Why trend analysis still matters
@databutmakeitfashion on how fashion commentary is more than a trend
MØRNING. The micro-trend cycle has been declared well and truly dead, but our data lives on. For this week’s newsletter, none other than Madé Lapuerta, aka @databutmakeitfashion, is here to dissect the discourse on fashion’s numbers, shining a light on our tasty style contradictions, and unpacking why commentary will always be more than a trend.
Back in my college days, I was a nerdy Computer Science major who didn’t know the difference between Fendi and Fenty. I made Fila disruptor sneakers a hallmark of my personal “style”. I thought my future in Computer Science looked like Silicon Valley and coding in a dark room for twelve hours a day. And that future wasn’t even looking too certain: I was barely passing math classes and struggled to make fellow Computer Science friends among a sea of “tech bros”.
But once I became interested in fashion — and by “once” I mean immediately after watching the cinematic masterpiece that is the Alexander McQueen documentary — I knew I had to alter this future to somehow include fashion and the fashion industry. I just didn’t know how.
I started learning as much about the fashion industry as I could. I began with Dana Thomas’ Gods and Kings and then moved onto Deluxe, listened to the BoF podcast on morning runs, and made scrolling through Vogue.com a staple of my morning routine. That, and my Glossier moisturiser (a sign of the times). Despite my efforts, though, sometimes I would just end up even more confused.
Were FILA disruptor sneakers “in” anymore? Some people seemed to think yes; some said hell no.
Was navy the new black? Depends on who you asked.
And were skinny jeans really, truly still popular? There was no concrete evidence to prove otherwise.
While opinions and commentary in fashion are incredibly valuable, insightful, and often right, I sought to find the numbers to support what was actually going on in the fashion world. Thus began my mission to merge my “tech bro” life of coding and analytics with my passion for fashion, and Data, But Make it Fashion was born.
Oh, you think Burberry is having a comeback? You’re right — the Burberry bikini in the brand’s iconic check saw a 14% surge in popularity. You liked Dolce & Gabbana’s new Light Blue campaign featuring Theo James and Vittoria Ceretti? You’re not alone — brand awareness jumped 120% after it dropped. Could orange be the color of the summer? Sure looks like it — popularity is up 55% year-over-year.
The intersection of data and fashion often feels like standing in two worlds that don’t always meet or agree. One is grounded in numbers and graphs. The other feels more human; artistry, creativity, cultural shifts you can feel before you can quantify. However, in 2025, this tension between these two worlds — the objectivity and subjectivity of the fashion industry — has never been more relevant.
HOW DO DATA AND FASHION INTERSECT?
Today, fashion trends change quicker than you can say “wait, should I really buy a new pair of Converse?” Fast-paced, short-form content channels (ahem, TikTok) have accelerated attention spans and condensed trend cycles down to mere weeks. Cultural moments shift quicker than they ever have before.
Brands have struggled to keep up. Fashion, particularly high-fashion, is an industry notoriously slow to adopt technology. Probably because the fast-paced, numbers-backed, objective aspects of technology feel like the antithesis to the creativity and artistry the fashion industry is built on (Chanel didn’t even have a website until 2018???).
Yet there is too much publicly available data — from Instagram photos, to likes, to comments, to Tweets (or Xs? What do we call them now?), to YouTube videos, to Reddit threads, to countless newsletters and publication articles — that brands have no excuse to not have a strong, accurate pulse of what their consumers want. And that’s exactly the information I try to give them.
I mean, if the Gucci belt makes a 2-week long comeback in the summer of 2024 and no one is around to hear it…did it really happen?
THE BIG MISMATCH
One of the most fascinating parts of my job is watching the dissonance between what people say is trending versus what the data actually shows.
I’ve seen headlines declare a trend was alive and well long after its decline. I’ve watched “cringe” and “overdone” fashion items (hello, Louis Vuitton Neverfull) rise in popularity in secret. Sometimes, an idea goes viral but doesn’t convert to sales, searches, or cultural relevance. Other times, a movement (as per the Burberry comeback) builds momentum quietly until suddenly everyone’s on board. Later, the sales follow.
This gap is exactly where data becomes most valuable. It grounds fashion intuition. It reveals surprises. Like yes, navy really is the new black! Last fall, popularity of navy sweaters grew 274% while that of black sweaters declined 75%. And no, you’re not imagining things — those Hervé Légér bandage dresses that dominated Serena van der Woodsen’s high school wardrobe and red carpets in the 2000s are having a comeback! They’ve spiked over 600% in popularity this month.
And it reminds me that as beautiful and artistic and creative and subjective as the fashion world can be, there is, actually, a way to make objective sense of it all. You just have to be willing to dig — and maybe write a little code.
SOOO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Today, social media is democratising who can be a thought leader or commentator in fashion. It’s not just Vogue that holds the keys anymore — my top sources for fashion news and opinions are others who, just like me, post unfiltered, honest takes directly from their cell phones – I Deserve Couture, Brenda Hashtag, Tariro Makoni, Blakely Thornton.
I’ve appreciated being able to add something to the conversation and share my perhaps unusual, nerdy, data-driven takes on what’s happening in fashion. I’ve learned that, to succeed in the fashion commentator space, having a unique, specific perspective isn’t just helpful, it’s essential.
When I started Data, But Make it Fashion, I thought its niche-ness — a Computer Science major merging fashion trends and data analytics? And posting graphs without a y-axis??? — would hold me back. It did the opposite.
I’m not here to tell people what to wear (wear whatever you want, Fila disruptors or otherwise), or to claim I have the final say. I don’t. Nobody really does. But I do find value in trying to decode the noise; to sift through the endless stream of content and commentary, and make sense of fashion’s vast, fast-paced, often-contradictory world.
Data doesn’t replace fashion’s intuition or storytelling, nor do I want it to. My hope is that it adds depth. And for me, as a commentator, the magic happens in the overlap: where intuition and evidence meet, and we start to see the patterns underneath the hype.
That’s all for this week readers!
Words by Madé Lapuerta, @databutmakeitfashion. Cover image via unknown creator. Edit by Sui Donovan and Shadeh Kavousian. Brought to you by @morning.fyi.