General forecasts come to you from trade publications, fashion services, your buying office, and consumer fashion publications.
Forecasts for specific groups come from publications serving such groups and from resources specializing in merchandise for these groups. Your store's forecast is prepared by the store's fashion coordinator, or merchandise manager, or owner. It identifies the looks, old as well as new, that are expected to be acceptable to customers. It may or may not spell out in detail how these looks will be expressed in merchandise for your department individually. You will be expected, however, to work within the framework of the forecast, so that customers who patronize a particular look will find all the necessary components in your store.
Your own forecast is a matter of interpreting the store forecast in the light of what you have learned from your department's past experience, from observations of your customers, and from outside sources available to you.
Your own judgment comes into play in deciding what styles best represent each of the looks your store sponsors, and in deciding how many styles and how much inventory to carry in each. To illustrate: Suppose you buy blouses and your store forecasts a softer, more feminine look then prevailed the year before. At the same time, an older fashion for clear, bright colors and clean lines is expected to continue.
You will interpret this to mean that you should devote the major portion of your stock to styles with ruffles, tucks and bows, to sheer fabrics, and soft colors.
You will also interpret this to mean that your stock should nevertheless contain some classic shirts in bright colors.
For those customers who need a transition from the old to the new, you may provide some styles that are slightly dressed-up shirts, and some that are restrainedly feminine.
You will orient your selection toward the customers who are whole heartedly for the new look your store endorses, but you will not completely overlook those customers who are slower than most to adopt new fashions.
Fashion Terminology
For clear merchandising communication, it is wise to use fashion terminology with precision.
Fashion is the look or over-all feeling-lean or curved, romantic or aggressive, lavish or austere, as the case may be. Style is a characteristic expression of a fashion concept, such as a full skirt, a ruffled blouse, a pant suit, a long sweater.
Forecasts for specific groups come from publications serving such groups and from resources specializing in merchandise for these groups. Your store's forecast is prepared by the store's fashion coordinator, or merchandise manager, or owner. It identifies the looks, old as well as new, that are expected to be acceptable to customers. It may or may not spell out in detail how these looks will be expressed in merchandise for your department individually. You will be expected, however, to work within the framework of the forecast, so that customers who patronize a particular look will find all the necessary components in your store.
Your own forecast is a matter of interpreting the store forecast in the light of what you have learned from your department's past experience, from observations of your customers, and from outside sources available to you.
Your own judgment comes into play in deciding what styles best represent each of the looks your store sponsors, and in deciding how many styles and how much inventory to carry in each.
To illustrate: Suppose you buy blouses and your store forecasts a softer, more feminine look then prevailed the year before. At the same time, an older fashion for clear, bright colors and clean lines is expected to continue.
You will interpret this to mean that you should devote the major portion of your stock to styles with ruffles, tucks and bows, to sheer fabrics, and soft colors.
You will also interpret this to mean that your stock should nevertheless contain some classic shirts in bright colors.
For those customers who need a transition from the old to the new, you may provide some styles that are slightly dressed-up shirts, and some that are restrainedly feminine.
You will orient your selection toward the customers who are whole heartedly for the new look your store endorses, but you will not completely overlook those customers who are slower than most to adopt new fashions.
Reaping the Benefits
Sharpening your fashion sense is a matter of increasing your sensitivity to the readiness or reluctance of your own customers to accept a given look. When you combine that sensitivity with knowledge of the general and local fashion scenes, you are ready to make intelligent merchandise decisions in behalf of your department, and also to participate fully with other departments of your store in the presentation of coordinated, well timed fashion assortments.
