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The Europe Fashion Trend Trap is thinking that hot fashion trends in Europe will also sell well in the United States. American fashion designers often travel to Europe to investigate fashion trends, and return to the USA with garment bags full of samples and stories of their shopping adventures — and then meet the trap: a trend that is hot in Europe is not guaranteed to sell in the American market.
Europe Fashion Trend Trap - Terms of Interest to the Fashion Industry
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Europe Fashion Trend Trap : The Europe Fashion Trend Trap is thinking that hot fashion trends in Europe will also sell well in the United States. Often, fashion designers from the United States travel to Europe to investigate fashion trends. They return to the USA with garment bags full of samples and stories of their shopping adventures... When all is said and done, the designers meet with their design teams and company management and develop their collection. Much of which is based off the samples they purchased over seas. The Europe Fashion Trend Trap comes into play, when a USA designer falls into the trap of believing that a style will do well simply because the garment sold well in Europe. The fact of the matter is that Milan and Chicago each have a unique taste in fashion.
If you are taking a trend spotting trip to Florence or any other European location, be careful not to fall into the trap..
If you are interested in learning more about trend spotting, you can try the fashion trends & forecasting section here on Apparel Search.
If you can not keep up with the latest fashion trends, possibly you should try looking at a fashion trend board or purchase a fashion industry trend report.
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RJ's Europe Fashion Trends Trip September 2009
RJ's Europe Fashion Trends Trip September 2008
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The trap described on this page is a forecasting error, not a travel error. European shopping trips are a legitimate research tool — the trip reports linked from this page, covering September 2008 and September 2009, are working examples of designers recording what they saw. The error comes afterwards, when what was seen is treated as what will sell at home. Climate, price sensitivity, fit preferences, retail structure and the speed at which a trend has already peaked all differ between markets, so a style can be genuinely hot in Europe and genuinely wrong for an American line in the same season.
The pages linked from this entry map the judgement process: trend boards assemble the visual evidence, trend reports interpret it for a market, and fashion forecasting turns it into decisions about color, fabric and silhouette for coming seasons. The Europe entry in the world clothing industry section gives the market background. Used together, they are the check that keeps a garment bag full of European samples from becoming a warehouse full of unsold American stock.
Thinking that hot fashion trends in Europe will also sell well in the United States. Designers travel to Europe to investigate trends and return with samples, but European success does not guarantee American sales.
Europe's fashion industry — Paris, Milan and London among its centers — sets trends the rest of the world watches. This page links to the Europe section of the world clothing industry guide, to fashion forecasting and to trend boards and trend reports.
By treating a European trend as a lead to test rather than a conclusion: forecasting work, trend boards and trend reports — all linked from this page — exist to judge which trends fit a specific market before a line is built on them.