The Trendmakers - (Dress, Body, Culture) by Jenny Lantz (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Numerous tastemakers exist in and between fashion production and consumption, from designers and stylists to trend forecasters, buyers, and journalists. How and why are each of these players bound up in the creation and dispersion of trends? In what ways are consumers' relations to trends constructed by these individuals and organizations? This book explores the social significance of trends in the global fashion industry through interviews with these 'fashion intermediaries', offering new insights into their influential roles in the setting and shaping of trends.

The Trendmakers contains exclusive interviews with financial analysts, creative directors from high street stores like H&M to designer brands such as Erdem, trend forecasters at WGSN, buyers from Harvey Nichols, and major fashion names like The Telegraph fashion critic Hilary Alexander. In contrast to existing research, Lantz offers an international understanding of the trend landscape, engaging with industry professionals from fashion capitals like London, Paris, and New York, as well as BRIC countries and the new, emerging fashion nations. The fashion media may have declared that 'trends are dead' in the light of digital dissemination, but Lantz argues that trends still not only serve as a significant organizing principle for the fashion industry as a whole but also as a source for legitimacy.

Engaging with classic fashion thinkers like Veblen, Simmel, and Bourdieu, as well as contemporary scholars like Entwistle and Steele, this book considers trends from an economic and cultural perspective to add to our knowledge of the complexities of the business of fashion.

Review Quotes

An informed critique of a rapidly evolving field, this book explores the significance of trends in the shifting landscape of global fashion. Lantz uses case studies and draws on interviews with key tastemakers (forecasters, critics, stylists, buyers) to construct a detailed review of current practice in the identification and dissemination of trends.
Philip Clarke, Senior Lecturer in Fashion, Communication and Styling at Middlesex University London, UK

Jenny Lantz captures the current moment in trends and those who make trends happen. Her research involves interviews and lively narrative that synthesizes and brings to the fore those significant issues related to the fashion industry. A must-read for anyone who wants to be informed about fashion trends!
Marilyn DeLong, Professor of Apparel Studies at University of Minnesota, USA

With a focus on trends as an organizing principle, Lantz presents an objective sociological perspective of the ever changing and increasingly complex global fashion industry. A comprehensive insight into the history and process of fashion forecasting with a wide reaching overview of the fashion system, based on extensive research, alongside interviews and insights from key fashion industry experts across all market sectors.
Tiffany Smith, Senior Lecturer in Fashion at Arts University Bournemouth, UK

About the Author

Jenny Lantz is a researcher at the Center for Arts, Business and Culture at the Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden, and senior lecturer in Fashion Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden. She was a fellow at Kennedy School, Harvard University, USA.