[2014] Which Trends Changed Your Wardrobe?
QDaily has rounded up 20 fashion trends from 2014. How many did you follow?
QDaily has rounded up 20 fashion trends from 2014. How many did you follow?
No industry celebrates loving the new and tiring of the old more than fashion. Every year it manufactures a flood of new trends and discards others. Of course, a few decades on, some designer may well dig them up, put them back on the runway and make them popular all over again.
The year now ending was no different. Some elements that had never appeared on a runway became crazes people chased. Collaborations between brands and designers were also unusually busy. Let's look back at the year's trend keywords: which ones made you do a double take, and which ones made you impulsively (or unwittingly) add something new to your closet?
1. Sportswear + Boxing
In 2014, sportswear remained the biggest trend in fashion. From the fitness and yoga crazes of a few years ago to running more recently, celebrities and ordinary people alike have been getting active. As more people embrace this healthy lifestyle, athleisure clothing has moved further into everyday life. At fashion weeks, sneakers turned up on the runway again and again and became a must-have for mixing and matching.
Brands seized the opportunity. High-street labels including H&M and Topshop launched sports lines and casual collections. Nike's financial report even named Uniqlo as a competitor.
Break this so-called sportswear trend down further, and 2014's biggest highlight was boxing. The boxing-class craze in fashion and celebrity circles has not yet reached the general public, but when Chanel shot its fall/winter campaign in a boxing ring this year, it showed that wider popularity was only a matter of time. And not just in advertising: Karl Lagerfeld even designed a pair of boxing gloves for his collaboration with Louis Vuitton. In this year's hit Alexander Wang x H&M collection, boxing gloves were also a standout piece.
2. Collaborations + Alexander Wang
There are plenty of collaborations every year, but 2014 had perhaps too many, especially from fast-fashion brands trying to win over young people. This year, besides collaboration T-shirts with Pharrell Williams, LINE and others in its long-running UT series, Uniqlo also revived +J, its collaboration line with Jil Sander from years ago.
Uniqlo x LINE sold out within hours of its first day on sale, but the collaboration that truly caused a global sensation was Alexander Wang x H&M. We previously published a detailed New York Times profile of Alexander Wang, who is, deservedly, the hottest name in fashion.
Pop stars designing clothes is nothing strange anymore, and this year Topshop and Puma brought in Beyonce and Rihanna respectively to design sports collections. Other jaw-dropping collaborations this year included Lagerfeld with Barbie, and MAC with The Simpsons, though the latter did win over plenty of devoted Simpsons fans.
3. Luxury + Beauty
This year many fashion brands launched spin-off products, some for the high profit margins of beauty and fragrance lines, others to diversify and move toward becoming lifestyle brands.
Most people associate perfume with the big luxury houses. But this year quite a few accessible-luxury brands joined them. Michael Kors and J.Crew each launched their own fragrances, and J.Crew even followed Chanel in naming its perfumes with numbers.
Christian Louboutin, maker of the red-soled shoe, went further this year and released a striking nail polish priced at a hefty US$50. Louboutin is reportedly developing a lipstick, hoping to bring its classic bright red to cosmetics.
After Burberry and other big names launched beauty lines one after another, Gucci followed closely this year with a full range of makeup, and did not forget to plaster its logo all over it.
4. Streetwear + Fast-Food Culture + Young Consumers
In 2014, with luxury sales sluggish across the board, some brands looking for new markets went all out to attract young consumers.
Jeremy Scott led the way. On this year's runways he played heavily with a fast-food theme, bringing young people's lifestyle into clothing. This subcultural style looked quite outrageous on the refined fashion-week catwalk, but given this year's streetwear and sportswear trends, the approach is no surprise.
Tiffany T Collection
Lagerfeld, still young at heart, also gave Fendi five cute Bag Bug charms that many celebrities and young consumers could not put down. Even Tiffany, long known for elegance, launched a younger sub-line, the T collection, a statement of standing from its newly appointed creative director.
5. Wearable Devices
Opening Ceremony x Intel
At the year-end company party, even in a gown or formal wear, you can finally keep your geeky fitness band on. This year quite a few fashion brands built technology into their designs and launched smart products.
