Reference

Fashion trend forecasting glossary

Forty terms from trend research and fashion product development, defined the way they are actually used in a studio.

By YakLab · Published 26 August 2026 · 9 min read

Trend forecasting borrows vocabulary from design, buying, merchandising and manufacturing, and assumes you already know all four. This is the working definition of each term as it is actually used in a studio — not the textbook version.

A

Anti-brief

A short statement of what a trend story is not, written alongside the brief itself. Names the neighbouring idea the story keeps getting confused with. The cheapest available defence against a story drifting as it passes between design, buying and marketing.

B

Block

A base pattern for a garment shape, held by a brand and reused across seasons. New styles are usually developed by modifying a block rather than drafting from scratch, which is why a brand’s silhouettes stay recognisable even as trends move.

Bulk

The full production run, as opposed to samples. “Bulk fabric” is the yardage ordered for production; “going to bulk” is the point at which a decision stops being reversible.

Buy depth

How many units of a single style are ordered. Depth is a stronger trend signal than breadth: a retailer carrying one of everything is hedging, a retailer carrying four hundred of one style has made a bet.

C

Carryover

A style repeated from a previous season without material change, usually because it sold. Carryover is commercially healthy and analytically confusing — it inflates a trend’s apparent longevity in retail data without reflecting any new decision.

Colour card

The agreed set of colours for a season, with named references and standards for matching. Once issued it is expensive to change, so colour is committed earlier than almost anything else in the calendar.

Colourway

One colour version of a single style or print. A print developed in four colourways is one design and four sellable options.

Commercial trend

A trend that has already reached mainstream retail and is proven to sell. Low risk, low margin advantage, and by definition late — the opposite end of the spectrum from a directional trend.

Costing

Working out what a garment costs to make — fabric, trims, labour, freight, duty — and whether it can hit the target retail price at the required margin. Many trends die here rather than in design.

Critical path

The dated sequence of deadlines from concept to delivery. Missing a critical-path date usually means airfreight, a markdown, or a cancelled delivery.

D

Deadstock

Unsold or leftover material — fabric, trims, sometimes finished garments. Increasingly used deliberately by small brands, which constrains design to whatever quantity exists.

Directional trend

An emerging idea visible in early signals but not yet commercially proven. High risk, high margin advantage if you are right and early. Compare commercial trend.

Drop

A discrete release of product outside the traditional seasonal calendar, often small and time-limited. Shortens lead times and compresses the useful horizon of forecasting.

F

Fabric development

Working with a mill to create or modify a fabric — construction, weight, finish, handle. Runs earlier than garment design because minimum order quantities and mill lead times are long.

Fading trend

A trend past peak and losing traction. Identifying these is as commercially valuable as identifying rising ones, and much less fun to present.

Fit sample

A sample made to check fit and proportion rather than fabric or colour. Usually made in a substitute cloth.

Full-price sell-through

The proportion of units sold before any markdown. The honest version of sell-through, because it strips out volume bought by discounting.

G

Grading

Scaling a pattern across a size range. Badly graded ranges fit the sample size and nothing else.

H

Handle

How a fabric feels — drape, weight, surface, recovery. Almost impossible to communicate in a digital brief, which is why physical fabric headers still travel.

Hero piece

The style a story is built around and the one that carries the marketing. Usually the most photographed and rarely the best seller.

Horizon

How far ahead a piece of research is looking. A forecast without a stated horizon is unusable, because nobody can tell whether to act now or in two years.

L

Lead time

The gap between committing to something and receiving it. Yarn and fabric typically run eighteen to twenty-four months ahead of retail, mainline garment design twelve to eighteen, and fast-turn ranges a few months. Forecast horizons should match the lead time of the decision they inform.

M

Macro trend

A long-running shift in culture, economics, technology or values — measured in years, sometimes decades. Macro trends do not tell you what to make; they tell you why a micro trend has traction.

Markdown

A permanent price reduction to shift stock. The clearest possible evidence that a trend call was wrong, late, or over-bought.

Micro trend

A short, specific movement — a silhouette, a detail, a colour — usually lasting a season or two. What most trend boards are actually about.

Minimum order quantity (MOQ)

The smallest quantity a mill or factory will produce. MOQs are the main reason small brands cannot act on trends that larger competitors can, regardless of how good the research is.

Mood board

A visual collection expressing a feeling — texture, colour, atmosphere. Persuasive by design and not required to be defensible. See how a trend board differs.

O

Open to buy

The budget a buyer still has uncommitted for a given period. Determines whether a trend can be acted on at all this season, however convincing the research.

P

Placement print

A print positioned at a specific point on a garment rather than repeating across the cloth. More expensive to produce than an all-over repeat and harder to grade across sizes.

R

Range plan

The structured plan of what a collection contains — how many styles, in which categories, at which price points, in which colours. Where trend research meets arithmetic.

Repeat

The unit of a print that tiles across fabric. Repeat size affects cost, cutting efficiency and how the print reads on a small garment.

S

Sample size

The single size a collection is developed and shown in. A source of persistent gaps between how a garment looks in a lookbook and how it fits a customer.

Sell-through

The proportion of stock sold in a period. Frequently quoted without saying whether it is at full price, which makes the number close to meaningless on its own. See full-price sell-through.

Signal

An individual observed piece of evidence — a runway look, a retail assortment, a resale search pattern, a mill development. Trends are built from signals; a single signal is an anecdote.

Silhouette

The overall shape and proportion of a garment or outfit. The slowest-moving and most reliable component of a trend, which is why silhouette calls are worth more than colour calls.

Spec sheet

The technical document defining a garment — measurements, construction, trims, tolerances. What the factory actually builds from, whatever the mood board said.

Story

A named, coherent group within a collection, with its own mood, palette and product logic. Collections are usually built as three to five stories rather than one undifferentiated range.

T

Tech pack

The full package sent to a factory: spec sheet, construction detail, trims, labelling, packing. Errors here cost more than errors anywhere upstream.

Trend book

A bound or exported document presenting trend stories with imagery, palettes and product direction. The deliverable a forecaster is usually judged on.

V

Vertical integration

Owning more than one stage of the supply chain — design, manufacture, retail. Shortens lead times, which is why vertically integrated retailers can chase trends that others must forecast.

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