Remember the scene in “The Devil Wears Prada” where Meryl Streep’s fashion editor character Miranda Priestly gives a monologue on exactly how a particular shade of cerulean became popular one season and ended up on Andy Sachs’ sweater?
That’s not exactly how trend forecasting works, according to Andrea Bell, vice president of consumer insights at WGSN, a global authority on consumer insight and product design trends.
“The biggest misconception on a whole stems from ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ moment, that we just pick a color out of the air,” Bell says on this week’s episode of Retail Gets Real, recorded on-site at NRF 2023: Retail’s Big Show in New York City. “But the key shifts, [the trends] we predict, are based on a very stringent methodology.”
Bell’s journey to trend forecasting included a college major in cross-cultural studies, an interest in sociology and anthropology, and even a stint writing for women’s fashion magazines. “My first piece ever in print was on velvet body suits,” she says. “So, if you guys want to know where the Peabody went, you’re looking at it.”
Bell has presented her research on consumer behavior and shopping trends at Retail’s Big Show several times and keeps returning as a fan favorite. This year’s session was on the most important global driving forces that will shape the macroeconomic and business landscapes in 2025.
There were two big takeaways from the session, Bell says. One, retailers are concerned about a potential “polycrisis” — connected and cascading risks that are overlapping, such as climate change, supply chain disruptions and rising energy and food prices.
Retailers are also keeping a cautious yet curious eye on synthetic creativity like artificial intelligence-generated artwork. “Every retailer is trying to figure out how to engage, how do we communicate authentically and basically how do we future-proof ourselves against all these different social media platforms that will continue to take market share,” she says.
Did you miss us in NYC? Take a look at our NRF 2023: Retail's Big Show event recap.
What excites Bell most about the future of retail is how the different generations are influencing each other and retailers. “It’s truly becoming intergenerational in how we grow businesses and scale businesses. It’s no longer just one demographic group. It’s not just Gen X or Boomers or Gen Z. I think the ways that people are working together — those reverse mentorships — are going to make long-term impacts in how we shop and how we live.”
Listen to the full podcast to hear more of Bell’s journey to trend forecasting and the best part of her job, what she saw and heard at Retail’s Big Show, and what topics she thinks will be popular at Big Show 2025.
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Episode transcript, edited for clarity
Bill Thorne: Welcome to Retail Gets Real, where we hear from retail's most fascinating leaders about the industry that impacts everyone everywhere, every day. I'm Bill Thorne from the National Retail Federation, recording on-site from NRF 2023: Retail's Big Show where more than 35,000 industry professionals have gathered in New York City to discuss the future of retail. And today we're very excited to have Andrea Bell, vice president of consumer insights at WGSN, as our guest to talk to us about what the future of retail looks like, trends that retailers need to be aware of and how to plan for the future. That's a tall order. Andrea Bell, welcome to Retail Gets Real and the Big Show.
Andrea Bell: No, thank you so much, Bill. I'm glad to be here in person. It's nice to be back.
Bill Thorne: It is good to be back. The fun thing for me is when you walk the exhibit floor, even down by registration, you hear the yell, it's like, ‘Hey!’ You know, they hadn't seen them in three years.
Andrea Bell: It feels a little bit mix of like a class reunion—
Bill Thorne: Yeah.
Andrea Bell: Mixed with a company reunion.
Bill Thorne: Yeah.
Andrea Bell: Everyone's excited. There's so much energy on the floor.
Bill Thorne: I totally agree.
Andrea Bell: Which makes it feel better.
Bill Thorne: I always say it, the Big Show, there's just this energy that you get. I mean, we're exhausted. I've been here since last Wednesday. Others have been here for a few days but when you get into the hall and you get that energy from everybody else, it gets you through the day.
Andrea Bell: Yeah.
Bill Thorne: It's really fantastic.
Andrea Bell: It's interesting because we were talking about that earlier. It's collective effervescence, all of us feeding and feeling that energy and then spreading it.
Bill Thorne: I like that.
Andrea Bell: So, let's keep it positive energy.
Bill Thorne: Yep, for sure. Andrea, tell us about your journey to trend forecasting.
Andrea Bell: The interesting thing is, it's not one single journey to trend forecasting. Mine came mainly through sociology and anthropology. Very strange, I know. I was convinced I was going to be Indiana Jones as a child. I was like, ‘I'm a paleontologist. That's the goal.’ Turned into writing, my college major was cross-cultural studies.
Bill Thorne: Nice.
Andrea Bell: Wanted to do these very high impact op-ed human interest pieces. Graduated college and realized that was a tougher job than I thought.
