(Picture credit score: Getty Photos)
From large knickers to alien stylish and inflatable trend, listed here are a few of the yr’s most out-there, playful and controversial appears to be like, writes Daisy Woodward.
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Final yr, an abundance of attention-grabbing sartorial traits, spanning Barbiecore via to large fits, proved that, after two years spent largely indoors in loungewear, we had been able to embrace extra eccentric technique of expressing ourselves sartorially.
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And this yr, it appears, we have solely gathered steam, gravitating in direction of the absurd, the alien, the attention-grabbing and the flesh-flashing. Right here, as 2023 attracts to an in depth, we replicate again on a few of its most excessive traits, each on and off the runway, from the playful and provocative to the clownish and controversial.
The clownish, clompy shoe pattern was among the many yr’s most enjoyable however absurd appears to be like (Credit score: Getty Photos)
1. Enormous footwear
Cartoonishly clompy footwear has been one of many yr’s most eye-popping traits, kick-started by the launch of the “large crimson boot” from US label MSCHF in February. The eye-grabbing, Astro Boy-channelling boots went viral on TikTok, proving successful with celebrities like Lil Nas X and Iggy Azalea. Since then, the craze has solely grown larger, with excessive trend manufacturers like Marni, Prada, Loewe and Proenza Schouler providing up their very own tackle comically outsized, “clowncore” footwear. Evoking all the things from manga to clowns, from 70s disco apparel to the Spice Ladies’ platform trainers, the rising recognition of huge footwear signifies a collective sense of nostalgia and a need to face out. Learn extra about it right here.
Julia Fox was on pattern at New York trend week in her excessive cutout ensemble (Credit score: Getty Photos)
2. Excessive cutouts
Cutout clothes – clothes with strategically snipped sections designed to disclose the pores and skin beneath – first emerged within the Thirties but it surely wasn’t till the Nineteen Nineties, when designers like Thierry Mugler and Tom Ford turned their shears to the pattern, that it really took off. The most recent iteration of the cutout craze has reached full fruition in 2023, rendering uncovered abs and framed stomach buttons a part of the material of up to date design. Julia Fox has sported a few of this yr’s most excessive examples, together with an all-leather ensemble by The Uncommonist, replete with buttock-exposing round cutouts and a horse tail. In the meantime manufacturers together with Diesel, LaQuan Smith and Ann Demeulemeester all despatched fashions down the autumn/winter 2023 runway with sizeable sections of pores and skin on show.
The bleached forehead went mainstream in 2023 – with the look trending on TikTok (Credit score: Getty Photos)
3. Bleached eyebrows
One of many magnificence trade’s most divisive traits, the bleached forehead – which this yr has gone mainstream – makes a very daring (or ought to we are saying bald) assertion. Courting again to the Elizabethan period the place a excessive, naked brow was the look du jour, in accordance with researcher Rachael Gibson in W Journal, the trendy tackle “no forehead” aesthetic gained recognition within the Nineteen Nineties. Sported by membership children and fashions alike, the fad was seen by some as the final word anti-beauty assertion, whereas others embraced its ethereal edge. Final yr noticed celebrities (most notably Kendall Jenner on the Met Gala) and trend homes (suppose Versace and Marc Jacobs) attain for the bleach as soon as extra, whereas this yr has seen the pattern garner mass enchantment, as evidenced by an abundance of TikTok tutorials on the topic: searches for “bleached forehead” on the platform have amassed greater than 124m views.
Viktor & Rolf’s catwalk present featured tulle ball robes worn at surprising angles (Credit score: Getty Photos)
4. Catwalk chaos
When you’ll be able to’t calm the storm, embrace it: such was the message behind two of 2023’s most memorable runway spectacles. For his or her high fashion spring/summer season 2023 present, Dutch design duo Viktor & Rolf introduced a “parade of dreamy, romantic tulle ball robes” which started to free themselves from the fashions’ our bodies because the present progressed – some jutting out sideways, others turned utterly upside-down. Dubbed “late-stage capitalism waltz”, the gathering poked enjoyable at trend’s fondness for finery, whereas concurrently showcasing the breathtaking talent required to conjure high fashion creations. AVAVAV designer Beate Karlsson equally co-opted chaos for the presentation of her autumn/winter assortment in Milan, the place heels and bag straps snapped and broke, clothes appeared ripped on the seams and pearls scattered the catwalk in a playful critique of trend’s tendency to take itself too significantly.