Ralph Lauren alone launched both a smart T-shirt and a smart backpack this year. Tory Burch released three pieces of smart jewelry in one go. Opening Ceremony and Intel collaborated on a wearable bracelet, and in 2015 they will also launch a jacket that can charge your phone. Rebecca Minkoff's smart bracelet was also impressive.
Ralph Lauren Charging Bag
Tory Burch smart products
Google Glass, once the talk of the tech world, teamed up this year with Luxottica and Diane von Furstenberg to design new versions. Oh, and there is the Apple Watch, working hard to step from the tech world into fashion.
Beyond building technology into design, many brands also made their fashion-week shows smarter. Ralph Lauren brought a 4D digital experience to its show, and many brands used Instagram to broadcast runway shows live. Fashion brands also made heavy use of apps such as Instagram and Twitter: Marc Jacobs found models for its ads through Instagram, and quite a few brands linked Instagram directly to sales, turning it into a shopping gateway.
6. Normcore
Just how hot was Normcore this past year? It topped Google's 2014 ranking of fashion trend searches.
What is Normcore? Dressing as ordinary as ordinary gets: practical and comfortable as a premise, plain and featureless as a principle, blurring brand recognition while still keeping some style.
Today an outfit covered in logos is considered tacky; understated luxury and tasteful dressing are what count as fashionable.
Topshop 2014 SS Lookbook
The word Normcore was coined more than a decade ago by the science-fiction writer William Gibson. In his novel Pattern Recognition, he used it to describe the protagonist Cayce Pollard, who has a severe aversion to brand logos. Normcore made its fashion debut in a New York Times article in February 2014, and spread quickly through the fashion media with a push from the trend-forecasting agency K-Hole. K-Hole said: "Normcore is about the freedom that comes from being ordinary. Release yourself through ordinariness, and find a sense of belonging in it. Normcore is the road to a peaceful life."
And so this not-at-all-trendy way of dressing became the hottest trend of the moment. Its poster figures include Steve Jobs, who always appeared at product launches in a black knit sweater and jeans; Jerry Seinfeld in Seinfeld; and Prince William.
2014 Louis Vuitton spring/summer handbags
Besides Prince William and other celebrities who became style icons by accident, quite a few fashion brands benefited too, especially logo-free fast-fashion brands such as Uniqlo, Topshop and Zara. A&F and Hollister, which often splash big logos across the chest, hit a sales wall this year and plan to cut back on logo-bearing clothing.
Many luxury houses are dropping logos too. Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Coach, which used to display their marks prominently, have all begun removing logos from their products.
7. Color of the Year: Radiant Orchid
Pantone names a color of the year every year, and 2014's was Radiant Orchid. Unlike pink, which can feel too "childish," this soft shade between pink and purple suits nearly every age, so brands with very different positioning have all used it. Another thing about color: even if you already own a drawer full of nail polish, you will probably still buy one more bottle for this special new shade.
8. Crop Tops
Taylor Swift
When did you last wear a crop top? (Probably when you were at your thinnest.) But fashionistas and celebrities confident in their figures have this year tried every kind of crop top with high-waisted pants or skirts, many of them as matching sets. A cropped top not only lengthens the line of the legs but also adds a touch of sexy, playful street style, which fits well with this year's sports theme. Of course, it all depends on a firm enough midriff (a friendly reminder: a good bra matters too).
Balenciaga
Besides crop tops, this year's runways also featured plenty of designs with a little skin or sheer fabric, and the mystery of geometric cutouts and mesh was sure to hold every eye.
9. Long Silhouettes
Long garments were common this year in both the spring/summer and fall/winter collections: robe coats for fall and winter, long skirts and capes for spring and summer, and the Japanese-flavored kimono was also a hit. Wearing a long coat over a crop top was another distinctive look this fall and winter.
10. Knee-Length Full Skirts
11. Space Foam
What is space foam? Just look at the Alexander Wang x H&M collection. This fabric, which gives a puffed-up, three-dimensional shape and stays loose without losing its form, was every brand's darling in 2014. Its origins reportedly go back to the 1960s and Healthman, a company affiliated with NASA. The special material it developed was first used in space suits, to ease the pressure on astronauts as they left and returned to Earth and to protect their spines. This material, also known as "slow-rebound" foam, was once ranked alongside GPS as one of the two great inventions of space technology.
