KEY POINTS:
There have always been questions without real answers: Does my bum look big in this? How long is a piece of string? Did dinosaurs taste like chicken? Now we have another: Where does fashion come from?
I don't know about you, but I've long held the quaint view that it springs from the imaginations of mega-hyped designers who stroke their chins to bleeding until a new look is plucked from size-zero air. Just like on Project Runway.
Silly, silly me. Large dollops of a lazy fashion designer's work can be done for them, work undertaken by whole companies of anonymous no-names who set in place parameters that are followed for no particular reason other than it gets everyone thinking in similar directions. So, instead of the romantic image of designers offering their private dreams to an adoring public, a cynic might suggest that fashion is best seen as a multi-levelled industry with complex interconnections that relies on everyone maintaining the PR line so the customers won't lose the faith.
For starters, there's the International Colour Authority and the Colour Marketing Group. Both companies produce and sell what you could call colour horoscopes. Pick any season within the next two years and the ICA and CMG reckon they can tell you what colours regular punters like you and me will be gagging to buy.
Really? How? Well, according to the CMG, it decides after studying a whole raft of factors including politics, lifestyle trends, fashion and the environment. And the end result? Let's take spring 2008. According to the CMG, the portents say this spring is a time when "global passion for environmentalism bursts into a positive blaze of light" which to their way of thinking means the big colour on everyone's hips will be... white. But not just white, on top will be big, bold prints, "sometimes with a hit of hot yellow added in", big flowers, hot ethnic accents as in colours not spoken along with bluer pinks and browner greens.
But the ICA can offer an even longer-term prophecy. Let's try spring again, but this time circa 2010. Sadly, in the ICA's world vision, white will be kicked aside by two new key colours, tranquil green and easy mauve. If you can't figure out what those names mean, visit the company's website and all will become clear. According to the ICA, these are pure and soothing hues that create an aura of relaxation which can then be set off by a variety of mini-palettes variously described as "eco-based", "Riviera-like casual chic", "clean metallic" and "refined, cleansing and precise".
You have to ask why they don't just cut out the middle men and let us in on their decisions at the time, then we can have our wardrobes stocked with the right look for each season as it comes around.
Yes, as outsiders, this is easy to mock, but within the industry it's taken very seriously, regardless of whether any of it has any basis in reality or not the ICA goes so far as creating an anonymous panel of international experts who meet in London twice a year to come up with a palette of colours 22 months in advance of the season fashion designers are considering. The colour authority's conclusions are then sent to subscribers who pay thousands a year for the advice and then apply it not only to fashion, but to anything from appliances, cars, paint and furniture. If it has a colour and is sold in shops, companies like the ICA and CMG will have had an influence. Not that anyone brags about it, these people are shy to the point of conspiracy.
There's a now-famous scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep's character opens the eyes of Anne Hathaway's character to the all-pervading influence of the top-line designers. She points to Hathaway's character's top and sermonises portentously on how it might be a "lumpy blue sweater", but it's also a cerulean blue sweater, a colour that can be tracked back through a long line of designers to Yves St Laurent and ultimately to Oscar de la Renta's groundbreaking 2002 collection. Fashion people love it because it reaffirms everything they believe in "the big ideas filter from the top down, darling".
Which would be grand if it wasn't bollocks. Cossack hats, fur-lined jackets and pale pink gowns, sure, but cerulean blue? Sorry, de la Renta didn't touch it. Neither did St Laurent, who was busy retiring at the time. In the real world, the rise of cerulean blue began in 1999 when Pantone anointed it as the official colour of the millennium. Far from being a glamorous designer, Pantone is a US company that developed a standardised system of reproducing colours. For example, when the ICA says tranquil green is going to be big you can only guess the shade it's talking about, but when it names it as Pantone 14-0226 TC, anyone with access to the company's 1114-strong periodic table of colours would know exactly what it is. Functional but far from sexy.
More often than not new trends begin at the individual and street levels. Getting out and making a big noise about finding them is why the trendspotters, fashion forecasters, magazines and consultancies charge thousands of dollars a year to let others in on what clothing silhouettes, accessories, concepts, labels, and styles are on the rise.
Take Worth Global Style Network, aka WGSN, an incredibly influential website that charges about $30,000 a year for the information gathered. At the time of writing its website was offering tips on where the cutting edge sits in knitwear, men's footwear, beach bling and denim along with reports on what's new on the streets of Hong Kong and Istanbul. Combine this information with whatever the designers themselves glean from the cheap seats at competitors' fashion shows and what the international store buyers learn from visiting each other's outlets and you can see why trends come and go so quickly everyone wants to hop on the new look as it rises.
If it helps save a few airfares, I was recently in New York and can tell you that even though it was summer, patterned gumboots were rife. It didn't matter if women were in shorts, minis or taxis, it was no surprise to see galoshes on their feet. Then there were the retro frocks with matching fascinators set off with Goth tattoos and heavy jewellery a definite scene that one not to mention an apparent boom in the Hasidic Jewish look.
