Welcome to another Special Edition Newsletter from The Foresight Forum. Every 3-6 months we do a round-up of the Next Big Things in Food & Drink, Retail, Fashion, Beauty & Skincare & Technology. Today we have a very special story that can help you get ahead of the Fashion Trends in S/S 2024. We are excited to share our insights into emerging behavioural patterns that will result in new trends in fashion across womenswear and menswear. We hope these data and observation-driven insights will help you understand how consumers will be inclined to dress in the next 12-18 months.
Fashion for Spring/Summer 2024
Micro-Moments
As individuals try to find their place in an overly saturated, highly digitised environment, they will seek out small moments that bring them joy. Gravitating towards experiences over material things, they will choose to break all the rules when it comes to dressing. As individuality becomes the foremost priority to survive and thrive in an incredibly competitive climate, a theme of independence and uniqueness will transcend fashion choices.
Micro-mini skirts will take a backseat as micro-bras and micro-tops take centre stage, for both men and women. Expect these tops to play an integral role in both casual wear and activewear.
Men Will Embrace Lace
Fluidity and lightness will be important themes that will drive men to relook at their clothing choices and provide relief in a rather heavy and turbulent world. Gravitating towards light, airy fabrics that make them feel at ease, expect them to accept and appreciate clothing that features see-through textures like lace, crochet and knit nets. By playing around with transparency, embroidery and interesting surface texturisation, brands and retailers will help male consumers draw an affinity towards these once traditionally feminine styles and fabrics.
Expect summer lace to be an especially important theme for men’s resort wear and vacation wardrobes and predominantly be available in colours like white, biscuit, cream and soft-earthy shades of nude and brown.
Sculptural Silhouettes
As technology advances and engulfs almost every aspect of consumers’ lives, silhouettes will become larger than life and almost other-worldly. Providing respite from increased seriousness, expect layering and exaggerated shapes to add volume and dimension to traditional silhouettes, making fashion fun and light-hearted again. Providing a futuristic feel to both men's and womenswear, expect sculptural placements of fabrics to bring art-like structure and innovation to fashion in never seen before ways.
Bright, high-energy colours will be seamlessly blended with voluminous shapes to perpetuate the Puff-ication trend. But this time expect it to be less cosy and instead more colourful and feel-good to contradict the harshness of inflation and economic instability.
The Eco-Revolution Rages On
As climate change evolves into climate action, individuals will choose to take matters into their own hands to protect the environment. In order to honour the earth, they will choose to incorporate natural elements and fabrics into their dressing as much as possible, but give them a fresh and modern update. Earthy tones and plant-based dyes will be intertwined with uber-modern, relaxed silhouettes.
Expect several brands and designers to use 3D printing to personify and superimpose natural elements like flora and fauna on unexpected streetwear styles, as comfort continues to take precedence.
Gamification Will Become more (Hyper) Real:
As the virtual world blends into the real world, it will be harder to distinguish the real from the hyper-real. Inspired by in-game elements and virtual characters, fashion will continue to incorporate cartoonish styles and silhouettes but try to give them a modern, grown-up spin. Toying with the desire to escape from a world that feels quite scary, individuals will continue to gravitate to fashion pieces that look like they belong online as opposed to IRL. As the Metaverse and artificial intelligence continue to evolve, consumers will slowly but surely begin to embrace the changes that these technologies will bring and embrace the shift through their choice of clothing.
Expect more designers and retailers to find innovative ways to bring back digitally nostalgic elements to feed the consumer desire for satirical, cyber inspired fashion.
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