The fashion industry has lost all of its creativity due to the over-reliance on copycat trends, says Marc Worth, the British entrepreneur who founded trend-forecasting agency WGSN.
Worth, who exited the business in 2005, says that the dependency of fashion designers on trend-forecasting services such as WGSN is hurting the industry. His latest business venture, Stylus Fashion, aims to turn this around.
“People complain that everything looks the same today, but is it any wonder? Thousands of companies are signed up to WGSN, looking at the same color forecasts, the same material swatches and the same silhouettes,” explains Worth.
“It used to be a real source of inspiration to designers, but now it’s just doing their job for them. You can download CAD [computer-aided design] drawings of a garment and just tweak it. It has made life too easy for people in the creative space; it has made them lazy.”
WGSN – or the Worth Global Style Network – was the first company to take fashion trend forecasting online, focusing on colors, shapes, textiles, materials and brands.
Before, fashion brands had relied on buying expensive trend books from the fashion capitals of the world: Paris, Milan, New York and London. With WGSN, fashion companies could source trend forecasts and design inspiration directly online.
Taking fashion online
Designers used to buy trend forecasting books for £15,000 each to see the latest swatches and trends, but the concept was flawed, says Worth. The forecasts became out of date as soon as they were published.
“What we offered to the market was brand new. It was at the beginning of the internet and it offered something completely different. We could save companies a lot of money while providing them with inspiration from our global network, updating it continuously, online.”
WGSN was a huge success and, indeed, it still is. When Worth sold the business to publishers Emap in 2005 for £142m, WGSN had revenues of £20m a year from 15,000 corporate clients including Abercrombie & Fitch, Calvin Klein and Dolce & Gabbana.
Today, the business is the go-to resource for fashion designers looking for the latest fashion trends. More than 75,000 users – from Nordstrom to Next, XOXO to Marks & Spencer – are currently signed up to the online subscription service.
WGSN and Stylus founder Marc Worth
Worth says that companies relying on trend services are misguided: “Designers need to get away from the copycat mentality. They need to create new, innovative products and retail opportunities, and embrace online.
“When everyone – from the most esteemed fashion houses in Europe and the US, to high street retailers, to the smallest factories in the most remote parts of the world – has access to the same, so-called exclusive fashion business intelligence, can it still be called exclusive?”
He uses British bellwether retailer Marks & Spencer as an example.
“Because M&S and its competitors are all using the same resource for so-called inspiration, everything looks the same. Truly – you’ll find the same designs in M&S, Next, New Look and Primark,” Worth explains. “The only thing M&S can compete on is on quality, but is that enough? How bothered are consumers?”
Stylus Fashion
Brands must go back to being creative and innovative if they want to succeed. Worth predicts a fashion crisis unless designers and retailers learn to distance themselves from “cookie-cutter” product development tools and embrace a more bespoke process for innovation and creativity.
This is what his Stylus business, hopes to capitalize on when it launches its new Stylus Fashion branch next week.
Stylus Fashion is built on the premise that today’s fashion brands and retailers need help to find original ideas and opportunities that they – and they alone – can bring to market faster than their competitors.
Membership of Stylus Fashion will be capped at 100 companies to ensure a competitive advantage for its members, and it is by invitation only.
“The new service will challenge the industry’s traditional pattern of thought and encourage it to be more creative and original,” he explains.
Does he expect that Stylus Fashion will change the industry in the same way that WGSN has?
“In the fashion industry, you can’t just sit still and hope for the best. My only hope is that it becomes an invaluable and inspiration resource for our top-tier clients, giving designers a constant flow of inspirational ideas. I can’t imagine that people will want to give up WGSN entirely, but the two models sit nicely together. There is room in the market for us.”
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