Fashion Forecasting by Kathryn McKelvey & Janine Munslow

What the Book Teaches

The key features listed for Fashion Forecasting describe a complete working method. It shows how to interpret the intelligence provided by the industry — the reports, colour stories and trend packages that forecasting companies sell — rather than simply receiving them. It helps the reader understand, anticipate and respond to trends, which are three different acts: understanding where a trend comes from, anticipating where it will go, and responding in a range, a buy or a story while the response is still timely. It explains not only how prediction companies function but also how to communicate trends using recent developments in illustration and graphics, because a forecast a team cannot picture is a forecast it will not use. And it does all of this highly illustrated in full colour throughout, which for a subject made of colour and image is a necessity rather than a luxury.

The People Behind the Forecasts

A distinctive feature of the book is its reporting. The authors interviewed the key players within the forecasting industry, so the creative roles are described by the people who hold them — from intelligence gatherers, who collect the raw signals of change, to project consultants, who turn intelligence into advice a client can act on. For students and young professionals, that interview material doubles as career information: forecasting is shown as a set of distinct jobs with distinct skills, inside an industry that sells judgement about the future to companies that must commit money in the present.

Publication Details and Review Copies

The details listed with the book are price 49.99, illustrated paperback, 232 pages, ISBN 9781405140041. Review and teaching arrangements are also carried on this page: readers who would like to review the book are asked to send a request with full contact details to profrevreqs@wiley.com, and lecturers who teach a course relevant to the title and would like a desk copy are directed to contact Laura Dolphin at laura.dolphin@wiley.com. Those details identify the book's intended home clearly — it is a course-level text for fashion students and the young professionals they become, which is consistent with its assumption that readers already have some fashion knowledge and skills.