As a culture writer, trying to figure out what the “next big thing” is can be maddening. It is impossible to predict where the collective mind is headed next, and folks who try to game the system resort to history books, data gathering, and, well, guessing. Chuck Klosterman addresses this book in But What If We’re Wrong, in which he operates on the fact that humans are terrible at predicting the future. So, every chapter he asks us to entertain outcomes that are contrary to what is generally expected to happen.
By day, I work at a small fashion startup and in my reading I have found that successful fashion trends tend to be a reaction rather than a choice. What I mean is that sometimes it feels like fashion is determined by an elite few, but the truth is that fashion is emergent. Folks develop an expressive or practical need, and their clothing changes to adapt to these requirements. Smart fashion brands recognize this shift and work as quickly as possible to fill the gap to provide paying customers with products that fit the need.
In W. David Marx’s Ametora, the author illustrates how Japan came to adopt American style and eventually do it better than Americans themselves. What is interesting to me as I go through the book is that the businessmen in the book do some leading in shaping the trend towards American fashion, but the crux of the momentum…
