As the year draws to a close it’s always fun to look back at dubious fashion trends, hoping that we have seen the last of them in 2022.
In next week’s column we’ll discuss some trends on the horizon for 2023 which are worth celebrating, but this week I’m going to go full Grinch.
Here are a few I’d be happy to say goodbye to right now.
Rectangle sunglasses
The ones that resemble the glasses you’d wear in a 3D cinema.
They’re hideous, they suit no one and the lolly-coloured plastic frames look cheap and nasty.
I don’t know where the sunglasses trends start now, probably TikTok, and I guess they look OK on over-moisturised young women, but they look silly on adult men.
Case in point, my son was on holidays recently in Fiji with his girlfriend and was updating me with photos.
She looked like a goddess, wearing matching bandeau tops and long skirts with beautiful cat’s eye sunglasses while he looked like he should be at the kid’s pool.
Crochet
Fashion tries to bring back crochet every few seasons, trying to give it an artisanal quirky feeling, but once you see it hanging on the rack in Zara it has about as much appeal as a second-hand throw rug at a fete.
A tip for Gen Z: If you can pull off either a crochet tank top or a granny cardigan, you can’t even imagine how fantastic you’ll look in ribbed silk cashmere with a couple of buttons undone.
Grandma cardigans
They were cute at first, all that patchwork and embroidery and lacy collars but they only work on the very young, death by dowdiness if worn by the over 30s.
Cut-outs
They feel gimmicky now.
It was a cruel trend to present after two years of COVID lockdown, when we’ve all been inside eating two breakfasts.
But we have now seen cut-outs in every area, backs, midriffs necklines, knees, breasts.
There was a cut-out example last week worn by Kimberly Guilfoyle, partner of Donald Trump Junior, that was so gobsmackingly awful I don’t even have words for it.
24/7 activewear
It is nice to see that our attachment to activewear post COVID is gradually starting to shift, and people are now wearing actual clothes – everywhere I look I see tailored jackets and pants, summer dresses, linen shorts and shirts in gelato colours and it feels positive and upbeat.
Elements of activewear will always remain with us, like a crop top under a jacket, bike shorts with a little trench or track pants in a glittering fabric for night.
Kanye West
Maybe we’re going to see the end of big egos and big personalities dominating the fashion shows, make some space for creativity and let fashion lovers concentrate on the clothes.
He was doing my head in a few years ago with his quasi-religious cult events and his visits to Donald Trump, but his latest antisemitic rants may finally see him shunned.
But who knows? Fashion is fickle.
