2024 was a year of fashion ephemera, whereby designers spoke not only through the clothing they showed on the runway, but the objects which they chose to populate their universes. The result was a conveyor of printed publications, furniture, artist collaborations, edible produce and collectable invites, which were often as intriguing and illuminating as the collections themselves.
Here, we look towards seven objects which tell the story of fashion in 2024, none of which are items of clothing or accessories. Some speak of a newly intimate relationship between fashion and design, like Sabato De Sarno’s reissue of an Enzo Mari classic for Gucci, while others – like Willy Chavarria’s enormous American flag – symbolise an engagement with the wider political landscape. Others are simply gleefully surreal: Blonde Ambition Madonna wigs at Dolce & Gabbana, JW Anderson’s pint of Guinness, or a series of giant cats at Dior Men.
Collated by Wallpaper* fashion features editor Jack Moss, together they provide an unconventional but illuminating portrait of style in 2024.
Bottega Veneta’s beanbag animals
Matthieu Blazy said he wanted his S/S 2025 collection for Bottega Veneta to capture the ‘power of wow’, mining a mood of childlike wonder for a vibrant collection which featured animal motifs, colourful tasselled wigs, plays on corner-shop plastic bags, crocheted flowers and enormous tailoring, as if a child was playing dress up in their parents’ clothing. It captured a new mood of eclecticism that pulsated through the season – from Prada to Louis Vuitton – and was presented in Milan amid a menagerie of leather beanbag animals. Inspired by Zanotta’s Sacco easy chair, each guest had a different animal – from yellow chicks to killer whales and foxes – with Blazy saying that he was inspired by the scene in E.T. whereby the titular extra-terrestrial conceals himself in a closet full of soft toys. Looking through a child’s eyes, said Blazy, allowed him to take a creative leap. ‘In a kid’s world everything is possible. You can really approach reality in a different way.’ It would also prove to be his final show for the house: last week, he was announced as the new artistic director of Chanel (at Bottega Veneta, Louise Trotter will take the helm). Read more.
Gucci’s reissue of Enzo Mari’s perpetual calendar
Since the beginning of his tenure as creative director of Gucci, Sabato De Sarno has forged links with the design world: in 2023, just after his appointment, he collaborated with a slew of Italian furniture titans to reissue their most memorable pieces in his own signature shade of oxblood ‘Ancora’ red (the project included designs by Piero Castiglioni, Mario Bellini, Tobia Scarpa, and more). It fit with a wider embrace of the design world from fashion in 2024 – proved by the numerous houses which took over this year’s Salone del Mobile – and was complemented later in the year with a reissue of Enzo Mari’s perpetual calendar, which served as the invite for De Sarno’s S/S 2025 womenswear show in Milan. It reflected a collection he described as about ‘a precise moment in time... a moment to seize and live to the fullest. This collection is a tribute to those moments, and an invitation to stop, seek your own moment.’ Read more.
Dolce & Gabbana’s Madonna wigs
It was perhaps Milan Fashion Week’s worst-kept secret: Madonna, the queen of pop, would be turning up to Dolce & Gabbana’s S/S 2025 show (she is a longtime wearer of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana’s high-voltage clothing). Arriving clad in a black veil and evoking the house’s brand of Sicilian glamour, the show itself would prove an ode to the musician, with each and every model clad in a Blonde Ambition-esque wig and wearing riffs on Madonna’s signature outfits, including Jean Paul-Gaultier’s pneumatic cone bra. It was a reminder of the fashion show as entertainment, a joyous celebration of a figure who has long defined pop culture – indeed, fashion. ‘Madonna has always been our icon. It’s thanks to her that a lot of things in our lives changed,’ the designers said, embracing a clearly emotional Madonna at the end of the show.
JW Anderson’s pint of Guinness
In one of the more unexpected – and yet somehow totally fitting – fashion collaborations of 2024, JW Anderson united with Irish stout producers Guinness for a capsule collection which first appeared as part of the brand’s S/S 2025 menswear show this past June in Milan. Encapsulating Jonathan Anderson’s eye for the idiosyncratic, historical Guinness advertising adorned sweaters and T-shirts in the playful capsule. ‘I’ve always been obsessed by Guinness and their brand,’ he said. ‘I think they are still today one of the greatest advertisers... I’ve always wanted to be able to show some of it, because in fashion we think we are so radical but actually, Guinness was way before all of that.’ It made for perhaps 2024’s best fashion party: a celebrity-filled Guinness-on-tap booze-up at buzzy London pub The Devonshire, purportedly the best pull of Guinness in town (we drunk responsibly, of course).
Hylton Nel’s cats at Dior Men
‘Homepsun monumentalism’ is how Kim Jones described the work of South African potter-artist Hylton Nel, who provided the inspiration behind his latest collection for Dior Men. On the runway, Nel’s playful, naive cat sculptures – which feature hand-drawn motifs and anthropomorphic elements – were blown up to enormous size, while the collection itself the artist’s work became pins, embroidery and intarsia knits. ‘He’s an old friend of mine, I’ve known him maybe 12 years,’ Jones told Wallpaper*. ‘I love his work, and I wanted to take that idea of working with an artist and working it through the Dior archive.’ Capturing not only the veneration of homespun craft which has run throughout the year’s collections, but it was also one of a slew of art-led show sets, from Jonathan Lyndon Chase’s twisted living room for Acne Studios to Gary Hume’s reimagining of a 1990 work to backdrop Burberry’s S/S 2025 show in London. Read more.
Miu Miu’s ‘The Truthless Times’ newspaper
Miu Miu‘s S/S 2025 show took place amid a set created by London-based, Poland-born artist Goshka Macuga, evocative of a printing press. Over the ceiling ran moving conveyors of hundreds of hanging newspapers: copies of ‘The Truthless Times’, a satirical publication dreamt up by Macuga to capture the disorientating times in which we live (‘Endings Unending as Future Moves to Past’ ran one of the purposely impenetrable headlines). ‘The struggle for truth and meaning in contemporary society,’ said Macuga of the installation, which also featured a short film of sparring lovers amid a futuristic printers (the work was also part of Art Basel Paris 2024 later in the year, supported by the brand). Miuccia Prada responded with a collection which looked towards youth – a ‘period of absolute truth.’ ‘It’s a reaction to an era of overstimulation and over-information, simplicity in clothing may offer clarity and precision, and serve as an honest frame of character,’ elaborated the ever-perceptive designer.
Willy Chavarria’s American flag
Willy Chavarria’s S/S 2025 show was titled ‘América’ – a nod, said the designer, to the immigrant communities who take on the weight of the country’s labour (Chavarria is of Mexican-American descent). Taking place on Wall Street – a temple to American commerce – the show’s runway was backdropped by an enormous American flag. It was given greater significance by the then-looming American election, which would take place two months afterwards in November (as guests left they were given a sticker to remind them to vote). ‘Given the time that we're in – around the corner from a major election – I wanted to shine light on the people who make this country work, and also celebrate immigration and those people who have built the country and are still the backbone of the country,’ he told Wallpaper* at the time, reflecting a wider mood at New York Fashion Week whereby designers grappled what it meant to be an American designer today. ‘We haven't had the opportunities or the benefits that a lot of our white brothers and sisters have had. It's about giving, showing dignity to all of these people.’ Read more.