Bill Thorne: <laugh>
Andrea Bell: And all, basically where I could get hired was fashion magazines, and beauty magazines.
Bill Thorne: <laugh> Nothing wrong with that but—
Andrea Bell: Nothing wrong with that, truly. Got my start at Cosmo.
Bill Thorne: Oh, cool.
Andrea Bell: I don’t know if anyone still remembers—
Bill Thorne: I do remember Cosmo.
Andrea Bell: That little ditty, and just started doing consumer forecasting. Essentially through that I was always curious about why.
Bill Thorne: Right.
Andrea Bell: Why people are behaving, why are they shopping, why are they thinking? I remember I would sit on the subway and look at people's cell phones to see what apps they were using and how they were communicating. That led me to consumer forecasting at WGSN.
Bill Thorne: That's really cool. I mean, the other place that you can look for what people, their apps, what I've found is on airplanes, the person that opens it up on the right and I'm like, ‘Wow, that person must travel a lot or that person's really into the weather.’ If you want to know about people and what their trends are, it's that simple.
Andrea Bell: It's all those little signals.
Bill Thorne: What's the best part of your job?
Andrea Bell: I would say the best part of the job is the interaction with the people.
Bill Thorne: Right.
Andrea Bell: That sounds like a very politician answer. I feel like I'm about to pitch or run for Congress or something, but truly so much of what we do is in-person interviews, vox pops again, looking at people's cell phones. But it's truly, that's what it is. Anything starts with again, the human. I think in such a digital world, there's this misnomer that WGSN, we're constantly on data or constantly just tracking different data inputs. Which we do, but the bulk of our work is in person.
Bill Thorne: Right.
Andrea Bell: Nothing can compare. Even sitting here in the studio with Bill, it's so much better to do this in person over a computer or anything.
Bill Thorne: Totally agree. So, what's the biggest misconception about your job?
Andrea Bell: The biggest misconception, I think on a whole, is it stems from the ‘Devil Wears Prada’ moment.
Bill Thorne: Oh yeah.
Andrea Bell: That we just pick a color out of the air. You know, so many people come up and say, ‘What is the key color for 2025? What’s the key silhouette?’ WGSN is not just fashion, we also have six different categories, lifestyle, food, everything. But the key shifts, what we predict, are based on a very stringent methodology.
Bill Thorne: Right.
Andrea Bell: Again, we're not just going, ‘You know what, we really like a green. A green feels nice.’
Bill Thorne: <laugh>
Andrea Bell: It's looking at— which some people think we do. It's looking at consumer sentiment, those signals, those shifts and putting it all together. But—
Bill Thorne: <laugh> It's just my favorite.
Andrea Bell: <laugh> Yeah. No, I sometimes feel, ‘Do you, did you guys just pick your favorite clothes?’ I'm like, no. So much work goes into the back end of this.
Bill Thorne: <laugh> It's so true. When I first started, one of the things I really wanted to change was our logo. I was so naive, I just thought, this is going to be easy. It was a process. But when we got right down to it, and of course the board for the National Retail Federation, they're just all marketers. They all know their business, they all know about logos. The questions they start throwing at me were, why that color? But even more granular, why that Pantone? I had no idea what a Pantone was. It was a great learning experience, but it wasn't like I just said, ‘Oh, these are fun colors.’ We tested them. But anyway, you have to justify why.
Andrea Bell: Well, yeah. And you have to, I think that you just said it, it's interesting because in your mind you're like, OK, it'll be a simple step. Then you realize how much goes into it, what you’re changing and the NRF logo. I mean sure, at the end of it, you were just like, ‘Yes, this looks good, let's roll with that.’ And it's like, ‘But are we sure this font works?’ And you're just like pulling your hair out.
Bill Thorne: Now you spoke here at the Big Show about global drivers that will shape retail by 2025. Can you talk about some of the most impactful of these and how retailers should be thinking about them?
Andrea Bell: Yeah, I think one of the biggest takeaways from the session, and I always judge the session by how many cameras go up.
Bill Thorne: Yep.
Andrea Bell: When a slide comes up, are they going to retain it? Some of the biggest ones were around the poly crisis, which it sounds very heavy and dark, and to a certain extent it is, but it's essentially just different cascading problems that are currently overlapping.
Bill Thorne: Yeah.
Andrea Bell: For retailers, that means, what do we focus on? Is it sustainability? Is it supply chain? Is it making sure our customers feel safe? And making sure there's that empathy level there. There's tackling that in one hand. So you have, I would say very deep, dark existential moments. Then you have these moments of true creativity. We were talking about synthetic creativity and how AI artwork, there's an ethical issue, but that's continuously rising. It was interesting what kind of grasped the audience. Poly crisis definitely struck them. The synthetic creativity, I think because every retailer is trying to figure out how do we engage, how do we communicate authentically? Basically, how do we future proof ourselves against all these different social media platforms that will continue to take market share?
