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UAL Research Online

Spotting, hunting and forecasting: The professional practice of design forecasting

Potter, Cher (2015) Spotting, hunting and forecasting: The professional practice of design forecasting. In: Fashioning Professionals: A Symposium on the Historical and Contemporary Representation of Cultural and Creative Professions, 27 March 2015, V&A Museum, London.

Type of Research: Conference, Symposium or Workshop Item
Creators: Potter, Cher
Description:

Abstract:
This paper considers the profession of ‘design forecasting’, a social and cultural practice in which ‘trends experts’ anticipate style change through the lens of social identities, the flow of commodities and art and design innovation. In surveying, selecting and venerating particular aspects of contemporary production, these creative professionals inform and define the design industry’s understanding and knowledge of emerging culture.
With an estimated global market value of over $36 billion (Telegraph, May 2011), design forecasting is an increasingly powerful force operating within the design industry, but also one that has received very little critique or analysis within a scholarly context. This paper attempts to address two aspects of the practice: expertise and circulation models.
- Who are the individuals who define and represent themselves as the spokesmen of ‘what’s next’ in culture and what constitutes professionalism or expertise within this practice of forecasting?
- In what ways do current forecasting models, which recognise the source and primary circulation of design trends as bound to a limited set of metropolitan centres, privilege particular cultural identities, social classes and ethnicities?

Official Website: http://fashioningprofessionals.org/
Your affiliations with UAL: Colleges > London College of Fashion
Date: 27 March 2015
Funders: Victoria and Albert Museum, University of Brighton
Event Location: V&A Museum, London
Date Deposited: 19 Oct 2015 11:18
Last Modified: 19 Oct 2015 11:18
Item ID: 8770
URI: https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/8770

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