If we want to understand the economy of tomorrow, we should consider what people are wearing today. Why? Because if art sends telling signals about the economy, then fashion sends especially strong signals about sentiment. After all, this is the art that humans wear.
After a couple of years of hell - Covid, wars, political shenanigans galore, and the threat of nuclear exchanges - fashion is reflecting our need for comfort. The fashion trend this year is to go “schlumpy”. As the Guardian writes, “Alex Bovaird, the White Lotus costume designer, describes it as “Caught somewhere between “haphazard California” and “a Coachellan hangover”. Oh, and schlumpy definitely screams skint and slobby. Having gone slobby during the lockdown, most can’t face polishing themselves up again. The world has gone “Goblin Mode”. This is the Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2022 with 93% of the vote (replacing “vax” from 2021 and beating “metaverse” which only got a 4% vote). Stretchy waistlines are all the rage. A whole new category of clothing has popped up called “athleisure,” which is a cross between what you wear to the gym and what you wear to a meeting. Nobody wants to be hemmed in by rules anymore. It’s all very “Belle/Laid” which means pretty and ugly at the same time in French. The modern version of this is called “ugly hot fashion girlie.” Fashion is currently nihilism made visible. It’s time to reread Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.
Speaking of polish, in a clear sign of changing times, Kiwi Shoe Polish is pulling out of the British market. If there is one place that I’d have guessed would always understand the importance of polished shoes, it would be the UK. But it seems that only the military are polishing shoes these days. Trainer trash has enthralled the British and the rest of the world. Rubber sneakers have replaced leather shoes. Being in tech, gives you a free pass to wear trainers absolutely anywhere, which I have been taking full advantage of! Personally, I’d bet that Stella McCartney will make an even bigger fortune if she can marry up the incredibly comfortable sole of a Nike Ultraboost and merge it with a strappy Dita Von Tease diamante upper. Didn’t she wear her first trainers in 2014, signaling the coming trend? Trainers and ballgowns? It’s coming.
Trainers are now differentiated into Retrocore, 550’s, Sustainable, Hiking Hybrids, Blanket-stitched, Futuristic Metaverse sneakers, and the iconic white Air Force 1’s. The trend towards comfort is clear. Wedges (not wedgies!), Ballerina flats, tiny kitten heels. Sqishy slippers and flat stompy boots are all the rage. It’s sure not office wear as we used to define it. But those days are over. Tom Ford always sells at the top. This time he sold for $2.8b. Will men ever be seen in suits again except at weddings, funerals and award ceremonies? For women, tailoring is very “in” precisely because it is superfluous. Suits, the FT says, are for weekends, men’s ties on women are cool (but not on men) and dresses are out altogether.
Fashion matters not just because it is a source of meaningful signals but also because it’s a massive sector. It generated $2.5T before the pandemic. After the pandemic, it changed so radically it’s not really comparable. People started giving up on fast fashion. The factories in China were shut, and the ships were blocked in ports. So, fashion ceased to be fast. The lockdown made more people think about supply chains. They want to know exactly who is making these clothes and under what conditions. Many concluded that it is costly to ourselves and to the planet to keep buying cheap disposable clothing. Circular fashion, fabrics, processes, and even threads, are now bid.
Companies have not been quick to transition out of their old supply chains and fashion ecosystems. They may claim to be sustainable, but most fashion just isn’t. 2023 looks set to be a year where greenwashing will be all the rage again. But Pantone’s color of the moment is Viva Magenta. They describe it as “a new animated red that revels in pure joy, encouraging experimentation and self-expression without restraint, an electrifying, and a boundaryless shade that is manifesting as a stand-out statement. PANTONE 18-1750 Viva Magenta welcomes anyone and everyone with the same verve for life and rebellious spirit. It is a color that is audacious, full of wit, and inclusive of all.” Personally, I lean more toward Valentino’s choice. He partnered up with Pantone to create signature pink PP hue, which is pink with a pop. See below:
It’s not colors that are driving designers but materials. The public wants biodegradable fibers. They want handbags made out of mushrooms and socks made from bamboo. There is a new trend called “cocooning”. It means especially cozy knitwear. Think Loro Piana cashmere sweaters meet snuggly cashmere bed socks. People just aren’t ready to get out of bed, it seems. People are also into pre-used and pre-loved textiles. The fashion crowd has a lot of demands when it comes to sustainability. Miami as a city is staking a claim to this space, making it clear that they want to be the capital of sustainable fashion. And yet, back to greenwashing, the new transparency requirements may be impossible for many retailers to meet. Some are trying. Mango is setting a new standard by publishing the full list of its Tier one and two suppliers and supply chains. It is now doing the same with Tier three. That amounts to about 2,400 factories worldwide. In the fast fashion space, things move so fast that most fashion firms can’t even map their supply chains, let alone name all their suppliers. I suspect every company will have to reveal its supply chains in the coming years.
