ARE TRENDS DEAD?

It may be a crazy question to ask, right in the middle of fashion month. Over four weeks and in four cities, hundreds of brands showcase their new collections and thereby determine the fashion image for the upcoming autumn and winter. What colors will we wear, shapes and fabrics, which items will become a hit and what will the trends be? Magazines and websites are filled with top-10 lists of what to wear and what not to wear. But, as Michou Basu, fashion journalist for De Telegraaf, states; “the trend is no more, the trend is dead.” Is that so?

Michou writes that there are no strict guidelines in fashion anymore, “that can't be, given the amount of collections that are thrown at you on an annual basis.” Moreover, what is shown now is shared so often as soon as it hits the catwalk and is depicted endlessly in magazines and on blogs, that by the time it hangs in the racks, you are actually already done with it in the autumn. Furthermore, large chains like Zara and Topshop quickly adapt their collections, and three weeks later they have already copied the successful items and have them hanging in their stores.

“if something has to be a trend, then it is the individual style.”

But can you then say that trends are dead? Is it not rather the case that trends simply go much faster and thus also pass by more quickly? Michou argues that there is no longer such a thing as one type of skirt or one pant length, “if something has to be a trend, then it is the individual style.” And that may be true, but in my opinion, you can still certainly speak of trends and the street scene is still dominated by a dozen key pieces.

Perhaps the catwalk is no longer the master in predicting trends

In New York, for example, there was an abundance of ponchos and capes, as seen frequently at the shows last September. Everything was generally quite oversized: large coats, gigantic pants – that kind of thing doesn’t just come out of nowhere. And what about the powder pink oversized coat as introduced by Céline, it is still seen in the new black and baby blue, lilac, light gray, and thus light pink on every corner of the street. How can trends be dead then?

Perhaps the catwalk is no longer the master in predicting trends. That the turnaround is indeed too long and that because everything is now online, the months between show and store cannot be bridged. And yes, perhaps trends last shorter than Dior's New Look and the mini skirts of the sixties, but anyone who delves a little into blogs, street fashion, and the major fashion Instagrammers cannot deny that there are indeed trends to discover and that you can easily compile a top-10 list. And there seems to be nothing wrong with that.