how to spot the next biggest trend

in fashion, beauty, culture, social media, interiors and food.

Hello and welcome back to

threadloopfits

! A lot of you ask how I come up with predictions, spot trends early, or just seem to know what’s next. So I thought I’d write a fun little guide on how I got into it, how I keep up, and how you can too, whether you're a curious creative, a data nerd, or just love spotting the next big thing before everyone else does.

The books that started it all

I actually got into trend forecasting by accident! About a year ago, I read a book called Microtrends by Mark Penn (yes, from 2007, but wild how many of his predictions came true). Then I followed that with Superforecasting, which completely shifted how I think about data, the future, and people.

What stood out most?
What appealed to me the most wasn’t about having the best algorithms or complex models. Instead, it was about paying attention to small changes, listening carefully to what real people are doing, and being okay with adjusting your views as new information comes in. That’s the magic. I think a lot of spotting trends is about actively looking for them in the first place. Thinking intentionally about where these conversations are happening, who is worth listening to, what are some small occurrences in my everyday life that I am not seeing? Then it becomes a simple matter of having a certain pain tolerance to sort through the noise, the data and going in deeper, rather than letting AI do it all for you.

My ideal approach

Something to keep in mind in terms of education and background, is that I studied data analytics at University and my current job does involve a bit of it too. But for me, trend forecasting is part art, part science. Here’s what I look at when I write my posts:

• Surveying people: Nothing beats real conversations. I love asking open-ended questions and digging into what people really think. My beauty and fashion survey reports, came from being naturally curious as to what Gen Z and Gen Alpha were actually wearing and applying and having access to that audience. Once I got the data, I set aside time to go through every single response manually. What I like about surveying, is that getting a small sample space gives you a really good overall view on what the masses is thinking too. For example, my Beauty survey surprised me because I thought younger girls LOVED Drunk Elephant, but this only amounted to a small percentage of respondents, and majority said that Charlotte Tilbury was their ideal makeup brand of choice. Then in May of this year, Forbes reported that Drunk Elephant sales had plunged by 65% but the data was telling me this months in advance.

• Google Trends emails: You can lie on social media, but your search bar knows the truth. And that’s why I adore using Google trends for their graphs when comparing certain micro trends with others. Their email list also provides you with popular searches which is what I use to write my reports.

• WGSN & LSN Global: Both are fantastic for curated, high-quality insights. I follow their IGs and signed up to their emails. They're great for spotting macro-patterns early. Once I find something interesting, I will then use it as a starting point to deep dive into the data.

• Exploding Topics & MeetGlimpse: Even the free versions are gold. I use them to track rising searches, niche product spikes, and what might soon go viral.

• Reddit rabbit holes: This is my secret weapon. Niche communities are where trends are born—think r/femalefashionadvice, r/frugal, or r/tiktokcringe. You’ll spot micro-shifts long before they hit mainstream.

Pendulum Swings in trends

Trends rarely move in straight lines, a lot of the time they swing, like a pendulum, often reacting to what came before. A perfect example is the shift from veganism to the rise of carnivore and ancestral diets. For years, plant-based eating dominated wellness spaces, grocery shelves, and social media. Then suddenly, liver, raw milk, and meat-heavy meals made a comeback, partly because people began questioning processed vegan alternatives and craving something “more natural” (even if it was extreme in the other direction).

The same swing happens in aesthetics. In summer 2023, the colour of the season was Barbie pink—bright, bold, hyper-feminine. Then came summer 2024, and the new it-shade was brat green, a composite hue opposite pink on the colour wheel, cooler, grittier, rebellious. When one trend peaks, the counter-trend starts building in the background. Paying attention to these swings is one of the best ways to forecast what’s coming next.

I actually used this method to predict that orange could be the colour for summer 2025. Let’s take a look at the colour wheel:

So Summer 2023, Barbie pink was the trendy colour and as you can see its direct composite colour is green (summer 2024). So now if we go back on the colour wheel, it would have to ideally be another warm tone colour and on the warmer side of pink it seems to indicate a pink-red tone, yellow or orange (butter yellow, lemon yellow, tangerine, and guava pink were the main tones for summer this year in beauty and fashion campaigns especially).

Using this logic, it might be fair to say that next year, we may see something on the opposite spectrum, and cooler tones, such as blue-greens or blue-violet (or more darker oranges again).

Similarly, the conversation around the rise of expert influencers (great read by the way) is a direct result of the fatigue around influencers who sported aspirational, aesthetic, and almost always visual lifestyles. To now a craving for more depth in what we consume online. If you have been watching the world of social media influencers carefully or noticed the data around long-form content, you would have been able to predict this shift a while ago (without needing to do SQL).

Analysing the world right now and what seems to be happening on a political, environmental and social scale can indicate what will be the ripple effects down the road.

Niche communities

The secret to seeing these shifts early lies in where you look. And one of the best places? Niche communities, especially value-based ones like religious groups. Communities like Mormons, for example, often adopt distinct styles or behaviours that quietly gain traction long before they hit the mainstream. From modest dressing to family-centric content, many of today’s popular micro-trends (like prairiecore, utah curls, tradwife, JNCO jeans, or wholesome YouTube) had their roots in groups living that way before it became a "look." These communities tend to be trendsetters without trying to be and that’s exactly why they’re worth watching.

Another secret weapon? Reddit. Reddit is like a digital petri dish for microcultures. Subreddits like r/femalefashionadvice, r/frugal, or r/tiktokcringe are full of unfiltered, real-time reactions to what’s happening often before the mainstream catches on. You’ll spot pattern shifts, new languages, emerging aesthetics, or even subtle pushbacks against dominant trends. And because Reddit thrives on authenticity and niche interest, the signal is often stronger than the noise you get on curated platforms like Instagram or Pinterest.

It’s also a matter of knowing who to listen to and what to be aware of. For example, I didn't know how big rucking was until I noticed a lot of people going on runs around my neighbourhood with weighted backpacks on. I also didn't think that my parents love for garage sales and second hand shopping could be a huge trend, years later. You don’t have to be scouring Reddit or TikTok to find what’s emerging, sometimes it can also be what a coworker is doing after work to destress, something your cool friend is obsessing over and recommending you buy, or even your 12 year old cousin who is spending hours dressing their Snapchat Bitmoji so it matches their boyfriend’s outfit. It might seem odd to you at first, until it becomes a trend that everyone is obsessing over in 3 months time.

A Mindset Shift: Be Curious, Be Humble, Be Early

People who are really good at forecasting trends are usually just really good at recognising patterns. They’re willing to be wrong and they’re constantly adjusting and learning. I was very confident that this year orange would be the colour for summer, and technically in some ways, I wasn’t wrong, but there is no denying that yellow takes the cake. You need to acknowledge where you went wrong, why you ignored certain leads or hunches, and what you can do to get better. Being good at prediction also means putting aside your ego.

It also means updating as you go, and limiting being vague. Anyone can say that in summer, brighter colours will be trendy, but not everyone can pinpoint a specific colour. Everyone can say that in Autumn, brown will be trendy (because it almost always is), but not everyone can predict that a certain shade of green will be in trend ;) And I could be sorely wrong, and that is ok.

Another thing I want to stress is that you don’t have to be an expert coder or a full-time data analyst to get good at spotting trends. You just have to do these few things:

• Stay curious

• Keep your eyes and ears open

• Look where others aren’t looking

• And follow the data, not the noise

I hope this post inspires you to look out for trends in your own life and observe what is happening in small fringe communities from the outside. I promise it will help you stay on top of trends, or at the very least, make you very interesting at dinner parties.

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Thank you for reading, God bless <3