Digitalisation
A microchip embedded in the garment can easily affirm not only
whether it is genuine or fake, but also say whether it has been stolen,
where it was manufactured— in short, its entire life history.
Real Data, Artificial Implementation
Yes, it is all about digitalisation. But then, digitalisation of what? The answer would be data, of
course. If digitalisation is the way of moving forward, then it is data that constitutes the blocks. The
logic there comes a full circle when one factors in the blockchain technology mentioned earlier.
The relation between data and fashion is not new. Economist Geroge Taylor had in 1926 linked
the rise of skirt hemlines with that of stocks, and Leonard Lauder, chairman emeritus of Estée
Lauder Companies Inc, had contended that lipstick sales increased during a downturn. And,
the fashion business has survived on understanding trends, and making predictions based on
perceived trends. Nevertheless, most of the fashion forecasting, or trendcasting as many deem it
so, has usually made a judicious mix of empirical observations with selective macro-economic data.
Retail giants like Inditex and H&M have grown bigger with time—and consolidated themselves in
the bargain—by making use of data, as real-time as they could have been generated.
Still, the relationship between fashion and related data is in their early days. The business of
forecasting which acquired a professional dimension in Paris during the 1960s has become more
democratised now, and certainly more of it is in the public domain. Internet monolith Google now
has a hyperactive Trendspotting division, which releases a regular Fashion Trends Report based on
the firm’s database of search data. Those are, however, far too rudimentary as things stand for the
fashion industry to base its strategies and plans on. Predictive models cannot be made on vague
assumptions, and algorithms are still being developed on forecasting trends. The future will depend
on who has the data, how that data is processed and what sense is made of it.
46 | FIBRE 2 FASHION NOVEMBER 2017