This yr has seen an appreciation of double (and even triple) denim (Credit score: Getty Photos)
5. Double denim
When you thought double denim had reached its peak within the 2000s when Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake stepped out of their matching blue-on-blue ensembles, suppose once more. The pattern has re-established itself with a vengeance in 2023, with surprisingly elevated outcomes. Marine Serre, Versace, DSquared2, Stella McCartney and extra have championed all-denim outfits of their varied collections, displaying the look to be each cool and complicated when effectively executed. The fad feeds into this yr’s burgeoning appreciation for all issues cowboy, from the rise of the “coastal cowgirl” pattern, a beach-meets-Western aesthetic, to Enterprise of Vogue’s revelation that in 2023 US and UK retailers launched 240 p.c extra new types of cowboy boots (see under) and denim shirts than they did final yr.
Doja Cat wore a crystal-encrusted look in January – setting the extraterrestrial tone for the yr (Credit score: Getty Photos)
6. Otherworldly stylish
For these with extra extraterrestrial tastes, otherworldly adornments have been making waves in 2023. Doja Cat set the wheels in movement when she arrived on the Schiaparelli Haute Couture autumn/winter 2023 present in January trying like she’d been beamed down from a luxurious spacecraft, her whole face, head and torso coated in 30,000 crimson Swarovski crystals. At Thom Browne autumn/winter 2023, an array of alien-channelling fashions in planet-spangled attire and headwear stomped the runway, sporting ultra-long, curly finger and toenails – one of many season’s most excessive magnificence moments, alongside Rick Owens’ troupe of otherworldly beings carrying contact lenses that made their eyeballs an inky black.
Emma Corrin modelled sequin knickers for Miu Miu; underwear as outerwear was a key 2023 look (Credit score: Getty Photos)
7. Underwear as outerwear
Turning custom inside out, knickers have formally been deemed trendy outerwear in 2023. Ever the influencer, Kendall Jenner was one of many earliest pioneers of the pattern, inflicting a media frenzy when she stepped out in an underwear-over-tights look from Bottega Veneta’s spring/summer season 2023 assortment on the finish of final yr. Miuccia Prada took the pattern one step additional, putting panties entrance and centre of the Miu Miu autumn/winter 2023 runway present, and shortly everybody from Tom Ford and Victoria Beckham to Gucci and Pimples had adopted go well with. Certainly, as per a Vogue runway report, 38 p.c of designers displaying at Paris Vogue Week spring/summer season 2024 featured panties of their collections.
Moschino’s attention-grabbing “inflation stylish” introduced exaggerated shapes to the catwalk (Credit score: Getty Photos)
8. Massive shapes
Dramatic shapes have proved one other key look this yr, reiterating the continued mania for maximalism. This extends from outsized silhouettes – just like the hip-exaggerating hoop skirts dotted all through the Dior spring/summer season 2023 assortment or Gucci’s assertion coats for autumn/winter 2023 in puffy shearling – to theatrical detailing. For example, the lengthy, uber-pointy collars that punctuated Prada’s autumn/winter 2023 menswear assortment or, most eye-popping of all, the shapely inflatable pool toys envisaged as necklines, hemlines and elaborations on Jeremy Scott’s already sculptural attire for Moschino spring/summer season 2023.
Cowboy boot Crocs had been an unlikely hit this yr (Credit score: Crocs)
9. Cowboy boot Crocs
In a launch nobody anticipated, Crocs brought on ripples on the finish of final month once they launched their rubbery tackle the cowboy boot. Possessing the model’s acquainted clog-shaped toe, the black boot faucets into 2023’s prevailing western aesthetic, that includes “high-shine croc-embossed texture and daring western-inspired stitching”, rounded off by spur charms. That is the second main boot second for Crocs this yr – in August they paired up with MSCHF for “the massive yellow boot”, as talked about earlier, a holey model of its large crimson predecessor, proving themselves to be scorching on the heels of the yr’s most fanciful fixations.
Dua Lipa was among the many glamorous celebrities who favoured a daring, ultra-sheer look this yr (Credit score: Getty Photos)
10. See-through garments
Formally confirming 2023 because the yr we determined to bear all, see-through clothes is certainly one of this yr’s most ubiquitous type decisions. From the marginally sheer to the completely translucent, diaphanous attire, tops and skirts have dominated the runway and the crimson carpet, showing at Alaïa, Pimples, Bottega Veneta and past, and on everybody from Dua Lipa and Kate Moss to Florence Pugh and Rihanna. In the meantime, rising Albanian designer Nensi Dojaka has proved some of the in style pioneers of the pattern, reimagining wardrobe staples in delicate organza and tulle, leading to a few of its most wearable, but fashion-forward examples.
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