LARGE BRAND - when you buy it, everyone knows you are all telling the story of that one brand,
Increasingly, consumers will be drawn to unusual merchandise sold in tiny, exceptional stores.
SMALL BRAND - one wants a product that no one else has. But because these unknow, products don't tell a story, the cool factor comes from each consumer telling their own story – how they got it, where it's from, how it's made – "like a fantastic fruit drink from Singapore. The value of the product is in that story."
more intimate retail experience, more variety and more inventive merchandise.
"Each consumer is stepping up and insisting, `This is about me, not everybody else.'" Barbara Atkin, fashion direction for Holt Renfrew
After 50 years of mass consumption, people have realized they want individual consumption
leading trend predictor Li Edelkoort, while men are, “Figuring out their role now there are so many female breadwinners,” says Higham. “Recently we had the metrosexual trend, which was all about men being well groomed and empathic, then we had the retrosexual reaction, with men being macho and bearded again,” he muses. “Now I think we’ll be in the middle, with men adopting a kind of modern, 007-inspired persona.”
