Burlesque trend, Zac Posen a/w '08-'09, photo courtesy of Mercedes New York Fashion Week

REF.:http://jcreport.com/intelligence

When it comes to fashion in 2008 the only prevailing trend is that there are no prevailing trends. From excess to minimalism, free-spirited ingenue to tailored sophisticate-and everything in between- designers are mining just about every culture, decade and mood to create a distinctly "anything-goes" aesthetic.

"It's always been difficult to define an era's trends without generalizing, but nowadays, it's difficult to even define what a trend is," says Ben Whyman, writer and lecturer at London College of Fashion and arts editor of Issue One magazine. "It's safe to say the '80s were the age of the Yuppie and the New Romantic, while the '90s were about grunge on the streets and minimalism on the catwalks. But in these tight economic times, designers and shops are desperate for customers, so they're offering up lots of mini-trends within trends to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. It's hard to pin a season down to a single idea anymore," he adds.

In this absence of a clear-cut sartorial zeitgeist, "Designers are focusing more on their own brand identities, despite what everyone else is doing," explains Stephanie Meyerson, Director of Youth Culture at trend resource agency Style Sight. "Balenciaga, Marc Jacobs, Gucci, Prada-all have an unwavering sense of brand vision and creativity, regardless of fleeting trends." It's an evolution that, though great for creativity, has made the editor's job of pinpointing "the new black" much more difficult.

""With the rise of 'fast-fashion' retailers, consumers have an overload of trends to choose from," explains Meyerson. "They ingest so much information from magazines, internet and TV that they're able to quickly digest the trends, buy what they want and style things in a unique, smart way. Not to mention the economy is making us think twice about each purchase, which brings a natural creative consciousness back to fashion." Adds Whyman: "The consumer is now so savvy that they choose only what's right for them and their lifestyle. I think this is the fundamental difference from 10 or 20 years ago, when people were more likely to loyally buy into one designer's ethos."