Joanna Feeley, founder of Trend Bible, took the time out of her busy schedule to give us a presentation. After studying at Newcastle College, she went on to further her degree at Kingston University. Before graduating, she realised she needed to get ahead of the crowd and instead of waiting until the end of year show for recruitment agencies, she went to New York with her portfolio to seek out the agencies. Joanna was able to find work and after completing her degree, she was able to take a job at American Eagle. During the time had Joanna being offered the job and the few months it had taken for her to complete her degree, the brand had grown from a small business with just a few designers, to a huge company with multiple offices and a huge design work force. This job created a huge amount of opportunities for her. Joanna invested all her free time into the company, researching things that she thought were going to be huge future trends. Her work was recognised by the company and they created a trend forcasting job, which before, the company did not have. Her work allowed her to move back to London, forcasting colours, fabrics and themes for Topman and other Archedia companies, New Look men, Calvin Klein men's wear.
Joanna took a huge risk moving back to Newcastle to set up her own Trend Forcasting company but since 2007, she gone from running a small website in her flat, to a multinational company that supplies trend forcasting books for the fashion industry, car manufacturers, interior design companies and supermarkets.
Joanna's presentation about her life and her company seemed an impossible story and was such an inspiring talk. She made us realise that it doesn't matter where you live, you can still be just as successful as if you had been working in London, New York or Paris. She also allowed us to view her children's trend book and her home trend book, which sell between £800 and £2000. We were lucky enough to hear about her new trends, 'Voyager, Libertine, Collector and Epicurean'.
She explained that trend forcasting can be self taught, which for a fashion designer, can be a great skill. From her presentation, I have taken her advice to look for trends emerging in street fashion and in other industries, not just the fashion industry. Art and Design exhibitions, every day news, science, food and automotive industries are just some of the things I will research to pick out developing trends.
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