Bill Thorne: Yeah. Did metaverse come up?
Andrea Bell: Yes. In the forms of Web3. So actually, let me correct that. Metaverse was a section about Web3 and community building and what does the future of platforms look like?
Bill Thorne: It is an amazing phenomenon. When you just think about, look, I admit I'm old, but so much has happened in such, what I consider to be, a short period of time. Now, if younger listeners would say 25 years is not a short period of time, so I'll just cut it to 20 years. I'll just say all of the things that have happened in the last 20 years, the evolution of the technology and the innovation and how our retailers have had to keep up with that. It's astounding. Metaverse to me, I’m — you list regularly because our retailers are talking about it so much.
Andrea Bell: Yeah.
Bill Thorne: I think that the idea is not unlike the world wide web when it first came out and people were like, ‘I don’t know how this would impact my business.’ Those that thought big about it and started investing in it, were advantaged by it. I think that the same people are feeling the same about metaverse. We need to take it seriously, and Web3 obviously.
Andrea Bell: I think that the challenge with what you said is, there's been so much industry acceleration in 20 years, it just feels like we're in a constant stage of keeping up or keeping on the forefront. With metaverse now, you nailed it on the head. Not everyone will win in the metaverse, but everyone should have a strategy to enter and test the metaverse.
Bill Thorne: Yeah, for sure.
Andrea Bell: We find we have some clients that come to us and say, ‘You know what? We just got our e-comm running in 2020. We didn't even have a functional website. Now you want me to make Web3 spaces with virtual interaction? Are you mad?’
Bill Thorne: <laugh>
Andrea Bell: One thing I would say, Bill, is the metaverse is, it's not a race.
Bill Thorne: Right.
Andrea Bell: It's a very slow ease in. If you can't build one, can you strategically partner? Can you do advertising in the metaverse? Can you align with a virtual influencer?
Bill Thorne: Yep.
Andrea Bell: You even said, we're in so much acceleration digitally and for retailers, I think they feel the need. They have to jump all in and it's tested first, go slow, test and make sure that you're making correct decisions. So you don't, in three years, have to turn back and go, we really messed that one up.
Bill Thorne: Yep. You could invest a lot of money and then if you don't do it right, you can see it go right out the window.
Andrea Bell: Yeah.
Bill Thorne: What — you've been around the Big Show. What's the buzz, and with your clients especially, this year?
Andrea Bell: I think it's very similar. It's, and I promise we did not plan this team, but there's a lot of ‘what digital aspects do I play in?’ We're seeing a lot of our clients from Latin America, and obviously Europe, there's such a big congregation here at NRF. It's saying, ‘what digitally do we invest in? Should I invest more in e-comm seamless transactions? Should there be a one-click option? Is that my win? Or is my win reinvesting this digital frontier money into testing in the metaverse?’
Bill Thorne: Right.
Andrea Bell: But I think at the end of the day, what's been fascinating is the human element is truly here.
Bill Thorne: Mm-hmm <affirmative>.
Andrea Bell: That's not to sound cheesy or to again, sound like a PR spoof, but every person I've talked to, our clients are saying, ‘We just want to make sure we're connecting again.’ I think that's obvious in the past three years we haven't been, so it's nice to hear that at the forefront as well.
Bill Thorne: What do you think we'll be talking about at 2025’s Retail's Big Show?
Andrea Bell: For 2025, I think we'll be talking about new digital communities.
Bill Thorne: Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Andrea Bell: Because I think over the next 18 months, the big box retailers and brands will have already started to test it. We'll start to see, is community engagement truly rising within these Web3 and metaverse spaces? I think that will be first and foremost of us all coming back two years from now saying, did we win or did we not?
Bill Thorne: Right.
Andrea Bell: Then, I think second it will be the sustainability aspect.
Bill Thorne: Yeah.
Andrea Bell: A lot of people on the floor are saying, there are certain laws in certain countries or even certain states now that are going to inhibit me from retailing there, so how do I get ahead of that?
Bill Thorne: Right.
Andrea Bell: I think from packaging to even plastics use, particularly in the U.S., that's going to impact the next 18 months for any business that's trying to succeed.
Bill Thorne: Sustainability was such a big topic during the Student Program. They are so purpose-driven and sustainability was something that they talked a lot about. Getting out in front of that is going to be critically important.
Andrea Bell: Yeah.
