. And I think the fact that we're a small team is really an advantage because having worked in bigger teams, and I'm sure you know if you've worked in big buying offices, it's the same thing. It takes a long time for anyone to make a decision on anything because there's a lot of people in the process that have to sign it off. And if we have a comment from a client, oh, you know what, we'd like to see more of this, we can't always react to it, but more often than not, we'll take it into account and we'll make it happen. And that's quite liberating from my point of view because I quite like the idea because we're trend forecasters, we have to look to the future, we have to be moving with the times. So being able to do that is quite liberating because we can just go, right, okay, people would like to see more of this, so let's do more of that. So I think that just that human connection, the fact that we're quite we're very inspirational, it's not data led. There is data involved because we do we look at stats and we do look at data, but we're not led by that. We're led by inspiration, innovation, instinct, all of those things that that I've talked about already. I think.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

I love that. And it's exactly what everybody says key is key to brands as well, is being personable, showing your sort of the human behind it all. So starting from the very beginning and working with a trend forecaster that is personable can only sort of filter through into your brand, which is exactly what a customer wants to see.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

Totally, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:57

Yeah, incredible, incredible. So just to wrap it up then, what's what's what's exciting you at the moment about fashion? Where where do you see the industry going? What's what's I mean, even if you can give us a few top trends you're seeing, that would be amazing.

SPEAKER_00 55:11

So I think the things I was thinking about this question, I think the things that are interesting me at the moment are not necessarily fashion-based, and I don't know whether that's to do with the stage I'm at in my own life, but I don't think it is because I talked to the younger members of the team and we were all excited by sort of similar things. So we, you know, we love anything that's creative, so and looking beyond the obvious and looking beyond fashion. So it used to be that you know, you'd look at things like interiors, and that was behind what was happening in fashion, yeah, and it was always fashion that was leading the way. I feel like I'm much more inspired by anything that's not fashion these days. So I, you know, I want to look at the the Chelsea Flower Show, I want to look at, you know, non-fashion events, I want to look at interesting interiors in hospitality, I want to look at travel, and then all of those things together kind of inspire what I'm thinking about fashion. I'm also really interested in personal style and style rather than fashion. So understanding that fashion can be fast and it can be trend-driven and viral and all of those things. Yes, that's there and that's interesting, but it's not that that's inspiring me. So they got uh The Observer last week did a uh feature on the I can't remember, I think it was like the top 20 most stylish women in the UK at the moment, and none of them were what you would call conventionally fashionable, they were just really stylish, and that was really refreshing. And they're not like mad bonkers all women, you know, like that's a bit too much, that's too much one way. They were just people that had their own unique personal style, and it's increasingly difficult to do that because we're bombarded with images all the time, of what we should be wearing, or what we should be buying, or what houses should look like, and just having again it goes back to instinct and that human touch of being confident enough to know what suits you, what you love, the colours that you love, the prints that you love, putting them together in a really unique way, that inspires me, whether it's in interiors or fashion or whatever it is, if it's if it's different and it's unique, that really inspires me.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

That's so refreshing, isn't it? People had like showing their true identity, exactly as you say, what you should look like. And I think AI's only fueled that, you know, the AI personas that are typically beauty, or sort of you can see everywhere all over social media of like people wearing the same style and style gurus and being like, I wear it like this, and it's almost exactly the same carbon copies. So refreshing to see people that are just are really true to what they like and it's different to other people, but it doesn't have anything, as you say, wild and wacky, it's just how they're living their life. And I think we're all very interested in how people live their lives and different sonas and things. And the other thing that you mentioned about was you know taking inspiration from other things, and that's definitely one thing that Lindsay and I have definitely always felt, and part of the reason why we've started our the buyers club, it's about that cabal collaboration cross-category and how you don't have to sort of just I'm just fashion. Actually, fashion, you could get a lot of inspiration from food. Yeah, you don't choose, you could actually learn maybe quite a bit from a barbecue buyer, you know, finishes or a garden, or you know, just looking at other categories can really be quite inspirational. And we, as part of our uh club, we look at different topics, and one of them was actually, Lindsay, you used to go to Sallone in Milan and then show that it's typically interiors, but actually how that is massively impacting other areas, no matter what you buy, the trends that we're seeing there, and as you say, not necessarily always being like a fashion or clothing trend that's going to predict things or a catwalk that's going to predict things, but looking at other areas.

SPEAKER_00 59:07

So yeah, absolutely. And I think and this time at Salone, there was more fashion brands than ever before. Yeah. And everyone's the difficult thing, isn't it? It's like when something becomes interesting, everyone the problem with social media and the internet, when something becomes interesting, everyone jumps on the bandwagon and then makes it not interesting anymore. You know, like one of the things that I've been like looking at this whole thing of like granny core and non-core and gardening core and farming core and all these things, and it's like it really annoys me because they're just things I'm interested in anyway. I don't want them to have a name on the end of them. And I know we're trend forecasters, so I shouldn't really feel like that. But it's just people and maximalist and all that, like it's just how some people live their lives. Leave it alone. You know, let's just have those things, you know.

SPEAKER_01 59:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It I think sometimes it's people wanting to almost have like an identity, almost that kind of some people have that human, you know, it can be a human instinct to sort of want to be part of a group or a clique or a club, or you know, well, I crochet, so I need to find everyone else that crochets like me. And I'm I'm old before my time because I'm in my 30s and I like to crochet, therefore I'm a granny and I'm part of this granny club of other people that want to do it. It's almost like people are almost like searching for this like identity rather than actually just being themselves.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:23

Yeah, totally. No, I know it's it's it's tricky, isn't it? Because it's I it's basically it's Instagram that's done it.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:31

Yeah, it's just exacerbated it, hasn't it? Yeah. Oh but it's been so great to chat with you, Jane. Honestly, I've found it so interesting hearing your perspective on so many things and I'd say almost giving a unique perspective on on a lot of trends and how we kind of maybe live our life very much kind of falling into certain boxes. And you've really sort of challenged my way of thinking, I think, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:56

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I think I think I echo that with with what Kate said and and also just how important it is to have an element of that in your business now, you know. And I think what you guys are doing is incredible because you're very flexible with who you work with, and you know, it you're working, you're working to show the need for this, especially with AI on our, you know, in our faces. So with that, we will obviously share all in all your links in the show notes on how to sort of get hold of you and your team and and what you're doing at SP. And yeah, amazing. Thank you so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. That was great. Thank you very much. Thanks again.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:32

Brilliant. We'll speak soon. Um if you've enjoyed listening to this episode, please, please, please like and subscribe and leave a review. And if you already have, thank you, thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:59

We all need a bit of retail therapy, and this is the perfect time for you to offload about that super cringe-worthy story. We would love to hear from you all, your funny stories and experiences, or even any dilemmas. And maybe we can help or at least find someone who can. And don't worry, we will keep these anonymous and remove any names and brands.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:22

We would also love to hear from you on any topics you would like us to talk about. Please send all of these into buyingandbeyond at gmail.com or drop us a DM for our Instagram page at Buying and Beyond. Kate, are you a drama queen? No. Drama just makes things interesting. That's true. All these thoughts and opinions are our own and based on our own experiences working for a wide variety of retailers. These are all in the hope to entertain and educate and not to reflect negatively on any place we currently or have previously worked.