Too cool for school

Cool Brit Helen Job lives in New York and is the US editor of WGSN. She has the best job on the planet, working as a teen trend forecaster. In this capacity she roams the streets, attends concerts and combs fashionable magazines searching for the latest trends. Then she reports her findings to clients like MTV, Calvin Klein and Adidas.

Her target market is the 8-24 age range and covers everything from hiphop, skateboarding, music and technology. Job is a pop culture guru. It is therefore not only wise to listen to her predictions, but imperative if you want to participate in hip, urban society.

Job's predictions for what's cool in 2005 span everything from people to places to what to wear. Besides naming Topher Grace of That Seventies Show fame and actress Brye Dallas Howard - director Ron Howard's progeny - as the hot new actors for the coming year, Job also goes as far as to say that taxidermy (stuffing animals) is going to be very happening. Well, in America, maybe.

The singer to watch out for is MIA, who hails from Sri Lanka and lives in the UK. She combines hiphop, electro and native sounds. Job also predicts that children's books adaptations are going to be huge, and we can't argue with that. According to Job, these books-turned-into-movies are going to have a huge influence on fashion, "very fantastical", she says.

In terms of further fashion predictions, Job declares that ethical and eco-friendly fashion are going to be huge. Designers like Rogan and American Apparel appear to already be paying attention to this.

Men's wear will include shrunken tailoring, like small blazers and cropped trousers. A new sneaker line called Aprix will be adorning men's feet this spring. These sneakers are "very low-tech but very French Riviera".

For the girls there's a fashion line called Trovata being launched in the spring. "It's going to be very popular because it's New England preppy with South American flavour; very washed-out pastels, which of course are huge," Job tells Fashion Week Daily. And we believe her.