A GUIDE TO THE FUTURE AND NEXT SEASON’S PRODUCTS
Shared from SSENSE. Click to Read More.
Each change in season presents us with new fashion forces. As the attitudes and approaches of the industry’s most influential designers shift, we gravitate towards (and sometimes repel against) particular trends as a result. For Spring/Summer 2018, the SSENSE editors share with you their two-part preview of what’s in store.
POST-HUMAN, PRE-CRYSTAL PART 2
There is nothing like a new, obsessively used and zeitgeist-y app, to capture just how dark things are right now. Consider Kirakira (which means sparkly in Japanese), the app that adds cartoon-like Cinderella glitter to images and video. Everybody’s using it. Everybody’s looking just a little bit sequined. Just a little bit Petra Collins-ed. Human disco balls, if you will, shining bright, repelling the blues, the doom. Just look at the runway. Comme des Garçons Homme Plus collection: those basketball shorts and blazers. Frank Ocean on the cover of 032c. Or Paco Rabanne’s glitter-rich, tinsel landscape and Gucci’s studded shades and glammed-up, slinky, Jessica Rabbit silhouettes. It’s time. Go forth! Unleash your outer sparkle.
TIE-DYE TRIP
Here at the SSENSE Labs™ we believe it is no coincidence that with weed legalization on the rise, tie-dye has started working its way back onto the runway and into our wardrobes. For Spring/Summer 2018 Gosha Rubchinskiy, Kwaidan Editions, Baja East, Faith Connexion, and more, all celebrated this beloved psychedelic print. One must wonder, in a world where everyone’s stoned, might it change our sartorial sensibilities? Might we all find ourselves drifting toward beads and Birkenstocks? Will a canvas drawstring bag with a faded portrait of Bob Marley on the back become 2019’s it-bag? Who knows. But something about staring into a turbulent, kaleidoscopic vortex of color (especially after 2017) just feels good, man.
EVERYDAY SALESMAN
Finally, a look that doesn’t shy away from the fact that we are all tasked with the job of perpetually selling ourselves, whether we want to or not. And if we are all in sales, we might as well own it. The ill-fitting suits you might have tried on from your parents’ closet have marched out from hiding and are back on the runway. But think more hyperbolic silhouettes and 80s palettes, and less smart, tailored minimalism. You can’t trust clean-cut sincerity anymore, but a clear suitcase shows you have nothing to hide. Get salesman smarmy—when every day is casual Friday, exaggerated suits and sunglasses are basically, somehow, the new punk.
THE COLOR BLACK’S OBITUARY
"Monochrome Black, Fashion's Gothic Uniform, Dies at Age Unknown"
The all-black ensemble passed away last season, leaving behind thousands of New York minimalists, grunge kids, and street urchins. Predeceased by the normcore phenomenon and survived by a return to neon and primary colors, monochrome black lived a life of controversy. AsAnn Demeulemeester once said, "Black is not sad. Bright colors are what depress me," yet others would disagree—when asked what she would never wear, Anna Wintour responded, "head-to-toe black." Whether or not you were on-board the trend, you are invited to show your condolences this season in color. Anything is the new black.