2023 Fashion Predictions

What's going down in fashion this year

Well, 2022 was a whirlwind year, wasn’t it? Call it a whirlwind, call it a car crash, call it complete and utter chaos. Whatever way you look at it and whatever you end up calling it shit went down in 2022 and something tells me this year won’t be any different. Change is in the air so brace yourselves, things are going to go down in fashion in 2023.

Pandemic-related restrictions are out the window and with that comes a return to and a resurgence of IRL events. The fashion calendar is about to become jam-packed as people go all out, not only as they gear up for fashion month and the typical seasonal fashion calendar, but as the way they dress every day changes too. We’ll probably see a lot of fashion firsts this year and a whole lot of drama and intrigue, so here are my top predictions on what you can expect to see in fashion in the year ahead.

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Collage by J’Nae Phillips.

Fashion is going conceptual

In 2022 designers such as Alexander McQueen, Raf Simons and Roksanda Ilincic took advantage of Frieze art fair, with many art world individuals noting that if you’ve got a ton of money to spend on a painting or two then you’ve probably got a wad of cash you can spend on clothes as well. Now fashion and arts' mutually beneficial crossover is in full force this blossoming relationship is likely to get more and more intense. Art and fashions relationship is now more intrinsically linked than ever with a roster of events set to take place in 2023: from the Thierry Mugler: Couturissime exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum to the Gianni Versace Retrospective at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands and the Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, to this years Met Gala playing homage to Karl Lagerfeld and Louis Vuitton's ongoing relationship with Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, art and fashion have become one.

The new vanguard

Creative directors at major fashion houses are coming and going at such a breakneck speed it's hard to keep up. Last year Tisci exited Burberry and was quickly replaced by Daniel Lee who’d only departed from Bottega Veneta the year prior, Alessandro Michele’s shock departure from Gucci was a surprise to those who’ve come to love his quirky kitsch aesthetic, and this year will be Tom Ford’s final year as creative director of his namesake label after selling to Estee Lauder. Out with the old and in with the new as they say, and with that fresh talent is entering the fashion sphere to lead many major brands in a new direction. Maximilian Davis is in at Ferragamo, A Bathing Ape creator Nigo is the artistic director of Kenzo, Tremaine Emory was named the first ever creative director of Supreme, and Ludovic de Saint Sernin took the helm at Ann Demeulemeester. A fashionable shake-up is afoot.