Normcore? So last year. String bikinis? Most definitely over.

Normcore？这已经是去年的流行了。系带比基尼？它也快到头了。

Even interest in skinny jeans may be waning, if six billion fashion-related queries by Google users are any indication of this year’s most popular trends.

如果60亿次和潮流相关的谷歌搜索能够代表今年最新的流行趋势的话，你会发现，就连对瘦腿牛仔裤的关注可能都已经在减弱。

Instead, consumers are Googling tulle skirts, midi skirts, palazzo pants and jogger pants, according to the company, which plans to start issuing fashion trend reports based on user searches twice a year. The new trend aggregations are part of the company’s bid to become a bigger player in e-commerce and fashion beyond its product search engine or advertising platform.

谷歌称，此时的消费者都在谷歌上搜索纱裙、中长裙、阔腿裤和慢跑裤，公司计划基于用户搜索结果，每年发布两次时尚潮流报告。除了产品搜索引擎和广告平台，谷歌试图在电子商务与时尚界扮演更重要的角色，这项新潮流聚合也是其中一部分。

In its inaugural report, Google distinguishes between “sustained growth” trends, like tulle skirts and jogger pants; flash-in-the-pan obsessions like emoji shirts and kale sweatshirts; and “seasonal growth” trends, or styles that have come back stronger every spring, like white jumpsuits. It makes similar distinctions among sustained declines (peplum dresses), seasonal ones (skinny jeans) and fads that are probably over and done (scarf vests).

在首份报告中，谷歌把各种潮流趋势做了区分，有“持续增长”的趋势，诸如纱裙和跑步裤；有昙花一现的现象，诸如emoji表情衬衫和印有"kale"字样的套头运动衫；还有“季节性增长”趋势，或者说每年春天都会流行一时的风尚，如白色连衣裤等。此外它还区分了各种下降趋势：持续性下降（腰饰裙）、季节性下降（瘦腿牛仔裤）以及很可能永久过去的风尚（围巾马甲）。

Lisa Green, who heads Google’s fashion and luxury team, said the company had begun working with major retailers, including Calvin Klein, to help them incorporate real-time Google search data into fashion planning and forecasting. “Fast fashion” companies, for example, can take a trend identified by Google and run with it, Ms. Green said.

谷歌时尚与奢侈品团队的领导者丽莎·格林(Lisa Green)说，谷歌开始同卡尔文·克莱因(Calvin Klein)等大品牌上架合作，帮他们把实时谷歌搜索数据整合到时尚计划与预测中去。例如，格林说，那些“快速时尚”公司就可以根据谷歌认定的潮流，追上时尚趋势。

“We’re interested in being powerful digital consultants for our brands, not just somebody they can talk to about what ads they can buy online,” she said. “They can say, ‘Google has identified this as a trend, and we have six weeks to get this out on the racks.’ ”

“我们希望成为合作品牌强有力的数据分析顾问，而不仅仅是同他们谈可以买哪些网络广告，”她说。“他们会说，‘谷歌认定这个是时尚潮流，我们要花6个星期时间让这种产品上架。’”

Google’s foray into the fashion world is part of a scramble to define, inform and tap into how people search online for everything they can buy, be it clothes or jewelry, groceries or furniture.

Google当前正在拓展业务，试图定义、报告和挖掘消费者的在线购物和搜索行为，无论对象是服装、珠宝、日用百货还是家具。进军时尚界正是其中一部分。

The search giant has long experimented with e-commerce through services like Google Shopping, which lets shoppers compare prices among different vendors, and the recently introduced Shopping Express, which lets users make grocery purchases from local retail stores and receive them on the same day or the next one. But the company’s e-commerce business trails behind Amazon or Alibaba, the established go-to sites for a plethora of products, and in fashion, Yoox and Net-a-Porter are about to merge and flex their muscles as a luxury retailing powerhouse.