Yet fashionistas long for transparency. In 2022 I put up examples of sheerness and transparency on Twitter (@DrPippaM) as a signal of the broader social demand for transparency. Now dresses are becoming full “see through” as seen on Rita Ora, Florence Pugh (who combined see-through with Valentino Pink PP), Dua Lipa, Hailey Beiber, and on the runways of Prada, Valentino, and Coperi. Jamie Lee Curtis got slammed for wearing a see-through Tom Ford dress to The Golden Globes at age 64. Even fashionista men are adopting sheer lace, tulle, and other transparent fabrics, as reported by the New York Times. Fashion is art, and artists love to shock and surprise, so it’s worth noting the newest transparency trend, which is to wear nothing but a thong. It may be under a low-backed dress, but the dress isn’t covering it up. It’s showcasing it. Elle Magazine asks, “Is 2023 Going To Be The Year Of The Exposed Thong?” It seems to be an open question. This new fashion trend is called “Naked Dressing.” As Elle writes, “As naked dressing has slowly become the norm on the red carpet and beyond, it was only a matter of time before this once-reviled trend came back with a vengeance – and with flashing no longer a novelty, showing you're wearing underwear at all can be a quasi-revolutionary act.”
Makeup is fashion too. The industry was worth $287.94 billion in 2021, of which $18+ b came from the US alone. Fortune projects that the global makeup market will increase to $415.29 billion in 2028. Makeup is counterintuitive and remarkably countercyclical. When things get bad, women buy lipstick. Makeup is about small luxuries and reinvention
So what are people buying? We’re back in the Magentaverse. They are buying pinkish-red eye shadow and red mascara or vivid pink mascara! This prompted the New York Times to recently ask “Why Are So Many Women Wearing Red Eye Makeup?” Tik Tok is calling it “Cold Girl” makeup, as in she has a cold. Wait! Everybody is down with a cold. The world has been down with a cold since COVID burst into our lives. It seems we are not yet over the COVID experience.
We are even carrying cuddly stuffed toys with us when we venture outside these days. Yes. Check out the new Gucci Gremlin bag, which is all the rage.
Nothing should match, not even your jewellery. The Independent writes, “Shag bands – the luminous, multicolored rubber bracelets that sent parents into a moral panic in 2009 – will reappear on our wrists in 2023.” They should be in bright, happy, mismatchy colors. Nothing should be hemmed in with labels. Note that there is an anti-labelling movement underway. Relationships are now “situationships”. After years of LGBTQ and at least 37 other variations, it sure feels like people are now leaning toward “I’m human”. The somewhat androgynous nature of clothes these days reflects this “No Gender Reveal” approach.
My takeaways? Hemlines are, as the Daily Mail reports, all over the place but rising fast. Miniskirts and micro minis are charging down all the catwalks. Short hemlines are usually a good sign that the economy will recover.
People are cocooning. It looks like everything is a meaningless chaotic jumble hidden under cozy clothes that message, “I don’t live by the old rules anymore.” What will emerge from all this? I suspect a fresh new wave of creative thinking, entrepreneurial energy, and redefined norms. The old normcore was just a clothing style. The new normcore is societal. When this many people break that many fashion rules, something really cool is going on. The ghost of Dame Vivienne Westwood must be pleased since she oversaw this same influential and anarchic process back in the 1960s. The Queen, too, God rest her soul, used fashion all the time to signal her thoughts and her mood. According to Sir Hardy Amies, her long-timer couturier, she started this cozy trend. Amies did an interview in The Sunday Telegraph in 1997, saying, "There's always something cold and rather cruel about chic clothes, which she wants to avoid." “She conjured a warm munificence instead”.
2023 seems to be about “warm munificence” in her honor. The question is, how will this new warm, fuzzy, cozy normcore redefine society as a whole? Neitsche maybe captured this moment of reinvention. He said, “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” We are redefining what gives us real meaning. I feel a new economy with new ideas and new innovations and new rules, and new ways of doing things are going to burst forth from this cozy cocooning episode.
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I love how you see the potential of future in fashion. I first learned of you through RealVision. I have followed you ever since. I love your insights. Appreciate your work.
It looks like the NYTs agrees! See: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/style/lifestyle-trends-2023.html?smid=url-share