cool hunter

• cool-hunter, coolhunter

cool hunter (plural cool hunters)

1. (colloquial, marketing) Someone employed to find the newest trends, especially by the fashion or media industry.
   • 1999, Dorothy Leonard-Barton, Walter C. Swap, When Sparks Fly: Igniting Creativity in Groups, page 87:

     When Converse's cool-hunter DeeDee Gordon was in Los Angeles, she saw white teenage girls dressing like cholos, or Mexican gangsters, wearing tight white tank tops known as "wife beaters," a bra strap hanging out, long shorts, tube socks, and shower sandals.

   • 2003, William Gibson, Pattern Recognition:

     Google Damien and you will find a director of music videos and commercials. Google Cayce and you will find “coolhunter,” and if you look closely you may see it suggested that she is a “sensitive” of some kind, a dowser in the world of global marketing.

   • 2011, Kerry Mallan, Clare Bradford, Contemporary Children's Literature and Film, page 66:

     Seventeen-year-old Hunter is a cool hunter employed by an advertising and marketing agency which has a transnational sporting goods corporation, thinly disguised as Nike, as a major client.

   • 2015 June 23, Jess Cartner-Morley, The Guardian:

     This is where the edgiest fashion happens (and where the major brands send their researchers and cool-hunters to sniff out the coming looks).