Personal Colour Analysis, Consumer Colour Preferences and Colour Forecasting for the Fashion and Textiles Industries

The current colour forecasting process used predominantly by the fashion and textile industries has been found to be underperforming. Consequently, an improved system is poposed that eliminates the anticipation of consumer acceptance in favour of consumer colour preference data. In this study the fundamental principles of personal colour analysis systems and colour data have been studies as a foundation for the development of an effective consumer colour preference model. In order to test this hypothesis a survey was conducted to establish links between the systems' colour palette types and personal colour preferences. The personal colour analysis systems all claimed to be based on the three dimenstions of colour, hue, saturation and value, though the study found that these were rarely applied to the individual colour palette types. A fourth system was developed using the three dimensions of colour in all palette types, referred to as the HSV system, and used in the analysis stage along with three extant personal colour analysis systems to establish colour preferences links. Findings suggest that the HSV systems was more useful than the personal colour analysis systems as a potential market data collection tool for the colour forecasting process, though further refinement of the system and rigorous testing is required. Research continues to identify optimum sources of preference data for inclusion in the improved system model.