这一搜索业巨头早已参与到电子商务这来，它推出的“谷歌购物”服务让购买者可以在不同商家之间对比价格，最近，它又推出了“Shopping Express”（购物快递）服务，用户可以从本地零售店网购商品，当天或翌日便可收到。但是公司的电子商务远远落后于亚马逊和阿里巴巴这两家建成多年，货源充足的著名电子商务网站，在时尚界，Yoox和Net-a-Porter两家网站即将合并，在奢侈品零售业方面大显身手。

For Google, product search is increasingly important for its mainstay business of selling ads alongside search results, including fashion search results.

谷歌的主要收入是销售搜索结果旁边的广告，也包括时装搜索结果，因此产品搜索对这一支柱收入愈发重要。

The company is hardly the first to deploy data to predict what might be a hot trend this season. IBM, for example, analyzes posts on blogs, social media and news sites to gauge “social sentiment” in a variety of brand categories, including fashion and retailing.

谷歌并不是第一家利用数据来预测本季时尚的公司。比如IBM就根据对网络帖子、博客、社交媒体和新闻网站的分析来评估对不同品牌类别的“社会观点”，也包括时装和零售业。

In one early experiment in 2013, IBM declared that “steampunk” — an industrial aesthetic inspired by 19th-century Britain — was set to “bubble up, and take hold, of the retail industry.” That prediction has played out to a certain extent, judging from the popularity of “industrial” or “salvaged” furniture, for example, or body trainers and corsets.

在2013年的早期试验中，IBM认为“蒸汽朋克”（一种灵感源自19世纪英国的工业美学）将会“在零售业内兴盛并持续”。当年“工业风”和“回收利用”家具确实兴盛一时，塑形衣和紧身胸衣也一度流行，这么看来，这个预言在某种程度上实现了。

Spotify, the music-streaming service, also offers free analytics to artists to help them gauge the popularity of their music or estimate how much they can earn from new tunes.

音乐流媒体服务网站Spotify也向音乐家提供免费数据分析，帮助他们判断他们音乐的流行程度，估算他们的新歌可以赚到多少钱。

“People tend to make trend predictions based on a very limited number of observations, and that’s very hit and miss,” said Trevor Davis, a consumer products expert who led the project at IBM. “The ability to detect trends very early on before they really become noticeable, and to follow them, is invaluable.”

“人们目前通过极为有限的观察来预测潮流，这其实是在碰运气，”IBM领导该项目的消费品专家特莱沃·戴维斯(Trevor Davis)说。“在潮流出现的初始阶段，大多数人尚未感觉到它的时候便对之进行预测，并跟上这股潮流，这种能力是非常宝贵的。”

Just how much more accurate or useful Google’s search data on fashion will be has yet to be seen, Mr. Davis said. One obvious weakness is that Google’s data encompasses all searches that appear related to apparel, regardless of whether the person searching actually bought something, or even intended to buy something. A search for “tulle skirt,” conceivably, could signal a shopper looking for an item on sale or a baffled fashion novice looking for a definition of it.

戴维斯说，谷歌在时尚方面的搜索数据究竟有多准确，目前尚不能确定。一个显著的弱点是，谷歌的数据包括了所有关于服装的搜索，不管搜索者最终是否买下了产品，甚至连是否购买意图也无法看出。比如，搜索“纱裙”的，可能是一个想买下该物品的消费者，也可能是一个困惑的新手，不知道这种东西到底是什么。

Asked by Google to assess its data analysis, Ellen Sideri, founder of ESP Trendlab, a forecasting agency, said that the data’s value lay in its focus on what real people were interested in from across the country.

谷歌要求潮流预测公司ESP Trendlab公司的创始人艾伦·席德利(Ellen Sideri)评估其数据分析的价值，她认为，这些数据的价值在于，它关注全国各地真实的人们究竟对什么东西感兴趣。

“The hardest thing to explain is that a trend doesn’t come from one place,” Ms. Sideri said. “Every trend is multifaceted.”

“最难解释的是，一个潮流并非只有一个来源，”席德利说，“所有潮流都是多面的。”

For now, Google says it will share this database free to retailers and trend-followers in the hopes of winning partners and clout in the fashion arena.