Bill Thorne: It's not just for the laws or the regulations that are being passed.
Andrea Bell: Yeah.
Bill Thorne: But the ability to hire quality people that are really driven by this.
Andrea Bell: Yeah.
Bill Thorne: They want to work for people that are sustainable in their thinking.
Andrea Bell: When we think about a retention and kind of retaining those new minds, it's so value driven.
Bill Thorne: Yes.
Andrea Bell: To your point, that's purpose-driven. I mean, sustainability, diversity, truly having a brand purpose and standing behind that. Sustainability in particular, in the U.S. right now, I think we're reaching that moment where our intentions are meeting our actions.
Bill Thorne: Right.
Andrea Bell: I think for the past couple years, people want to be sustainable, but they're still maybe living unsustainable or buying products that aren't sustainable.
Bill Thorne: It's kind of like organic and people are paying more for organic foods, for pasteurized chickens, eggs and things of that sort. I think people, if it's going to be something that impacts their lives, whether it's their health or the future, I think they are willing to pay more. Those that aren't, they'll find the products that they want.
Andrea Bell: Yeah.
Bill Thorne: They'll do what they need to do. So it's a fair question, but it's a broad question. What excites you most about the future of retail?
Andrea Bell: I think what excites me most about the future of retail is it's truly becoming intergenerational in how we grow businesses and scale businesses. As we've been talking about, it's no longer just one demographic group, which I hate even to use the words demographic groups. But you know, it's not just Gen X or Boomers or Gen Z. I think the ways that people are working together, just like you said with the new students, those reverse mentorships are going to make long-term impacts in how we shop and how we live.
Bill Thorne: Yep.
Andrea Bell: From just a floor perspective. I've seen so many different VMs now, which is all ages. It's not just juniors or women, of course, we're testing new ways to shop. What are those path to purchases that fit all? I think for me that's really exciting, is this intergenerational mix, but also on a very side note, ways to make more voices included at the table for retail.
Bill Thorne: Yeah.
Andrea Bell: Whether that's adaptable products, whether that's diverse products, whether that's kind of getting products in front of people that haven't had access to it. And that to me is really exciting too.
Bill Thorne: You've had an interesting career. You've got to your career on an interesting path, paleontology and anthropology, is that what you said?
Andrea Bell: Essentially the study of different bones, dinosaurs, histories, fossils.
Bill Thorne: That's what I thought. Anthropology is the study of civilizations, right?
Andrea Bell: Yes. Yeah.
Bill Thorne: Did I just?
Andrea Bell: Yes. Nailed it.
Bill Thorne: Yes! Then writing Cosmo, I just love that you did Cosmo.
Andrea Bell: Yeah.
Bill Thorne: That is really fantastic. Because that was such a high-end magazine. I mean, somebody would go, ‘Oh, he's got a Cosmo.’
Andrea Bell: Yeah.
Bill Thorne: That’s pretty cool.
Andrea Bell: My first piece ever in print was on velvet body suits.
Bill Thorne: <laugh>
Andrea Bell: So if you guys want to know where the Peabody went.
Bill Thorne: <laugh>
Andrea Bell: You're looking at it.
Bill Thorne: That's pretty awesome.
Andrea Bell: I still wish I was Indiana Jones, man. That's the job. That's the real job.
Bill Thorne: Yep. Well, you know, Cosmo, paleontology, caves, bats, all that crap.
Andrea Bell: <laugh> All aligns.
Bill Thorne: Yep. It does. What's the best piece of career advice for those just starting in retail?
Andrea Bell: I would say be confident, not cocky.
Bill Thorne: Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Andrea Bell: Listen more than you speak.
Bill Thorne: Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Andrea Bell: I think there's a rush now between social media and just digital culture. We are so ready to have our opinion heard, to speak and to shout very loudly. I found the people that I think are the most successful and have had long-term success as leaders, listen more than they speak and they take those inputs and go, ‘OK, but what does this truly mean?’
Bill Thorne: Yep.
Andrea Bell: So, confidence is strong, but don't be overconfident. Don't be cocky. No one likes the person in the room that speaks to hear themself speak. And definitely listen. Deep listening is critical.
Bill Thorne: For sure. Andrea Bell, it's been a real pleasure talking with you. Thank you for joining us on Retail Gets Real.
Andrea Bell: Thank you so much, Bill. I hope you guys have a great rest of Big Show.
Bill Thorne: I hope that you do as well. And thank you all for listening to another episode of Retail Gets Real. You can find more information about this episode at retailgetsreal.com. I'm Bill Thorne in New York City at Retail's Big Show, and this is Retail Gets Real. Thanks for listening.
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