The most talked-about collections on the spring/summer 2024 runways are absent, trends are emerging, and designers are nervously waiting.
Faced with a tough economic and political backdrop, designers are taking a cautious approach to their summer 2024 collections. The palette was muted, with black and white blotting out the colour-box brights that typically come to the fore for summer collections. Retina-searing red was one of the few tones that managed to make it through the muzzled colour wheel. The post-pandemic era of body positivity – and the nude looks that came with it – has largely faded, and with it the broader variety of body types that had begun to populate the runways.
Statement gowns are out and discreet chic – buoyed up with wardrobe staples including trench coats, pencil skirts, trouser suits, and good jeans – is in. At the fashion search engine Tagwalk, which scanned more than 11,000 images from the spring/summer 2024 shows in New York, London, Milan, and Paris, looks that were tagged “minimalism” were up 46 percent on the previous spring/summer 2023 season. Logo-tagged looks, meanwhile, were down 52 percent, while ’90s-tagged looks were up 42 percent – the latter was also the most searched tag.
What will you be wearing next year? The good news is that you probably already own most of summer’s key elements and that clever styling – a splash of red here, a crisp white shirt there – will serve as easy updates. Ballerinas and Mary-Janes are going nowhere, nor a well-cut blazer.
1.Short Shorts
Micro shorts pumped down the catwalks in Milan – most memorably opening the new-look Gucci show, now under the direction of Sabato de Sarno – and filtered into Paris, too, at Chanel, Alexander McQueen and Isabel Marant. Think of it as the logical conclusion to autumn’s no-pants predilection.
2.White Dress
Will you say yes to the white dress? Ranging from diaphanous and sheer to embroidered and densely-worked, designers signaled a clear shift away from the euphoric shots of color and frothy pastels that come around every spring with a bevy of swan-white dresses.
3.High-rise Trousers
At Loewe, the designer celebrated his 10th anniversary at the Spanish house by ushering in a new super-high-waisted trouser shape – so high that the trousers came with an in-built corset to hold them in place under the bust. The good news: is they’re an instant leg-lengthener.
4.Roses Design
The romance was in the air, where fresh, pale pink, long-stemmed roses were trapped between layers of tulle that comprised the prettiest of party dresses. Spanning rose prints, floral embellishment, three-dimensional appliqué, or petal-shaped silhouettes.
