‘Do designers talk to each other to show similar things, or do fashion editors whisper in their ears and tell them what to do?’
Clock-wise from the top: Burberry, No. 21, Brandon Maxwell, Prada, all Spring/Summer 2025. Photos: Vogue Runway
This is Connecting the Dots, a series in which writer José Criales-Unzueta looks at how fashion, pop culture, the internet and society are all interconnected.
The genesis of runway trends is somewhat of an urban myth.
Last month, as I reported and ranted on the Spring/Summer 2025 collections on Instagram, I spotted a breakout trend in the way designers combined tactical outerwear with going out styles. Anoraks and sequins at Burberry, windbreakers and sparkles at Prada, and clubby tops and cargo pants at The Attico.
The more I posted, the more DMs I received asking the same question: “How does this even happen? Do designers talk to each other to show similar things, or do fashion editors whisper in their ears and tell them what to do?” read a particularly tantalizing one.
Because there is no straightforward process like one would like to imagine, trends can indeed feel like a conspiracy: a sort of backend deal or a culmination of ‘the right people’ whispering in each others’ ears. But are they? How, pray-tell, are trends born? In an effort to find out, here we identified and spoke to the key players: designers, stylists, forecasters and buyers.
Business beginnings
Before a collection comes to life, there’s the zeitgeist: culture, music, film, politics. Designers pick up on these clues and, like all of us, ruminate on them and what they mean for our future. There’s also business agendas: what sells, what doesn’t, what could. And while much of fashion is about feeling, that artistic side goes hand-in-hand with the business end. There’s merchandising, business analytics, customer profiles; data that allows designers, editors and buyers to understand what customers are prioritising based on demographics.
Something we all tend to agree on: three’s a trend. “We always say that trends emerge in threes,” explains Yumi Shin, chief merchandising officer of Bergdorf Goodman. “When we see an idea at least three times, we know it will make it into our trend forecast, whether it’s a major or micro-trend, either on or off the runway.”
But before trends are reported on or bought into, they’re predicted by trend forecasters like WGSN, Peclers Paris, McKinsey & Company, and more. “We use a quantitative and qualitative process at WGSN. We leverage AI data modeling but we also include our creative forecasting team of product experts to contextualize the data and to ensure we’re looking in the right places,” explains Francesca Muston, VP of fashion at trend forecaster WGSN. The key word is “contextualizing”. Muston details how WGSN’s forecasting methodology looks at society, technology, the environment, politics, industry and creative culture. Looking at fashion from all of these angles allows for a proper examination of what is actually trending past repetition or coincidence. This kind of forecasting helps brands market and design products in advance.
But like fashion, not all trends are created equally, and they all don’t hold the same weight or have the same longevity. “Trends move at different paces, some may spike suddenly and come right back down, linked to a viral moment,” says Muston, “others are slow and steady, lasting for years, such as the athleisure movement.”
A stylist’s world
Think of quiet luxury, Y2K, or the return to boho chic. Camel coats, baby tees and silky blouses have been in the market for years, but it’s savvy stylists and designers with a singular point of view who gave them a fresh spin and delivered them to the market in a way that has gained momentum.
“How a collection is styled on the runway can be hugely influential,” says Shin. “The stylists, in partnership with the designer, are also responsible for trends.” Think of this season’s technical glamour moment; more of a styling trick than a design element baked into the clothes. These styling trends are easy for the customer to participate in because they don’t require a luxury purchase. They can be replicated at home, so they gain momentum relatively quickly.
Marni, Autumn/Winter 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Marni
Willy Chavarria, Autumn/Winter 2024. Photo: Umberto Fratini / Gorunway.com
Michael Kors Collection, Autumn/Winter 2024. Photo: Isidore Montag / Gorunway.com
“I think what we are touching upon here is that the fashion industry exists in this sort of vacuum where we’re all watching very similar things,” says stylist Carlos Nazario, who styles runway collections by Michael Kors and Francesco Risso for Marni, in addition to celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Rosalía — plus, a couple of Vogue covers, recalling how last season everyone was watching Ryan Murphy’s Feud: Capote Vs The Swans. “Every single one of my clients from Willy [Chavarria] to Francesco [Risso] and Michael [Kors] were all talking about it and this idea of presenting yourself in a more elegant way, thinking about what that woman or her man would wear today,” he says. I spoke to Chavarria myself ahead of his AW24 show and he did mention his fascination with the Swans — and the three designers did offer dressier collections than in past seasons.
It must be said that this isn’t necessarily new to fashion, or unique to the internet era. Nazario also recalls when Karl Lagerfeld decided to put ankle bracelet-like pouches around the ankles of models for his SS08 Chanel show. “It was because Lindsay [Lohan] and all the girls were wearing the monitors, so those photos were everywhere and Karl put it on the runway,” he says, also underscoring the influence of hip pop culture on ’90s fashion, with designers from Lagerfeld to Tommy Hilfiger riffing on its aesthetic on the runway.
But for Nazario, it all starts with the street. “I think that designers are reacting to the way women and people want to wear things,” he says, speaking of recent fashion moments that have struck a chord, including Lotta Volkova’s styling at Miu Miu with Mrs Prada. “Lotta is someone who lives in the world, she scours the internet and goes out, she has quite a full life like myself, so we find inspiration from the people we are around.”
The street
“The past few years have seen a return to events and event dressing, let alone the many red carpet opportunities available for celebrities at the moment,” Nazario says. “In the past six months to a year, this has really reached a fever pitch.” He adds that many of his girlfriends currently “only buy dresses”, be that for a wedding or a night out, “and sometimes you just throw a sporting jacket on top of it, that’s a real thing and how women actually dress. You see it in real life, and then designers will see that and think it’s chic, and communicate with their stylists,” and thus the trend comes to the fore.
