Fashions fade; style is eternal.
—Yves Saint Laurent, fashion designer
Trend forecasting has always been an elusive industry, with large brands paying hefty fees for consultancies to give them advice about the future. This forecasting toggles between art and science—with investment in advice ranging from groups like K-HOLE, a trend forecasting consultancy that started as an art collective making commentary about the corporate world, to researchers at Cornell University, who have taken to social media data to study fashion’s anthropology around the world.
Today, social ...