The nerd look, cocktail parties, big hair for women and certified e-mail will be hot in 1997, but not country and rap music, casual Fridays and campouts, according to "The American Forecaster Almanac 1997."
Fashion-conscious women who feel uncomfortable with big hair may instead embrace short poufs while decking themselves out in laces, ruffles, bows and beads a la post-World War II. Their male counterparts more and more will gravitate toward a retro-1950s look, opting for ducktails, slick hair and sideburns. At the same time, goatees, a badge of grunge music devotees, will go mainstream, the Forecaster predicts.The 14th annual compendium of trend predictions by Denver author Kim Long runs 204 pages and can be purchased in some bookstores or ordered from Long on floppy disk or in a book. Long's predictions are based on his perusal of hundreds of newspapers, magazines, trade journals, online databases, statistical data and public surveys.
Long said the Baby Boomers - the one-third of the population born between 1946 and 1964 - are settling into middle age, and the Generation Xers are hitting 30 and starting to settle down.
"Until the next echo Baby Boom generation hits its teens, I think it's going to be quiet," Long said. "But those kids themselves are in such large numbers, and we're seeing the effect in the elementary schools now, that I would expect some pretty important cultural changes in the future."
In 1997, Cuba and Las Vegas will be high on the list of vacationers' destinations. Stay-at-homes may cut the grass with push mowers, plant hot peppers in their gardens in fortified compost - it contains organic material that suppresses harmful agricultural pathogens - and learn to can and pickle. When they go out to eat, they will order the hot cuisines: traditional rural foods from France and Italy; "fusion" foods from the Mediterranean region; Caribbean foods; and traditional U.S. heartland fare.
The Forecaster says the nerd look has become an accepted fashion - from the goofy glasses down to the shapeless shoes, but sans the pocket protector. Other nerd accessories that are catching on: shirts buttoned to the neck, mismatched, loud patterns and skin-tight pants and shirts.
Generation Xers, who have rediscovered the martini in recent years, now are leading the revival of the cocktail party, the social centerpiece of the 1950s and 1960s, the Forecaster says. Serving up traditional cocktails along with canapes and lounge music, the '90s cocktail party is pulling people away from nightclubs and brewpubs. "If this trend continues, fondues are sure to follow," the Forecaster notes.
Certified e-mail will debut in 1997 with the entry of the U.S. Postal Service into the electronic messaging arena with a time and date stamp to verify e-mail delivery. Initial cost: 22 cents per e-mail.
"Granny Glamor" will gain a firmer foothold in '97 as middle-age women begin showing off their figures more. At the same time, the "feminity" trend will introduce dresses, skirts and tops with elements once considered frills: laces, ruffles and bows, for example. The Forecaster says women's hairstyles will follow several tracks, but two trends will be big hair and short poufs.
For men, dressing down and casual Fridays will fade away as more managers and executives buy expensive casual clothing, pushing up the threshold of style and hastening the return of traditional clothing policies, the Forecaster says.
Country and rap music also will lose ground in 1997, with country music stations taking a hard fall and rap music sales continuing the slide that started in 1996, according to the Forecaster. Fewer people will camp out in 1997, a result of Baby Boomers' waning enthusiasm for roughing it.
Instead, look for a sustained boom in ocean cruises and new interest in what has appealed to Europeans for years - "wellness" vacations that emphasize weight loss and healthful relaxation, the Forecaster says.
Cuba will become a popular vacation destination as travel restrictions to the communist country are relaxed and Cuba continues modernizing its hotels. At the same time, there appears to be no end in sight to Las Vegas' luster, the Forecaster says.
Long says hard cider, Asian street-stall food and hash - once the domain of the culinarily impaired - will come into their own in 1997. Cake, enjoying a strong surge in popularity, will be downsized by bakers to appeal to singles and consumers looking for smaller portions and bargains. In 1997, Americans also will sleep on fatter mattresses and adopt "vanity brands" - normally used by ranchers to mark their cattle - as personal icons, even when they do not own cattle, according to Long.
Also on the hot list for 1997: pre-autographed books, poetry, parking meters that accept credit cards, watches that transfer data to computers, snowshoeing, backyard golf and professional miniature golf.
Mountain biking, in-line skating and windsurfing will lose their appeal, according to the Forecaster.
Long said he was proudest of his 1996 predictions about the decline of CD-ROM publishing and a trend among nontraditional professions to adopt certification standards.
However, he fared about as well as the stockbrokers and economists in predicting the Dow Jones average - he was too low. His solution for 1997 was not to guess about the stock market. "No one can do it," he said.