Understand the fashion life-cycle: Buy smart!

Idea

Are you tired of always lagging behind the "in" group in fashion? Here is all you need to know about fashion trends and their life cycle, to always be a step ahead.

Fashion life-cycle:
To analyze changes in fashion trends, you need to first understand the trend life-cycle. Every trend follows five stages during its life-cycle:

1. Introduction: A trend or brand is introduced by a designer or outlet to an exclusive audience.
2. Rise: The trend is introduced to the rest of the market through fashion shows, TV commercials, magazines etc. The product is available only in specific brands or at specific outlets.
3. Peak/Saturation: The trend is made common to public and is available at common outlets.
4. Decline: The trend is offered at discounted rates in retail stores.
5. Out-of-fashion: The trend is hardly available at any store and is considered to be an old story.

The introduction phase of a fashion trend only lasts a few weeks. The rise stage can vary from a month to a season but would never last longer than a season. The peak or saturation stage is what defines how long a trend will stay in the market. This stage can vary from a season or a year to even ten years for some products. There is no set pattern for the length of the saturation stage though the length of the peak stage generally has an inverse relationship with the boldness of the trend, e.g. a new cut of jeans may last a year but pink jeans for guys cannot survive more than a few months. The decline phase of a trend usually never lasts more than a quarter.

When to buy a product?
5% of the people buy the product in the introduction phase. These are the exclusive people that have access to product in the introduction stage and set the styles for the rest to follow. 15% of the people buy product in the rise stage. These are the fashionable people of the society. More than 60% of the people buy the product at the beginning of peak/saturation phase while around 20% buy the product during the end of peak/saturation stage or in decline stage. The sooner you buy a product, the more chance it has of surviving a few months before running out of fashion.

Thus, the key time to buy any product is the beginning of the rise stage. You would be able to identify the beginning of rise stage by checking magazines and exclusive fashion outlets. In the later stages of the rise phase, you would be able to see the product in TV commercials and on streets with a low frequency.

The aim is to to buy the product when it makes economical sense. You should analyze the cost of the product against the time during which the product would still be considered fashionable. For example, if you buy a hat worth $10 during the saturation stage, you still might be able to wear it for two months and thus it makes economical sense. But if you want to but a $200 dress, you should only buy it during the rise stage as just after a few months, your dress would not be be considered fashionable anymore.

Price development:
The prices of products also vary with each stage. Typically, you would see a major increase in price of a product during the rise stage. During the saturation phase, the prices would come back to the original quote while the decline phase would see a cut in price of the product maybe even up to 30%. The same product would be sold at up to 70% discount during the out of fashion stage.

Lifeline of a fashion trend:
Fashion trends follow no rules but some generalizations can be drawn from the long history of fashion trends.

• The more radical the trend, the lesser time it would stay in the market.
• There is no defined time line for any trend but most fashion trends last a season. If the trend is independent of seasons, it may last for up to a year.
• Very few trends would become part of the norm, and again there is no defined rule as to which ones. But generally, only the trends that are not too variant from the norms, end up staying for more than a year.
• Fashion cycles tend to repeat every 2 to 3 decades. Reason being the new generations trying to adopt trends from the previous one.

Fashion classics:
There are a few items that are regarded as classics and haven't gone out of style in decades. If you buy one of the following products in classic fit and design, chances are that you can use it for years to come:

Fashion classics for men:

• Leather Jacket
• Blue jeans
• Polo shirts
• White shirt and t-shirts
• Black loafers
• Sunglasses
• Two piece suit
• Black leather wallet
• Black leather belt

Fashion classics for women:

• Black dress
• Pearls
• Denim
• White button down shirt
• Trench Coat
• Colorful tees and scarves
• Boots
• Big, bold belt
• Signature coats
• Layered necklaces

Follow the key rules and make a fashion statement

References

• Fashion Life-cycle
• Classic Items Every Man Should Own
• Fashion classics for women
• Other fashion classics for women