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Mark Worth, the founder of trend-forecasting company WGSN, recently told Forbes that his company has gotten too successful for the industry's own good. He blames fashion's rising copycat trends on services like WGSN, because thousands of companies use the same software to produce their products.
"[WGSN] used to be a real source of inspiration to designers, but now it's just doing their job for them," Worth told Forbes. "You can download [computer-aided design] drawings of a garment and just tweak it. It has made life too easy for people in the creative space; it has made them lazy."
Worth, who sold the company in 2005, is now developing what he's positioning as the antidote to WGSN. It's called Stylus Fashion and it's built on helping designers find original product inspiration. Membership to the service will be capped at 100 companies, and the new venture will operate on an invite-only basis.
"My only hope is that it becomes an invaluable and inspiration resource for our top-tier clients, giving designers a constant flow of inspirational ideas," Worth told Forbes. "I can't imagine that people will want to give up WGSN entirely, but the two models sit nicely together."
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