How can you keep up with the latest fashion designs?
Whether you’re a fashion brand, an IP professional, or a lawyer, it’s not that easy to keep abreast of the latest trends in the fashion industry.
The competition is increasingly fierce, and new designs are launched every day.
In this fast-paced environment, staying informed about the latest designs is a real challenge.
However, this type of monitoring is essential if we are to launch new products with confidence.
But how can you get a reliable overview of existing designs and ensure the originality of a creation in a world that never slows down?
Let’s give you some tips to be up to date about fashion.
Fashion Week Shows: the Front Line for fashion designs
Fashion Weeks are unmissable events during which the major fashion houses reveal their latest creations. Nowadays, most shows are broadcasted online, making them easily accessible to both fashion lovers and professionals. By following the runway shows, you’ll be among the first to discover the latest pieces and won’t miss any new models.
However, with events in Paris, New York, Milan, and London—not to mention Vienna, Berlin, Prague, Barcelona, cruise shows, and other one-off events—it can be hard to keep up.
To stay updated without spending all your time on it, focus on your the well-know international brands, or turn to curated summaries created by fashion lovers.
Social Media and Blogs: Online Fashion News
There are countless fashion lovers accounts today. Follow them on your favorite platform: YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest… You’ll find detailed reviews of the shows. While most of these accounts highlight trends in color, shape, and texture, some also focus on specific product categories—such as new sneakers or handbags. For example, check out Elodie Romy on YouTube, Matthieu Bobard Deliere on TikTok, or Fashionphile on Instagram.
There are also accounts and blogs specialising in a particular field, such as PurseBlog on Instagram or TEF Magazine for eyewear.
Tip: Follow brand accounts directly—specialist accounts are only relaying that information!
Newsletters: Get Real-Time Alerts on new fashion designs
Subscribing to brand newsletters is a simple way to be notified when new collections drop.
Beware: some brands email more frequently than others, and their content is often promotional. Be prepared for a flood of messages.
There are also fashion newsletters that don’t come from any specific brand but from fashion news networks. Examples include Fashion Network and Hypebeast, which can help you stay on top of fashion trends, especially on the business side.
Newsletters are a useful complement, but rarely sufficient for effective monitoring on their own.
Fashion Magazines: a Trusted Resource for New Designs
There’s something special about flipping through glossy magazine pages, browsing boldly styled photos, and perhaps reading an article—or even your horoscope—along the way.
Magazines are ideal for keeping up with fashion news, filled with ads and editorial content that analyzes trends. However, depending on the article’s focus and the editorial line, magazines select which designs to showcase from a wide range of sources, including their archives. As a result, it’s common to see new and older creations mixed together—you’ll need to sort them out!
Magazines are a great first step to visualizing new launches of designs by brands. But in fashion photos, aesthetics often take precedence over clear product presentation: some ads give only a glimpse of a bag’s shape, while others play with artistic blur. It’s not always easy to identify the items precisely.
Specialist magazines like Lunettes Galeries, Montres Magazine, or Dreams (for jewelry) provide more in-depth coverage in their respective fields and give more visibility to products.
Also, in magazines, information isn’t as immediate as it is online. The internet gives us access to updates much faster, while magazines often offer content that’s already a bit outdated by the time it’s published.
One major advantage of magazines is the longevity of their content—it’s always accessible and won’t suddenly disappear. Moreover, magazines remain reliable, dated sources — which makes them valuable when you need to verify the origin of a design.
Viewing Recent Design Fillings in Fashion
Did you know that not all creations are launched immediately on the market?
Many brands file their designs with intellectual property offices (INPI, EUIPO, WIPO…) without promoting them. A design registration protects the appearance of a product and gives a brand the right to take legal action for infringement if a competitor copies its design. Therefore, monitoring new filings is crucial if you want to avoid infringement disputes. It’s possible to access national intellectual property registers for free, but each country has its own database with different search systems. This means you have to navigate multiple platforms, often in different languages, with varying levels of usability — which makes the process complex and time-consuming.
Otherwise, several databases make this easier, such as Fovea IP or Orbit by Questel. These platforms allow you to search by brand, date, and more. However, they usually require a subscription. You’ll also need to understand how filings work based on registers and Locarno classes—classification systems used to filter filings by country and product type. It takes experience to navigate these databases effectively.
As such, this type of monitoring is mainly suited to experienced intellectual property professionals.
Design Monitoring Bulletins for Fashion Products
For effective monitoring, it’s best to cross-reference information from IP offices, magazines, websites, social media, and more. It’s a meticulous task that involves researching and consolidating data.
Good news: at Paperz IP, research is our core business.
We therefore propose design monitoring bulletins, by type of product, listing :
- Newly launched products on the market
- The latest registered designs
Choose your areas of interest—bags, jewelry, sneakers, eyewear—and receive a clear, illustrated report delivered straight to your inbox.
Looking to research a specific design? Our team of archivists can carry out tailor-made research.