Nothing is forever - especially our wardrobe. What a dramatic entrance into this little deep-dive. This week’s topic: fashion’s favourite past time, aka trends. This week, we’re diving into how trends are born, who decides what’s ‘in Vogue’, and how we all somehow end up wanting the same thing at the same time.
Fashion Is a Mirror of Society (Yes, Really)
You’ve probably heard the expression: fashion is a mirror of society. When it comes to trends, that statement couldn’t be more accurate.
Clothes are often the first thing people see. They signal identity, values, mood, ambition and so much more. Designers know that. And - news flash - they live amongst us, aka they absorb what’s happening culturally, socially, politically and economically.
Take the pandemic, for instance. Lockdowns and home office culture made loungewear the new hot commodity with searches increasing by 140% in the early months of the pandemic, according to Google Trends.
Comfort-first dressing became the new norm and, interestingly enough, that shift hasn’t disappeared entirely, even after we’ve been allowed to leave our houses again.
Or who remembers the transparent shoes and PVC bags from around 2017 and 2018? One could argue that their popularity reflected a cultural obsession with “transparency” at a time when global politics felt anything but transparent.
Little reminder: president Trump was elected for the first time in 2016. Coincidence? Rarely.
Consider designers translators of all of those events.
Enter the Forecasting Giants
While culture definitely sets the tone, there are also professionals whose entire job is to analyse it and, in a way, translate it into something visual and/or tangible.
Trend forecasting agencies like WGSN study behavioural shifts, economic indicators, street style, art, technology and even climate change.
Those insights are then translated into extensive reports predicting which colours, silhouettes and materials will rise to fame, sometimes up to two years in advance. Yes, you read that correctly: two years.
The Fashion Week Funnel
Based on that forecasting data and their own creative research and inspiration, designers from renowned fashion houses begin working on collections - oftentimes, up to 12 months before they’re shown.
That’s also why you see Spring/Summer collections in September and Autumn/Winter collections in February, in case you ever wondered. The runway isn’t about the everyday consumer who wants to know what to wear tomorrow - or at least, not at first.
Before it becomes consumer-based, it’s addressed to buyers, editors and retailers who prepare for upcoming seasons. By the time you see a trend on your feed or the streets, it has often been brewing behind the scenes for months, if not years. And Fashion Weeks are the place where and lens through which they do so.
What silhouette gets applause? What look gets photographed the most? What outfit makes the jump onto the socials? And which style pops up on the catwalks of multiple designers? That’s when trends begin to emerge.
(Hang in there - we’re about half-way through the trend creation funnel.)
Another key player in the trend origin story is the design company Pantone. Each year, they choose one shade that gets assigned the title of ‘colour of the year’.
In 2025, that colour was Mocha Mousse - before that, it was Peach Fuzz and in 2023, it was Viva Magenta. This year, ‘Cloud Dancer’, an ethereal white, took the crown, thanks to its ‘"living calm" (feeling) that fosters a sense of balance and mental space in a time of rapid AI development’.
Generally speaking, these colours are supposed to visually translate the ambiance and ‘zeitgeist’ of the time and are used as a reference point not only in the fashion world, but also in interior design, graphic design and other visual spheres.
The ‘colour of the year’ is announced about 9 months before the year starts, so fashion designers oftentimes pick it up in their collections. The same goes for marketers and retailers, which all together makes a colour go viral in the online sphere.
Talking of viral - of course, social media has changed the game a lot, when it comes to fashion. Enter micro-trends! According to Trend Bible, they are “a niche or industry specific consumer behavioural trend which is mass market ready and actionable”. Don’t know what we’re talking about? Remember the ‘Tomato Girl Summer’ or ‘Mob Wife Aesthetic’? Those are some of the micro trends that made their rounds on social media over the past year.
Some of them disappear into the abyss as quickly as they appeared again - others, however, serve as a source of inspiration for the big name designers who, then, incorporate them in their catwalk shows. This ‘bubble up’ effect is what elevates a micro trend to a macro trend, aka a wider recognised tendency.
After the extravagant shows from the major houses have been presented on the catwalks all around the world, fast fashion retailers pick up on what they consider the most-wanted styled or most talked-about trends. Combined with a few social media trends, they push out their versions of them at a much faster rate - hence the name ‘fast fashion’.
So How Do Trends Come About?
To sum up the usual way that trends come about: global events are summarised by fast forecast agencies whose reports are consumed by designers. Those designers add their influences and research to the mix, plus the colour schemes that are relevant in that specific moment, and show their collection during fashion weeks. Those shows then serve as inspiration for fast fashion retailers who push those trends out to the mass market, while social media supports this whole process and also gives its own twist on things.
