What Exactly is Trend Forecasting? Lesley Explains!

In last night's episode, we were working on our spring trend forecasting, which is what we use to influence all of our buys for the next season. While it is imperative that we offer our customers the latest trends, this process also helps to guarantee that we have cohesive collections across all categories: Shoes, bags, jewelry and denim.

Trend research is really multi-faceted. You have to look at a variety of sources, including the current marketplace, trend services, street style, style influencers and runway shows, then rely on your intuition to get a read of what's next. What will be the big colors? The talked about styles? The must-have prints?

But the most important part is knowing your customer inside and out so that you can interpret these trends for her, because not all trends translate into reality. This is why we interpret the trends we believe will work for JustFab. Over the last two seasons, we have seen many designers like Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Armani show pearlized metallics in pastel shades in both apparel and accessories. We felt that our girls would be ready for this trend, so we brought in two metallic jeans for March in pearlized mint and coral. We are also representing the "see-through" trend with a jewelry collection and a handbag. We didn't do a full-on clear bag, however, as we know that most girls like to have a little privacy with what they are carrying. A lady has to have her secrets! Finally, the whole fashion world is seeing black and white, and we definitely bought into that trend in all categories. We expect this trend to move right into fall.

Kimora seemed to agree with our direction in terms of trends but had some feedback about amping up the sex appeal of some of the shoes. But at JustFab, we need to have shoes for all types of girls! Not everything can be sky-high, so we have to find a balance because our girls can be very different. Overall, I think the presentation we did for Kimora went well.