The topic of myths and myth making is vast. “The word myth,” as Northrop Frye rightly says, “is used in such a bewildering variety of contexts that anyone talking about it has to say first of all what his chosen context is. Why is Trend Forecasting interconnected with myth making and cultural production?

Historically, needlework tended to flourish in female and feminine spaces — namely, the home. To embroider is to embellish: to create a fantasy world, allowing you momentary freedom. It gave women a voice when they had none.

From the sumptuary laws of Medieval and Renaissance Europe, to our present day understanding of ‘power dressing’, dress codes have been created to promote or preserve authority, status and respect. More recently, this ‘code’ has also come to mean a way of “deciphering” our identity and what we communicate through our clothing. The dress codes likely to emerge from our post-COVID, climate-challenged, digital world will be different from anything we have experienced before, even developing their own form of agency as part of a totally new approach to how we value, use and wear clothing. - Essay by Susan Muncey