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New York Fashion Week begins on Friday, marking the start of a new womenswear season. As micro-trends continue to develop at breakneck speed, what will show up on the catwalks for Autumn/Winter 2024? From officewear to barely there, Vogue Business unpacks the key trends to watch out for.
Corpcore and the office siren
Already, we’ve had some clues on trends for AW24. Copenhagen Fashion Week AW24 took place last week, with a focus on deconstructed workwear and suiting. And at the men’s shows in Milan and Paris, office attire was a major theme, from Prada’s rigid suiting and ties to Fendi’s contrasting sharp suits and pillowy accessories. In the women’s collections, we can expect further subversion of officewear from slouchy to sexy, indicated by the office siren trend currently sweeping TikTok, experts agree.
In 2023, Edited saw an array of workwear-associated items take on trend status, including the button-up shirt and the waistcoat. Sales of wide-leg trousers at Zara and H&M are up 43 per cent for January 2024 versus the previous year, with grey proving the must-have colorway for 2024. The ’90s skirt over trousers was a major trend in Copenhagen, and Aoife Byrne, senior fashion and retail analyst at Edited, adds that we can expect to see this across AW24 too.
Pinterest has also seen an increase in officewear-related searches over the past three months in the US, including “corporate outfits” (up eight times), and “office outfits” (up 75 per cent). UK findings paint a similar picture.
In Depop’s trend report for 2024, forecaster Agus Panzoni noted “lazy luxe” as a trend, relating to the reimagining of officewear to be more casual. “It really ties to the anti-work movement and the reframing of the work-life balance that we have,” she says. “It’s the movement against the grind; as we reframe our expectations of what aspiration looks like, it’s affecting the way we dress for work. We’re seeing that being played out in more subdued colour schemes, but also an intense playfulness through proportion and in construction.”
From the boardroom to the classroom, a back-to-school aesthetic will also surge this year, says Edited’s Byrne. The platform has seen an 85 per cent increase in pleated dresses and skirts for January 2024 compared to last year, with newness spearheaded by Zara. Meanwhile, cardigan sell-outs are outpacing newness by 16 per cent.
Panzoni and Depop dub this trend “sleaze academia”, explained as “subverting academic dressing through pins and cutouts and awkward layering”, she says, noting Billie Eilish’s oversized Willy Chavarria look from the Golden Globes. We can expect this aesthetic to continue, particularly as Olivia Rodridgo, an advocate for the look, kicks-off her tour in London this May. The return of Thom Browne and Tommy Hilfiger at New York Fashion Week will also likely align with the preppy, academic trend, adds Byrne.
(Still) seeing red
After SS24, cherry red was crowned a key colour for this year. But it’s only getting started, trend experts agree, with the hue set to dominate further in AW24. On the red carpet, we saw a red-dress takeover at the Golden Globes and the Emmys last month. While the street style set has sported head-to-toe fire-hydrant red looks over the last two weeks, across Paris Couture Week and Copenhagen.
“Late 2023 and early 2024 may have been dominated by ‘coquettecore’, complete with bows and headbands, but we predict a movement from childhood to a more romantic, womanly mood for AW24,” says trend forecaster Panzoni. With this, she says, red is going to become an even bigger colour, and brands should think about transitioning girly styles like ballet flats or bows into red or black, more romantic tones.
Over the last three months on Pinterest, searches are up for terms including burgundy (up 30 per cent); maroon red (up 25 per cent), red core (up 20 per cent) and red aesthetic (up 10 per cent). While on the high street, red accessory arrivals are up 245 per cent from January 2023 in January 2024, per Edited, which Byrne says is likely inspired by the “pop of red” trend on TikTok, featuring red lips and red handbags, garnering over eight million views.
“We expect lots of tonal dressing on this front, across hosiery, footwear and handbags as well as the appearance of burgundy, which was already pioneered by Gucci for Spring 2024 and was a leading colour trend in Copenhagen,” Byrne says. A statement colour accessory or tights aligns well with how consumers are feeling right now, she adds, “with the rising cost of living, colour blocking or bold red accessories can be a cost-effective way for consumers to get involved in a trend”.
