Maria Mackinney-Valentin is an associate lecturer at The Danish Design School.

Maria Mackinney-Valentin’s research is about trends in fashion – why and how fashion trends change, and whether the growing decentralisation and democratisation of fashion in the 21st century has altered trend mechanisms.

In her Ph.D. dissertation, On the Nature of Trends. A Study of Trend Mechanisms in Contemporary Fashion, Maria Mackinney-Valentin reviews 200 years of trend theory and brings it together in a tool box with five so-called trend position: Social mechanism, Neomania, Market, Seduction and Spirit of the Times, which she applies to a case study: the retro-trend as it appeared in the Danish fashion magazine Eurowoman in the first decade of the 21st century.

Her study of the retro-trend in the analysis section of the dissertation identifies a number of challenges associated with applying the five positions, including the notion of opposites and the time aspect that parts of existing trend theory is based on. Maria Mackinney-Valentin therefore develops a sixth trend position, which expands the toolbox, as it offers a more spatial approach to trends. The sixth position is inspired by the rhizome, a botanical feature that has been developed into a philosophical concept by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. A rhizome is a particular type of root system that spreads horizontally without an organising centre or a fixed point of origin. Examples of plants with rhizomes include ground elder and certain ferns. The use of the rhizomatic position makes it possible to understand trend mechanisms as a constant and organic dynamic that develops relatively slowly along spatial dimensions such as variation, expansion, conquest and offshoots rather than a series of endless changes over time at an accelerating rate.

Thus, according to Maria Mackinney-Valentin’s research, trends are not going out of style in the 21st century; instead they mutate and live on in new guises.

The purpose of Maria Mackinney-Valentin’s research is both to help consolidate and develop trend studies as an independent field of research and to contribute to an understanding of the trend mechanisms at play in our society.

Maria Mackinney-Valentin has an M.A. in English from the University of Copenhagen and earned a Ph.D. at The Danish Design School in June 2010.

Article in Mind Design about Maria Mackinney-Valentin’s Ph.D. dissertation: Are Trends Becoming Obsolete? - Ph.D. Dissertation on Trend Mechanisms in Fashion, Mind Design #30, June 2010.