Fashion Terms — the Apparel Search fashion terminology directory
Sleeper fashion is fashion that has not yet awoken: a new trend or style that is waiting to happen — fashion of the future, destined for greatness, whose precise style, color, fabric or design has not yet fully blossomed. In time it will emerge as the next great thing; for now it sleeps. The term was coined on Apparel Search for this idea, playing on how trends start small, build steam as they roll along, sometimes explode — as parachute pants once did — and often go back to sleep, as bell bottoms, denim jackets, fat shoe laces and skinny ties have done before reawakening in another decade.
Sleeper Fashion by Apparel Search - Terms of Interest to the Fashion Industry
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Sleeper Fashion is clearly fashion that has not yet awoken. It is the fashion that is waiting to happen. ie. fashion of the future... It is a new trend or style that is itching to emerge as the "next great thing". Sleeper fashion fashion that is destined for greatness, but the precise style, color, fabric or design simply has not yet fully blossomed. In time, it will explode into the greatest thing since the mini skirt. But for now, the sleeper fashion snores on...
Written by ML at Apparel Search September 25, 2007
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Trends must start somewhere, and the sleeper idea describes their starting condition. A style begins small — worn by a few people, in a few places, for reasons of its own — and either builds steam or fades without ever waking. The ones that build follow the pattern the term implies: a slow doze, a stir as early adopters and coverage multiply, then the sudden general awareness in which a style seems to be everywhere at once. Parachute pants ran that full course at speed, which is why they are the cautionary example: a trend that woke explosively also went back to sleep completely and has stayed dormant for decades.
The more interesting sleepers are the recurring ones. Classics wake, sleep and reawaken across decades — bell bottoms, denim jackets, fat shoe laces, skinny ties — because each generation discovers them as if new. A style in its sleep phase is not gone from the world; it survives in wardrobes, in second hand clothing, in photographs and in the memories of the people who wore it the first time. That reservoir is what a revival draws on, and it is why calling a style dead is usually wrong: dormant is the accurate word.
For the industry, the sleeper concept is a standing instruction to watch the edges. Fashion forecasting exists to notice what is starting small; retailers and designers who identify a waking trend early can be ready when it builds steam, while everyone else is still hitting the snooze button. The term itself makes the complementary point with a smile: sleeper fashion had not existed as a named term before Apparel Search coined it — a small innovation about how innovations in dress begin.
Sleeper fashion is a trend or style that has not yet emerged: fashion waiting to happen, whose style, color, fabric or design has not yet fully blossomed but is destined to break out as the next great thing. Until it wakes, it stays dormant and largely unnoticed.
Yes — the pattern is familiar. Parachute pants exploded and then stayed dormant for decades. Bell bottoms, denim jackets, fat shoe laces and skinny ties are examples of styles that woke, slept, and in some cases reawakened in another decade when fashion's cycle brought them back.
Forecasting is the industry segment built on spotting trends early. A sleeper style is exactly what forecasters look for: something starting small and building steam before it rolls into the mainstream — identifying it while it still sleeps is the forecaster's whole job.