It is no coincidence that this season’s Prada collection was marked by how real and individual each outfit looked as opposed to bending to an overarching concept. “We do our human proposition,” Miuccia Prada said backstage to Vogue Runway’s Nicole Phelps. Is there anything more human than the street?
Charli XCX and Troye Sivan at the Sweat Tour. Charli wears Rodarte, Sivan wears Martine Rose. Photo: Henry Redcliffe
It’s the street, too, that translates high-level ideas into daily life, and eventually offers the momentum for them to become trends. Think of Charli XCX’s Brat and her recently wrapped North America ‘Sweat Tour’ with Troye Sivan — there have been SS25 collections that have played into ‘Brat green’, including Sabato De Sarno’s menswear line-up in June or Giuliano Calza’s GCDS. I spoke to Chris Horan and Marc Forné, who style Charli and Sivan, respectively, for Vogue. “You can totally see how Charli’s aesthetic has affected current fashion happenings,” says Forné. “I wouldn’t take credit for designers coming up with anything,” Horan adds, “but because [the ‘brat look’] is relatable and we haven’t done anything that is too avant-garde, people have replicated it for TikToks and to go out or come to the tour; it conveys a feeling, and at a time when people are moving on from things like quiet luxury, it hits.”
“I think on the backend it’s when we send mood boards to certain brands [for looks], and then we see their new collection and our custom tour look is basically there,” says Horan. “But it’s also because when we ask a brand for something, we reference them and their past collections, so it’s also bringing something that was there forward in a way that feels now.”
The level of virality of a pop culture event like the Sweat Tour has lots to do with how these moments can make trends emerge on and off the runway. “Because of the way the internet dominates our conversations, the water cooler chat has evolved into a TikTok rehash and about what we are seeing on social media,” says Nazario.
The internet
Nazario offers a runway example: the way Jonathan Anderson and stylist Benjamin Bruno set forth track pants tucked into sports socks at the Loewe AW24 menswear show in January. “It’s lads in East London who literally wear that, so maybe Jonathan saw it on the street on the way to work and thought it looked hot or cool, and then it’s incorporated into the styling,” he says. “But then you realize that they actually made the pants and socks and shoes on the runway all in one piece, so it builds it into the design and takes it a step further.”
Loewe, Autumn/Winter 2024 menswear. Photographed by Acielle StyleDuMonde
“I’m sure they also looked it up online and saw that all the hot TikTok boys do it, it’s a cycle where things happening on the street are well documented on social media and then reimagined on the runway,” Nazario adds. It should be noted that the very Loewe show went viral online because of the many “internet boyfriends” it featured as part of the set (actor Manu Ríos or TikToker Vinnie Hacker). Backstage, Anderson spoke about the “algorithm of masculinity”, and conjured up Instagram and OnlyFans. “It’s 360 degrees — you can’t get away from media,” he told Vogue Runway’s Sarah Mower.
Still, despite incessant reporting on TikTok micro-trends — much of which I’ve done myself — trends, particularly runway trends, don’t necessarily originate online. “Social media is great at packaging up trends and sending them viral, but the trend already exists,” Muston says. While Nazario synthesises how inspiration happens online, Muston is talking about the other end of the trend cycle, when social media starts grouping collections by ‘aesthetics’ like mob wife or balletcore. “The product has been forecast, designed and produced before it hits the influencer,” she says.
Muston goes a step further, defining this particular moment by explaining that many fashion brands are currently “chasing their tails trying to capitalise on social micro-trends but end up having to compromise on fit and quality in order to deliver on speed”.
The reality is that, unless you’re Shein or Zara and have the production capability to churn out product, the viral trend is over before the product hits the store. It’s an unproductive consequence of this internet phenomenon. “Brands also need to be selective on which trends are right for them and be confident to walk away from a trend or to understand when a trend is delivering on entertainment but is unlikely to be commercially viable,” says Muston.
What she is getting at here is particularly worth remarking. Some trends deliver on the entertainment side — internet virality, a designer’s runway, or film and television — but that doesn’t mean you should be building your buy according to them.
An editorial point of view
Fashion trends and, more specifically, runway trends, may not be exactly the result of behind-the-scenes conversations. But they’re also not exactly a coincidence. A majority of it boils down to a point of view, be that editorial or retail-driven.
Earlier this month, the Vogue Runway team, which I am a part of, published the season’s trend reports. But there is a method to the madness and some of it has to do with repetition. As my colleague Laird Borrelli-Persson, who creates the main ready-to-wear analysis, put it, these articles are the result of studying the over-400 collections that we cover each season. What are we seeing lots of, and what do designers seem to agree on? What should fashion look like come next season, and what out of everything we’ve seen feels either fresh, directional, or timely?
The future factor
Ask any industry person and one of the few things we will all agree on is that fashion — and therefore trends — move in cycles. Every 10 or 15 years you’ll see the same ideas come back to life. Boho is a prime example, from its beginnings as a runway trend in the ’70s with Halston or Lagerfeld at Chloé to its revival in the noughties with Sienna Miller on the street and Phoebe Philo on the runway, once again with Chloé, and now with Chemena Kamali at, you guessed it, Chloé. These products live on the market and the street already, but every few years comes a designer or a stylist with a unique, fresh point of view on these existing ideas who gives them a new lease on life.
Something else we can all agree on: fashion is about a moment. The moment. Which means that things in the underground will always eventually find their moment in the sun. “For every visionary designer there will be 25 followers who will blow in the direction of the wind,” says Nazario. “Those are the people who will underscore a trend and give it momentum, they solidify that a trend is happening because they follow it.”
And then comes merchandising, good marketing and some viral TikToks — and the trend cycle starts again.
Originally published in Voguebusiness.com