You may know what came next: the memory-foam pillow on your bed is made of the same stuff. Later, fashion designers put it into clothing. Of course, the casual sportswear trend is what drove its popularity; after all, nothing gives an otherwise limp sweatshirt a sculptural outline better than space foam.
12. Culottes
Culottes have never been easy to pull off, but in spring 2014 they came back as a must-have, even picking up denim touches to look younger and livelier. Their popularity also echoes the broader shift toward comfortable sportswear.
13. Capes
In 2014, Burberry sent models down its high-end runway with blankets draped straight over their bodies. Christopher Bailey did this because he knew how hot capes were this fall and winter; even Lupita Nyong'o, fashion's new darling and the lead actress of 12 Years a Slave, wore a cape-style gown on the red carpet. A big, heavy cape feels instantly warm, and there is plenty to play with in color and print. Whatever you wear underneath, one stylish cape is enough to turn heads.
14. Shorter Men's Shorts
Men's shorts used to come down almost to the knee, but according to The Wall Street Journal, they are in for a big change: short, short, short. In the spring/summer 2014 collections, men wore very short shorts, and the most fashionable length for men's shorts now is 5.5 inches, or 14 centimeters.
15. Bold Eyebrows
No account of 2014's makeup trends can skip the bold-eyebrow look. This unforgettable, commanding look owes much to Cara Delevingne, the hot supermodel of recent years. Her signature thick brows led many British girls to copy her, and her influence even reached film stars in China. These days you would be embarrassed to go out without drawing your brows a little thicker, and plenty of people have probably bought a good eyebrow pencil.
16. Glitter Tattoos
In 2014 you no longer needed bling jewelry to dazzle. This year celebrities and ordinary people alike swapped jewelry for glittering tattoos, and once Beyonce led the way, these sparkling tattoos were everywhere.
17. Rainbow Hair
This way of dyeing hair, long seen as fringe, became a trend in fashion and entertainment in 2014; highlights were not enough, it had to be colorful. This year hair-color consultant Aura Friedman turned the hair of all the Cool Girls pink, hot pink and gray. Kylie Jenner and Katy Perry also went bright. Who would have thought neon hair could become a normal trend? If you have the patience, about six hours in a salon will get you the look in the picture.
18. Over-the-Knee Boots
In 2014, tall boots and Dr. Martens were nothing special; what ruled was the commanding, extra-long over-the-knee boot (one take points to Stuart Weitzman's 5050 boot; this is not an ad, because what we want to say is that the non-leather part of this boot will show off poorly shaped legs). In terms of function, no other boot matches the over-the-knee boot for warmth. Paired with the equally enduring leather miniskirt, it also shows off body proportions perfectly. No wonder everyone from a "bad girl" like Lindsay Lohan to a "goddess" like Miranda Kerr needs a pair of over-the-knee boots to go out in.
19. One-Piece Swimsuits
In weather this cold it is hard to picture what swimsuit you wore last summer, but 2014 was definitely the year of the one-piece's comeback. It used to be seen as too conservative and utterly unfashionable. But with the rise of comfortable sportswear, the one-piece replaced the bikini as 2014's most fashionable swimwear. And who says one-pieces can't have variety? Exotic or minimalist, there is one for you.
20. Wilder Mixing and Matching
Mixing and matching is a trend nearly every year; only what gets mixed changes. The fall 2014 mix was especially wild. Designers combined all kinds of prints, fabrics and color blocks into a fall look that was eye-popping yet enticing to the touch. Ken Downing, fashion director at Neiman Marcus, sees this new global mix as the opposite of "cookie-cutter design." In his view, the layering of textures, tiers and shapes is "more like a fusion of many cultures than merely a fashion trend." The fusion may be a little messy, but he considers it "the most important message on the runway this fall."
Cover image from: Clothinghelper.com
Translated from the original QDaily article. Original publication date retained.