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The Fashion Forecasters: A Hidden History of

Color and Trend Prediction, edited by Regina Lee
Blaszczyk and Ben Wubs

Chamutal Leket

To cite this article: Chamutal Leket (2019): The�Fashion�Forecasters:�A�Hidden�History�of�Color

and�Trend�Prediction, edited by Regina Lee Blaszczyk and Ben Wubs, The Design Journal, DOI:
10.1080/14606925.2019.1570640

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14606925.2019.1570640

Published online: 18 Feb 2019.

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BOOK REVIEW

The Fashion
Forecasters: A Hidden
History of Color and
Trend Prediction,

DOI: 10.1080/14606925.2019.1570640
edited by Regina Lee
Blaszczyk and Ben
Wubs
London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2018.
296pp.,
Paperback ISBN 9781350017177. £22.99.
The Design Journal

Chamutal Leket
Independent scholar, Haarlem, the
Netherlands

It is quite extraordinary that trend and colour fore-

casting for the fashion industry can be traced
+
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back to an atelier in Paris in the early nineteenth

 Chamutal Leket

century. Frenchman Victor Jean-Claude wandered the streets of

Paris to learn about the latest styles, and then ‘squirreled away in his
atelier to create sketches and assemble samples for his customers’
(p. 253). Jean-Claude was the first to export French colour cards to
fashion centres around the world, and his story is one of many others
in The Fashion Forecasters: A Hidden History of Color and Trend
Prediction. This anthology is a meticulously documented and exten-
sive historical overview of the hidden history of trend and colour fore-
casting, and emphasizes the long-standing significance of these
activities to the global fashion system. The book is based on ‘The
Enterprise of Culture: International Structures and Connections in the
Fashion Industry Since 1945’, a three-year interdisciplinary research
project which studied the business dimensions of the fashion indus-
try. The project was led by Regina Lee Blaszczyk and Ben Wubs,
who also edited this volume. Both Blaszczyk and Wubs are business
historians who are not strangers to the field of the global fashion
business. Blaszczyk is Leadership Chair in the History of Business
and Society at the University of Leeds. Her research focuses on glo-
bal business history and she authored the award-winning ‘The Color
Revolution’ (2012), which explored the colour profession and its role
in consumer culture. Wubs is Professor in International Business
History at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. His research is
related to multinationals, business systems, transnational economic
regions, Dutch-German economic relations, and the global fash-
ion industry.
Blaszczyk and Wubs argue that the latest publications on trend
and colour forecasting are ‘primarily written as textbooks for fashion
students, but they lack an historical dimension’ (p. 8). Furthermore,
they describe how fashion trend forecasting is disregarded by main-
stream media, which considers predictive activities in domains such
as contemporary politics, sports and the stock market to be more
noteworthy (p. 8). In order to address this gap, The Fashion
Forecasters ‘probes the inner workings of the fashion system’ (p. 4),
consequently bringing to light the creative legacies of fashion fore-
casters, and exploring the historical evolution of the fashion business
in Europe, America, and Asia in the last two centuries. The editors
draw on Werner Sombart’s theory which deems fashion as an
essential part of the economic system and ‘an instrument that indus-
try wields to mobilize consumption’ (p. 5). And while they admit that
fashion forecasting has moved beyond textiles and that ‘fashion has
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penetrated nearly all industrial and services sectors in the global

economy’ (p.262), the book focuses on fabrics for apparel and fash-
ionable clothing.
Colour and trend prediction demand observing, analysing, and
formulating educated guesses based on personal intuition and years
of experience (p.253), with the purpose of delivering insight into
upcoming trends. In order to genuinely comprehend this creative and
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analytical process, the authors applied various research methods

 The Fashion Forecasters

and consulted a wealth of primary and secondary sources to gather

evidence. They visited the archives of trend studios, market
researchers, and international trade fairs. Moreover, they conducted
oral history interviews with leading contemporary forecasters, to sup-
port our understanding of this profession’s extensive history. As an
example, ‘Fast Fashion, Fast Futures: Catriona Macnab on WGSN
and the Global Digital World’, is based on an interview with the Head
of Fashion at WGSN, a London-based trend forecasting service
headquartered in New York. From this chapter we learn that
Catriona Macnab’s trend forecasting career started in 1986 when
she joined Nigel French Enterprises. Afterwards, she became in
charge of global trends in the Woolmark Company. In 2004, Macnab
joined WGSN (Worth Global Style Network), and her trend forecast-
ing work shifted from print to the digital world (p. 244). From her
interview it is clear that taking advantage of online tools and technol-
ogies brings about new possibilities, such as ‘finding amazing things
happening in South Korea’ (p. 245). On pressing issues such as sus-
tainability Macnab is less convincing, but tries to assure us that
‘we’ve started publishing information on our site so customers can
see what is happening in that world’ (p. 246).
The Fashion Forecasters contains four parts, which are divided
into fourteen chapters. Part One, ‘When Paris Led and America
Followed’, offers essential and detailed stories of the pioneers of
fashion forecasting in Europe and America. Part Two, ‘Going
International’, puts a spotlight on the historical role of international
trade fairs such as Interstoff, Premie re Vision, and Pitti Uomo, in
reflecting the latest trends of the global textile and fashion industries.
Part Three, ‘The Digital Imperative’, starts with the history of fashion
forecasting in Sweden, followed by two oral history interviews which
disclose the domination of online trend services. The fourth and final
part is the conclusion. Besides a selected bibliography, the book has
a convenient index and is richly illustrated with 65 colour images that
greatly enhance its historical narrative. Many of the visuals are from
Hagley’s Museum and Library archives in Delaware, and a few are
from the authors’ private collections.
One historical chapter that draws attention is ‘The Rise of Color
Forecasting in the United States and Great Britain’ by Regina Lee
Blaszczyk. This chapter is a comprehensive timeline of the establish-
ment, goals, and operations of the TCCA (Textile Color Card
Association) in America and the BCC (British Colour Council) in Great
The Design Journal