Cowgirl stays on top
The Western trend is still worth investment for 2024, forecasters agree. From Beyoncé’s Renaissance tour to Pharrell Williams’s Western-inspired Louis Vuitton Men’s collection for AW24, pop culture continues to propel the trend. On Sunday at the Grammys, Beyoncé wore a look from Louis Vuitton AW24, complete with a white cowboy hat. Over the last three months in the US, searches are up for terms including “cowgirl outfit” (up 35 per cent), “cowboy outfit” (up 30 per cent), “Western outfit” (up 10 per cent), and “cowboy boots” (up 19 per cent). In the UK, “cowgirl-style outfits” are up by four times, while “Western outfits” are up 80 per cent. On Instagram, 49 per cent of 10,000 Instagram users surveyed by analytical account @Databutmakeitfashion, said they were carrying cowboy boots into 2024.
The trend also continues to soar among Depop users, of which approximately 90 per cent are Gen Z. Searches for Western hats are up 82 per cent, while Western jackets and boots are each up 86 per cent.
Fringing was also present in many pre-fall collections, as well as in Copenhagen from brands like Rotate. Fringing first appeared in Pinterest’s 2023 Pinterest Predicts report, but the trend has remained and evolved this year, says Pinterest UK’s head of fashion and retail Jenna Waller. “Two of our trend predictions this year, ‘Western gothic’ and ‘jazz revival’ make it easy to embrace fringing in fashion and interiors.” Search for fringe has surged 58 per cent in the last three weeks alone on Depop.
“Cowboy is a trend I 100 per cent recommend people to invest in because it really hasn’t left,” says Panzoni. “Each time, there’s a cultural touchstone that brings it back to relevance.”
Quiet luxury backlash
What of quiet luxury, the biggest trend of 2023? “There’s definitely been a backlash against it in recent weeks,” says Panzoni. “The overall aesthetic will still be important, and we will still see minimalism, but people are bored of the term and some consumers are wanting more fun from fashion [in 2024],” she says, calling out bold, more maximalist trends like the eclectic grandpa and mob wife as indicators of consumer mood.
Amid the mob wife movement, we can expect a lot more fur for women’s AW24. “It’s going to be the leading outerwear style of the season,” says Byrne. “There’s been a casualisation of fur. We’ve already noticed a 5 per cent increase in fur coat arrivals compared to January 2023, with longer lengths outselling cropped styles by 14 per cent.” Animal print will be another leading trend for AW24, experts agree. It was one of the strongest trends from the AW24 men’s and pre-fall collections, spotted at DSquared2, Dior and Moschino.
Beyond outerwear, we can expect an injection of eveningwear into collections, most notably through corsets and sheer fabrics, for AW24. Corsets were a popular choice at the Grammys on Sunday, with Taylor Swift in Schiaparelli, Victoria Monét in Versace and Dua Lipa on stage in Mugler. Corsets also appeared in the Vogue Business TikTok Trend Tracker last month — users taking part in the #corsetchallenge are providing tips on how to fasten and style them. With Dilara Findikoglu, noted as Lyst’s designer to watch for 2023, returning to the runway in London this season, we can expect some buzz around the style. Plus, Bridgerton season three arrives in the Spring, likely prompting a regencycore revival, corsets and all.
Sheer fabrics were a key trend across the Copenhagen catwalks, from embellished sheer gowns and barely-there lace at Rotate, to printed sheer dresses at Baum und Pferdgarten and Remain, and sheer shirting at Gestuz. There’s been a 113 per cent increase in sheer dress arrivals for January 2024, compared to last year, per Edited. The vast majority of these are semi-opaque, making the trend more commercially viable, Byrne adds.
With any season, there’s a lot of bases to cover for AW24. While paying attention to the runway, brands should also stay abreast of pop culture moments that can move the needle, like upcoming concert tours, from Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift, as well as the Paris Olympics. In any case, the way forward is aligning with trends that make sense for your assortment.
“One of the big themes that we saw throughout the report is that idea of grabbing an aesthetic that is already existing, like this idea of uniformal dressing, but subverting it through styling or through proportions,” says Panzoni, “it’s about reframing the context.”
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