Did you have Beyoncé in a cowboy hat or Zendaya in a cyborg suit on your 2024 bingo card? Did you consume way too much of a lurid neon ‘brat green’? Did you call the big Chanel move right? From memes to method dressing, the high street to high drama couture, debuts to exits, these are (just a few) of the moments that made fashion news in 2024.
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The brat pack
An adjective, not a noun – referring to party-hopping, hot-mess hedonists rather than toddlers in a toy store – is there anything left to say about ‘brat’? It might have started out as a Charli XCX album name, but brat grew way bigger, very quickly and had a chokehold on culture during a seemingly endless brat summer. It entered the US election chat (‘Kamala is brat’), it was named Collins Word of the Year, it was shoehorned into many a marketing meme (from skincare and cleaning products to – checks notes – NATO). And in fashion? Blame brat for the surplus of lurid green in 2024; thank it giving you permission to be a bit of a mess – pressed shirts and brushed hair and 10/10 hygiene are not very brat.
Peak method dressing
Babe, did you think that the wrapping up of the Barbie promo tour would be the end of the method-dressing moment? Nuh uh, it’s only just getting started! There was Zendaya’s excellent Challengers tourdrobe, serving up ace after ace with her high-fashion take on tennis (see also her Dune: Part Two looks, including a red carpet debut for Torishéju Dumi and the 1995 Thierry Mugler cyborg jumpsuit – Law Roach, we bow down). And of course, the year has bowed out with the Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande on Wicked duties. Some forays were less successful than others (ahem, Blake Lively’s It Ends With Us florals misfire) but don’t think this is the end for method dressing – Wicked: For Good is coming in 2025.
The Goldberg girls
Ayo Edebiri. Greta Lee. Solange Knowles. The coolest girls on the red carpet were dressed by the super stylist Danielle Goldberg, bringing left-field luxe to Hollywood via Loewe, The Row, Alaïa and a smattering of emerging designers. She also picked up Saoirse Ronan as a client and gave effective fashion rebrand that felt both novel and true to Ronan’s essence.
Designer musical chairs
It was a big year for designer debuts (including Alessandro Michele at Valentino, Seán McGirr at Alexander McQueen and Adrian Appiolaza at Moschino) but a bigger one for gossip. Throwing it out there: the Succession-shaped hole in 2024 was filled by feverish speculation about who would head up some of the biggest creative director jobs in fashion – not least Chanel. The Parisian mega maison finally announced the phenomenally talented Matthieu Blazy as Virginie Viard’s successor in December, with Louise Trotter stepping into his former role at Bottega Veneta. Don’t think that marks the end of it, however… Where exactly is Hedi going?!
A boho bounce-back
Another debut to note was that of Chemena Kamali at Chloé. Her knockout first collection in Paris this February heralded the return of much-maligned, but clearly missed-much-more, boho luxe. Cascading ruffles, jangly belts, platform clogs (seemingly on all of the celebrity-packed FROW) her free-spirits were a breath of fresh air. Sienna Miller has, naturally, been an early adopter of Kamali’s Chloé, but so have Daisy Edgar Jones, Olivia Wilde, Beyoncé, Kaia Gerber and Zoe Saldana. The biggest reveal that the revived boho has resonance, however, is the thousands of Chloé-lite ‘interpretations’ on the high street
The high street hit of the year
Our love for leopard shows no sign of slowing down, just look at those £45 M&S animal print jeans. Were you one of the 12,000 on the waitlist?
‘Very demure, very mindful’
Jools Lebron’s viral TikTok moment got the content creator a spot on the Bottega FROW. NBD.
Labour’s First Lady Loves…
ME+EM. Lady Victoria Starmer has worn the mid-market Brit brand on several occasions. The red dress (she’s a master of coded, diplomatic dressing, much like fellow ME+EM fan Princess Kate) she wore to enter Downing Street sold out pronto.
Victoria’s Secret
Back from hiatus, the Victoria’s Secret catwalk had jumbo wings, lace, Cher, push-up bras, slinky slips, a former first lady of France (Carla Bruni), Kate and Lila Moss, Emmanuelle Alt on styling duties, a gaggle of only-one-name-required supers (Adriana! Eva! Irina! Joan!) and, yes, a smidge more diversity – Alex Consani becoming the first trans model to walk for the underwear brand, a handful of models in their forties and fifties, some non-sample sized girls. But did anyone really care? Hmmm… Tip: Lauren Sherman and Chantal Fernandez’s Selling Sexy: Victoria’s Secret and the Unravelling of an American Brand is a deep dive that’s also fulfilling entertainment.
Vanishing act
Semaglutide injections – Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro – as a beauty tool (rather than a medicinal one) continue to grow in popularity. In fashion, that translated to a remarkably skinny season both on – and off – the runways.
Farewell, Matches
Two months after it acquired the beloved multi-brand luxury retailer, Frasers put Matches into administration. But it wasn’t all gloom; Dover Street Market celebrated its 20th anniversary proving that there is still an appetite for stores with personality, opinion and expertise.
Jonathan Anderson’s Hollywood moment
Reliably interesting and indefatigably curious, the formidably talented Jonathan Anderson produced some of this year’s best collections (Loewe SS25 was a mic-drop). But he’s not stopping there. Having already parlayed his love of art into curatorial roles, for his next act he’s taken on film. Anderson created the costumes for his friend Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers and Queer. I TOLD YA!
The viral show
The show that proved why fashion shows should still exist, John Galliano’s transportive, transcendent Maison Margiela Artisanal couture presentation duly went viral. It would also be Galliano’s swansong show for the house – he announced his resignation from Margiela after a decade as creative director, in a moving statement. ‘When the time is right, all will be revealed’ he teased.
Yee haw!
Houston girl Beyoncé went full Stetson, chaps, giddy-up boots and bolo tie to mark the arrival of her Cowboy Carter era. Also looking to the Wild Wild West for inspiration were Pharrell Williams’ AW24 Louis Vuitton collection and Bella ‘dating a real cowboy’ Hadid. Want more? Highly recommend you get into Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan’s Texas oil-fields drama Landman on Paramount+ over the holidays.
Best supporting runway appearance
When you’re used to walking red carpets, stadium tunnels and the Met Gala stairs, it’s not a big leap to take that strut onto the runway. Celebrities came for the catwalks this year, including Lil Simz, Troye Sivan, Hilary Swank and Willem Dafoe (all Miu Miu AW24 and SS25), Romeo Beckham (Balenciaga), Alexa Chung (Tory Burch), and Declan Rice (Labrum). Plus, front-row fixture Kylie Jenner followed in the footsteps of her sisters, closing the Coperni show (and the SS25 show season) at Disneyland Paris.
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