目前，谷歌称它将与零售商和潮流追随者们免费共享数据库，希望在时尚界赢得合作者，扩大影响。谷歌承诺，不会将自己的搜索数据与零售商的客户数据进行匹配，向个人投放广告。

Ms. Green of Google said the sheer volume of its data — six billion data points — meant any patterns Google detected were a significant indicator of trend awareness and eventual purchasing behavior.

格林女士说，谷歌拥有60亿点击量数据，这个庞大的数据意味着谷歌在其中发现的任何趋势都是时尚意识与最终购买行为的重要参考。

INstock, a data tool from the fashion trend forecaster WGSN, takes another approach to predicting trends. It analyzes fashion trends from pricing and inventory data on more than 40 million products daily across 12,000 brands in the United States and a handful of other markets. Styles picked up by a growing number of retailers signal a trend, and out-of-stock items likely demonstrate high demand, while heavy discounts raise a red flag.

INstock是时尚潮流预测公司WGSN开发的一种数据分析工具，它提供了另一种预测潮流的方法。它基于全美，乃至若干外国市场的12000个品牌的4000万件以上产品，从定价和库存数据方面进行分析。大多数零售商选择的款式代表潮流趋势，常缺货的商品代表市场需求较强，严重打折产品则面临着过时的危险。

Some current trends identified by INstock overlap with Google’s. Jumpsuits are in this season “as an elegant, yet edgy, alternative to the party dress,” with inventory offered by retailers growing by 12 percent between September and January compared with a year earlier, according to Loree Lash-Valencia, a vice president at WGSN. On the other hand, her data had not yet picked up substantial interest in tulle skirts.

INstock显示的若干当前趋势与谷歌预测的趋势有所重合。连体裤在这一季是“优雅、有棱角、另类的派对服装”，从去年9月到今年1月，零售商的库存数比一年前同期增长了12%，WGSN的副总裁洛里·拉什-瓦伦西亚(Loree Lash-Valencia)说。另一方面，她的数据未能显示出人们纱裙潜在的兴趣。

While predicting trends remains difficult, accurate forecasting has become vitally important as fast fashion speeds up product cycles, Ms. Lash-Valencia said. Misreading trends can result in millions of dollars lost either from marking down inventory that does not sell, or not stocking enough of styles that do, she said.

虽然预测时尚潮流仍然是一件难事，然而当今的快时尚纷纷加快产品周期，精确的预测就变得生死攸关。拉什-瓦伦西亚说。误读时尚可能会导致抛售滞销库存或潮流产品供货不足，二者都会导致成百上千万美元的损失。

“In our industry, there’s been a push to go faster and faster, and that’s one reason everyone is having problems: No one has time to plan,” she said. “Instinct’s no longer enough. Data can’t replace every merchant, but there’s such accurate data available now — you really need to use it.”

“在我们这个行业，一切都越来越快，因此有这样一个共同的问题：没人有时间去做计划，”她说。“本能已经不够用了。数据不能取代所有商人，但现在有了这样精确的数据，你确实需要去应用它。”

Ms. Green said the Google search data helped to unearth fashion-forward hot spots that had escaped the industry’s attention. “The industry might subscribe to certain perspectives, but our search data allows us to see what people really want to buy,” she said. “And our data shows that it’s not just that every trend starts in New York or L.A. and everyone else catches on.”

格林说，谷歌搜索数据有助于发掘业界忽略的时尚热点。“时尚业可能会认同某些特定预测，但我们的搜索数据让人们可以看到人们真正想买什么，”她说。“我们的数据表明，并不是所有潮流都始于纽约或洛杉矶，不是所有人都在追随这两个地方。”

A geographical breakdown of Google’s data shows, for example, a flash of search activity for white jumpsuits in May 2013, and for palazzo pants in August of that year, in Jackson, Miss. Both styles then spread nationally. And “tulle skirt” surged in popularity as a search term in October 2013 around Salt Lake City, Utah, before that trend also spiked elsewhere.

举例来说，谷歌的数据发现了这样的地理突破，2013年5月，密西西比州的杰克逊突然出现大量对白色连体裤的搜索，同年8月出现大量对宽松裤的搜索。二者后来都成了全国性时尚。对“纱裙”的搜索是2013年10月左右在犹他州盐湖城率先流行起来的，当时别处还没有出现这种趋势。

While Google said it had no idea why that was the case, a little digging turned up possible clues.

