In this thesis we examine the colour forecasting process, its methodology and how it is communicated and used in fashion companies. The study is foremost based on qualitative research and on semi-structured interviews with people within the forecasting industry. We have divided the data collection process that constitutes the basis of the actual forecast into steps, which consist of gathering both objective facts and more soft, subjective experiences. After having collected the data, colour forecasters start their analysis by breaking them down into thematical categories that depict specific patterns (themes). We have identified colour expertise, intuition, creativity and inspiration as the factors that help the forecaster interpret those patterns. The final forecasted colour stories are being presented in different media and contexts. Besides design style, market, customer base and lead-time, it is foremost the differentmanagement philosophies of either building creative, solid collections or fast fashion that define how to use the colour forecasting material. To help the reader understand the process we have constructed a model (aDaMas). / Program: Master in Fashion Management with specialisation in Fashion Marketing and Retailing

To better understand the forces propelling the excess which characterizes much of Western society and culture, management scholars increasingly appear to be addressing notions such as play and playfulness. Through a number of narratives, homing in on a do-it-yourself movement within the heavy trucks industry in which users are displaying a keen interest in aesthetic aspects of their work tools, this book attempts to further and complement such discussions. It does so by exploring the creative processes which seem to constitute a certain playfulness, a certain playful practice set on excessive decoration of heavy duty vehicles — a practice which, moreover, appears to be spreading aesthetic values more generally within this industry. From a psychoanalytical perspective, and emphasizing and examining the relationship between fantasy and desire, it argues that in order to understand the driving mechanisms at work in such processes, one has, however, to look beyond the idea of the playful as being something thoroughly harmonic or pleasurable. Drawing mainly on Slavoj Zizek’s readings of the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, it argues that we must instead look beyond the pleasure principle in order to understand why something always emerges, where nothing really seemed to be needed. / QC 20100812