Letter from the Editor

Dear reader,

I've been lucky to have a long career across concept design and trend forecasting. My work connects emerging subcultures, fashion trends, and consumer profiles to forecast the product narratives that follow, and the commercial opportunities most brands miss. A creative but informed approach to concept underpins all of it. I've travelled the world for tradeshows, sourcing trips, and presentations, and spoken with press on anything trend-related: culture versus lifestyle, industry, fashion. If I wasn't building forecasts and creative strategies, I think you'd still find me near a rack of clothes, or back at the airport in a check-in agent's uniform like I wore in my youth. The thread is customer service, which still serves me: trend forecasting hinges on the ability to read the room.

In 2022 I left NYC, home for ten years, and my role at WGSN, which I held for six, to return to Sydney. I set up my own practice, Miscellanea Studio, to house my fractional and contract roles and to collaborate with independent contractors I've long admired. I work with tech companies, trend and marketing agencies, and brands large and small. Through this work, and in this time of technological disruption, I learned from leaders and peers who pushed me to look beyond fashion and rethink how a brief gets done. In March I founded my own web-app, Modus: an interactive report paired with a filterable, searchable database. To start, I focused on Australian fashion to reacquaint myself with the local industry, and as a manageable sample of the wider market.

After unpacking The Thing About Trend ForecastingThe Thing About Trend Forecasting (2023) and The Hoodie ReflexThe Hoodie Reflex (2025), which defined contemporary 'basics' dress, I'm preparing a decisive read on the womenswear market for the 2020s, drawn from ModusModus. Soon.

In the meantime, I share my short-form explorations on my Substack, More Miscellanea.

I'm working across EST, PST, and GMT from Sydney. If you'd like to work together, or simply connect, I'd love to hear from you and share my private portfolio. On a personal note, I'm looking forward to finishing my reading list of memoirs and to visiting NYC and Seoul in 2027.

Thank you for visiting,

Marian Park