谷歌称，它也不知道背后原因为何，然而若干研究或许可以给出一些线索。

Jason Bolin, a stylist in Jackson, held a series of local fashion shows for the 2013 spring and summer seasons that featured both jumpsuits and palazzo pants — and “everyone here went crazy for them afterwards,” according to Monique Pruitt, who has run Fashion Week Mississippi, a series of fashion events that feature local and Southern designers, since 2012.

杰克逊的造型师杰森·波林(Jason Bolin)曾在当地举办了一系列2013年春夏时装秀，其中就有连体裤和宽松裤。密西西比时装周的主办者莫尼克·普鲁伊特(Monique Pruitt)说，“后来所有人都迷上了这两样东西”。密西西比时装周是自2012年开始为当地和南方设计师举办的一系列时装活动。

The jumpsuit trend further took off in late 2014 when Solange Knowles, the sister of the singer Beyoncé and a fashion icon in the South, was spotted heading to her New Orleans wedding in a striking Stéphane Rolland pantsuit. They were also frequently seen on Kim Kardashian. (Ms. Kardashian also most likely spawned another rising trend identified by Google, the waist trainer.)

连体裤潮流在2014年末进一步发展起来，当时歌手碧昂斯(Beyoncé)的妹妹，南方时尚偶像索兰格·诺尔斯(Solange Knowles)被看到穿一条醒目的Stéphane Rolland连体裤套装在新奥尔良举办婚礼。金·卡戴珊(Kim Kardashian)也经常穿这款裤子，她很有可能还引领了谷歌发现的另一个潮流——紧身束腰。

Mr. Bolin, who sells his styles online, said he was unsurprised by the Google data and lauded his region’s sense of style.

波林在网上销售他设计的时装，他说谷歌数据的结果并不令自己感到惊讶，还赞美了家乡的时尚意识。

“Jackson’s a very boutique-y place,” he said. “We even have a fashion week,” he said. “It might be because there’s not a lot else to do. But we’re on trend with the world, believe it or not.”

“杰克逊是一个很有精品意识的地方，”他说。“我们甚至有自己的时装周。”他还说，“或许是因为这儿没有很多其他事好干。但是信不信由你，我们和世界时尚保持同步。”

The tulle skirt trend, for its part, most definitely came from a craze for fairy-style skirts that has swept weddings and baby showers across Utah in the past few years, said Sherene McClellan and Deanna Sorenson, who run their Tulle Skirt Shop on the Etsy marketplace from the tiny town of Mount Pleasant, Utah.

谢琳·麦克莱伦(Sherene McCellan)和狄安娜·索伦森(Deanna Sorenson)表示，纱裙风潮肯定是来自对童话风格裙装的狂热，这是由过去几年间遍及犹他州全景的婚礼和宝宝派对风潮引发的。她俩住在犹他州的快乐山小镇，在Etsy上经营一家纱裙店。

The sisters initially set up shop in September 2013 selling corsets and other period costumes, but soon found that demand for their handmade tulle skirts far exceeded that for other products. Last April, they decided to focus on the skirts, and have sent out about 700 of them since then, they said.

姊妹俩的店是在2013年开起来的，起先专卖紧身胸衣和其他古典服装，但是很快发现她们手工制作的纱裙远比其他产品更受欢迎。去年，她们开始专营纱裙，自那以后卖出了700条左右。

“Boy, we do weddings and babies,” Ms. McClellan said. “I think the trend comes from our girls going for sweet and romantic, rather than sultry and sexy,” she said.

“我们专门做婚纱和婴儿服，”麦克莱伦说，“我觉得这个潮流是由于我们女孩子们开始更喜欢甜蜜浪漫的风格，而不是性感情色的风格。”

“We are such a tiny rural area, and the fact that we might be a trendsetter for anything cracks me up.”

“我们这里只是个小乡村，但是只要一有机会，我们也能引领时尚。”