S/S 2016 trends: what the market is telling us

Eighteen months ago Schmid presented the Trend Book for the current season. How did the themes that we chose perform? Very well indeed, especially the Botanical one.

How did it end? When you make a prediction, it is always useful, after a while, to check whether it really happened. The Trend Book (in which Schmid unveils fashion themes for its clients) is nothing else than a forecast of style trends made 18 months before they reached the shop shelves.

Let’s analyse the spring/summer 2016 Trend Book, presented by Schmid early 2015 and that covered the trends, as the volume indicates, that we have seen in the stores over the past months and on which Schmid’s clients decided to focus about nine months ago, when they started manufacturing their products.

Eighteen months ago, Schmid selected four themes: Wellness to wear, Archi-Couture, Effortless, Botanical. The outcome was positive. Schmid’s sales results demonstrated a general appreciation of the collections, evidence that the market – made up of companies of the fashion industry – identified itself with the trends picked by Schmid and embraced them.

What trends? The most appreciated one was Botanical, a romantic and floral theme which on its own represented about half of the collections.  A trend epitomised by the fabric Melul (see picture), a floral print on satin, used by Ivanka Trump in her women’s footwear collection. The other three themes each obtained equal success, further confirmation that they were also in sync with the feeling of  Schmid’s corporate clients.

Schmid’s new Trend Book, covering the trends of fall/winter 2017-2018 is currently being revealed to the group’s main clients worldwide. But things do not end there. During the trade shows held in London and New York we went a step further. Not only did we unveil the trends but also started effectively presenting the collections.