Menswear Forecast Spring/Summer 2027
The Gamble of the Modern American Dream

A cultural forecast on how gambling, risk, and gamification shape menswear for Spring Summer 2027 and reflect the current zeitgeist.

Client: Future Snoops (Fall 2025)
Role: Led theme development, moodboard composition, narrative writing, target market construction, and final presentation story flow.

My Team
Aydie Abdulrahim - Art Director / Writer
Jaylen Clark - Researcher / Strategist
Joe DellaCorte - Art Director / Writer / Team Lead
Camila Rosenbrock - Researcher / Strategist

BACKGROUND

Gambling and gamification now shape how people work, shop, date, and define success. Young audiences move through daily rewards, spin to win prompts, sports betting ads, crypto hype, and side hustle flex culture. The chase for fast wins has started to replace slower ideas of progress, ambition, and identity.

We looked at modern life through the lens of a game and asked how that feeling shows up in taste, styling, and what men choose to wear. The trend is not just about casinos and gambling. It is about the pressure to constantly perform and the need to show you are “winning,” even when the odds feel off.

THE ASK

Build a menswear forecast rooted in cultural observations, generate a theme, create a target market arc, and design looks and key items that illustrate the psychological stakes behind modern ambition.

Build a clear theme supported by primary and secondary research
Map cultural influences and a past, present, future target market
Deliver a moodboard, one minute original video, and word bank
Forecast colors, fabrics, patterns, prints, trims, street style, runway looks, and key items

STRATEGY

Analyze cultural triggers shaping the new American Dream
Build a character arc that reflects modern ambition and its risks
Translate psychological patterns into colors, fabrics, silhouettes, and key items
Present a clear story that threads through every part of the forecast

PROCESS

Conducted research on gambling culture, sports betting, crypto, and social media behavior
Mapped a four stage target market journey, moving from gamer to wantrepreneur into two diverging futures
Built moodboards from casino interiors, digital interfaces, finance culture, and pop graphics
Created a one minute video as a moving moodboard to set tone before the forecast slides
Developed seven full looks tied to different levels of success, risk, burnout, or collapse
Identified key items linked to the psychology of hiding, flexing, or blending in
Forecast colors, fabrics, patterns, prints, trims, street style, runway, and key items with on slide sources and APA notes
Scripted and delivered a narrative that linked each fabric and look back to the same core tension, then presented the full story live to the Future Snoops team

OUTCOME

The forecast challenged a traditional American Dream narrative and reframed ambition as a high stakes game. It showed how risk, reward, and online influences are reshaping how men define themselves, success, and what they wear.

For classmates, faculty, and Future Snoops, the deck made the trend feel concrete:

Why this behavior is spiking now
Who feel it most and how they move through the four stage arc
How that tension converts into colors, materials, silhouettes, and repeatable key items

This project sharpened my approach to cultural insight and narrative strategy and made the link between psychology and menswear design feel usable for both designers and merchandisers.

Check out the full presentation here

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