Britain. Blaszczyk demonstrates how these organizations turned out

to be the leaders of colour forecasting, and how their fundamental
purpose was ‘to coordinate and predict colour trends in ways that
reduced uncertainty and minimized risk in the highly fragmented gar-
ment and textile industries’ (p. 57-58). Extensive archival research of
the admirably preserved TCCA records and materials allowed
Blaszczyk ‘to examine the processes of information gathering, ana-
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lysis, and dissemination that undergird all forecasting activities’

 Chamutal Leket

(p.45). The chapter explores the inner workings of these bodies

which ‘laid the foundation for color forecasting as it was practiced in
North America and Europe for much of the twentieth century’ (p. 37).
Moreover, charting the careers of important figures in these estab-
lishments during the First and Second World Wars, enhances
Blaszczyk’s storytelling and shines a light on the most influential col-
our forecasters during that time. As an example, we discover how
the TCCA’s managing director Margaret Hayden Rorke was ‘a dedi-
cated follower of fashion who was always impeccably dressed’ (p.
44), and ‘a talented performer who played the piano and acted on
stage and in film’ (p. 44). Blaszczyk acknowledges Margaret Rorke’s
immense contribution to the forecasting profession when she affirms
that Rorke developed ‘a systematic approach to color forecasting
whose legacy is still with us today’ (p. 58).
The interview-based chapters with leading contemporary practi-
tioners provide a break from the long historical sections, but also
present fresh insights. The chapter ‘From Window Dresser to
Fashion Forecaster: David Wolfe of the Doneger Group Tells How He
Got Started in Trends’, is one such example. The text is based on an
oral history conducted with Wolfe, who is the creative director for
The Doneger Group’s trend and colour forecasting service. Wolfe
shares his personal experiences and hardships during his forecasting
career, and explains that ‘it’s very, very expensive, or it was, to
gather all the information you need. It’s very easy now because of
the Internet’ (p. 93). He also shares his opinion on the changing land-
scape of the trend forecasting business when he states that ‘it
became overcrowded and people ceased to trust creativity’ (p. 95).
This anthology also wishes to explore the future of fashion predic-
tion in the age of fast fashion and digital transformation.
Nevertheless, there is no discussion on the role of colour and trend
prediction in the context of recent developments, such as the grow-
ing popularity of gender-neutral clothing or the partnerships between
fashion and technology companies. In 2015 for example, Google
and Levi’s collaborated on Project Jacquard, where touch controls
were weaved into textiles in order to produce touch-responsive gar-
ments. According to Blaszczyk and Wubs, fashion forecasting will
continue ‘as long as volatile free market economies exist and con-
sumers take pleasure in changing styles’ (p. 262).
To conclude, The Fashion Forecasters: A Hidden History of Color
and Trend Prediction makes a major contribution to the discourse on
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the history of the modern fashion system, its entrepreneurs, trade

associations, service firms and experts. The authors delve into the
past ‘to develop a deeper understanding of human behavior as it
relates to the evolution of capitalism and the fashion system’ (p.
261). Through carefully chosen case studies, the book provides a
detailed blueprint of the development of fashion forecasting from its
humble beginning in nineteenth century Paris, into a mature and
4

complex service business in the age of big data and digital

 The Fashion Forecasters

innovation. The Fashion Forecasters effectively weaves together per-

sonal narratives with archival sources, and will be of interest to aca-
demics, students, and those interested in the past, present and
future of colour and trend prediction in the fashion industry.

Biography
Chamutal Leket is a design writer and branding specialist. She
received her MA in Design Cultures from Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam in 2017. Her research interests include contemporary
fashion, visual communications, Dutch design, and museums in the
digital age.

ORCID
Chamutal Leket http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0173-129X

Address for correspondence

Chamutal Leket
Email: leketc@gmail.com

The Design Journal

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