Throw out the bell bottoms - again - but hold onto those torn jeans: the "voluntary poverty look" will be popular in 1994.
"The American Forecaster Almanac" also predicts that cellular pay phones, alternative medicine and karaoke booths in shopping malls will all be hot. But weight lifting, nicotine patches and lean fast food will lose their luster.Denver writer Kim Long's 11th annual compendium of educated guesses on fashion, food, entertainment and exercise trends expands to 279 pages this year. It's also available on floppy disk.
"Downdressing" with secondhand clothes will be fashionable, but women will return their resurrected bell bottom pants to 1960s dustbins. For men, the trend is narrower ties and fitted suits, he said.
Other predictions:
- More doctors will make house calls, and alternative medicine will join the mainstream.
- Low-fat fast food didn't fare well in 1993, so look for more bacon, cheese and fat-saturated sauces.
- Sales of nicotine patches will burn out because there are fewer smokers, and results have been mixed.
Long claims 80 percent accuracy and says his best recent guesses include trends toward bloodless surgery, electronic meetings, voice-controlled computers and "infomercials."