In fashion circles, such tips are gold dust, but it's what you do with them that matters. Take Paul Watkinson, managing director of Cooper Watkinson Textiles. He's presently putting together three seasons' worth of material, so every scrap of information on where the world scene is heading is vital. And not only for him his fabrics are the raw material for many of this country's top labels. Samples of the company's 2009 summer range are pinned to a board in his office, tiny scraps of fabric that are the culmination of more than a year of research. It's a big deal and highly confidential.
"There's a lot of effort behind the scenes to get to this stage," says Watkinson. "You gradually build a picture in your mind of where the market is heading by looking overseas, attending trade shows, talking to designers and looking back at what was done last year which is often reinterpreted. The Australasian market differs from overseas and to know what works here is about building on an instinct that comes from experience and living and breathing fashion. Our business is based on having the eye to see the X-factor. We work with our suppliers to interpret trends and create a range that provides our customers with the best fabrics to bring their designs to fruition on the international stage."
That close relationship makes Watkinson very cautious about commenting on our fashion scene. So much so, he called the day after our interview to withdraw several quotes. It seems he works in an industry crammed with "creative" types and they can be quick to take offence. Hopefully they remain mollified.
What is most amusing about all this time, effort and diplomacy is that no matter what gorgeous colours or patterns result, the biggest-selling colour in the world is black. In fact, the only threat black faces is the possibility that science may one day come up with a colour that's even darker.
"Yeah, I can remember sitting in a meeting where we were all talking about colour and then we noticed we were all wearing black," says Farmers' fashion buyer Gabi Fredericks. But personal preferences aside, it's Fredericks job to trot the globe in search of the clothes that will fill Farmers' stores. She's just back from a 12-day trip that took in Los Angeles, New York, London and Hong Kong in preparation for next summer.
"It's like, fly in, shower, then hit the floor running. I go to all ends of retail and check out what's coming through." Her purchasing decisions follow research more than her own taste: "I take a giant spreadsheet showing everything we've sold by colour, size and style. You have to know your customer and you have to know what works in our market. It's quite tricky, so we do try to apply some kind of science to what we do."
But her travels have also shown her how homogenised fashion has become. Everyone is looking in the same places and as a result everyone copies everyone else. What differences there are usually come down to differing body shapes and colour preferences. Here, we prefer deep shades, possibly because lighter, subtler colours appear washed out in our light and environment. Of course, not everyone has the cash to fund annual shopping trips or subscriptions to sites such as WGSN, which is where the Fashion Bookery comes in. A semi-industrial estate in Albany is an unexpected home for a fashion nexus, but it's where most of the biggest names in our fashion industry have been heading since the business started importing specialist fashion publications in 1923.
"We can cover every season about 18 months in advance," says company director Norma Hollis. "You can have all the ideas you like, but if you're out of step with where the colour trends are heading you'll fail. So, with our help they can at least start with all the right ingredients, the colour palettes and garment silhouettes, in place. Then they can go about creating a range. It's about researching what you do, and that's something that's lacking in this country. It's not good enough for a buyer to flick through a rack of clothes going "yes, yes, no, no,' without knowing what's going on in the rest of the world."
Research definitely has its place, says Auckland-based designer Tanya Carlson, but creative intuition remains the most important element for those working at the top end. "Sites like WGSN are more important to the fabric makers than me, even if I'm kind of dictated to by the ranges they can offer. In that way you can also see the [emerging trends] they've uncovered in their research if they start producing more corduroy, then you know it's coming through. For me, I do look at style.com. It's good to be aware of what's coming, more in terms of fast [chain store] fashion, so you don't come up with an idea and then find it's being sold in a shop for $99 or something. Otherwise, I probably stick more to my own handwriting... you'll find that those at the top end, at a niche level, probably stick to a more intuitive feel, doing what they know, what customers want and what they're known for.
"So, the big research companies aren't so relevant there, they're more important to the big manufacturers who take a more scientific approach. I guess I'm more traditional, working from drawings and fabric swatches, making fabrics and failing, and then changing things around. That type of research and development creates big added costs, they're expensive, and that's why most designers aren't making a lot of money."
So, we can see that fashion doesn't come from any one point, it's a constant, self-sustaining cycle, and in an industry as small as ours, radical ideas are financially risky and difficult to get off the ground production costs alone make the extravagant one-off prints prohibitively expensive for most so unless you're at the pointy end it's always safest to aim at the middle of the target rather than the edge. There are useful tools to show businesses where fashion's due north is at any particular time, but if they help eliminate risk, they are also limiting. Most outlets end up working in the same direction because everyone has to make a living.
"In New Zealand, what you see on the catwalk is literally what you see in the shops," says Auckland University of Technology fashion lecturer Lisa Lloyd Taylor.
"We are very commercial in what we show. Overseas, you have people who shop for a hobby and want to see something new every time they enter your store, but we're really not set up for that yet. We don't even get the big seasonal differences that drive the bigger markets. We say we have two [seasons], but the reality is that we pretty much only have one with a few variations.
"Fashion is all smoke and mirrors. It is fun and dynamic, but also it's a lot of people running around behind the scenes trying to make it look easy and desirable. Everyone at every level does it and we all buy into it. I mean, look around you, do you see anyone walking around naked?"
