What to Expect from Fashion in 2022

If there's one thing we've learned in recent years, perhaps it ought to be that preempting anything is now fundamentally off the cards. All things considered, it turns out, for all our predictions and resolutions, our trend forecasting and carefully considered projections, that we don't really have any idea what's around the corner.

And while that chiefly refers to — well, you know, everything — it also holds true for fashion. I mean, who had "FENDI and Versace pull a Montagues-and-Capulets-level truce and surprise us all with a joint collection (somewhat less surprisingly) dubbed FENDACE" on their bingo card for the year?

No, I didn't think so.

Nevertheless, we still like to have our fun. And, I think, we all probably deserve it more than ever. With that in mind, then, let’s look to the future: what, tentatively, can we expect in 2022?

With Demna now dedicating his time to linking historic fashion houses with children's games and outdated cartoons, Guram Gvasalia is stepping up — or sideways, at least — at Guram Gvasalia is stepping up and taking the reins as Creative Director.

As co-founder of the irreverent label, Guram isn't exactly a fresh face at the company; before this move and Demna’s official departure in 2019, he was CEO, overseeing the business end of the brand — which, it seems, he was pretty good at. Unlike his older brother, though, Guram Gvasalia has no formal training in fashion — to that end he may not be new blood at the label, but his tenure does have the potential to bring fresh eyes and a new approach, free from the kind of limitations that can only be learned.

Elsewhere, BAPE founder NIGO, having arrived at KENZO last year, will be showing us what the future of the house looks like in a world without the label’s founder – who sadly passed away in 2020, although he resigned his creative directorship of the label in 1999 – and post-Olivieira Baptista. Expect more cultural and counter-cultural intertextuality and further forays into collaboration and popular culture.

Another in a long list, after Daniel Lee’s surprise departure from Bottega Veneta at the tail-end of 2021, Matthieu Blazy’s appointment to the position of creative director will make for an interesting watch. With Lee having more or less entirely reinvigorated the house with his “New Bottega” concept, the appointment of an insider by Kering – Blazy being the brand’s former design director – shows a desire for continuity at the label. But it’s hard to imagine anyone not wanting to make their own mark – especially when their predecessor was given so much creative licence.

And, of course, in Paris we are heading into the new year still anticipating the news of who will pick up where Virgil Abloh — sadly, and far too early — left off.

The trend for Matrix-inspired fashion— from cyberpunk boots and coats to tiny sunglasses — has endured, albeit at varying levels of popularity, for longer than pretty much any other similar sartorial fad.

In fact, it's been almost 20 years since the third instalment of the original trilogy was released and the franchise’s stranglehold on fashion (sometimes gentle, sometimes a full-throttle asphyxiation) has shown no real signs of disappearing.

Still, perhaps the release of Resurrections — a fourth episode in the series, some eighteen years now down the line — might be enough to have people chugging a fistful of red pills and asking, “Wait, is that really what I look like?”

Only fitting then, if Matrix-oriented fashion might be on its way out, that we should get an immediate replacement. One that aligns less with the sartorial spirit of the franchise and more with the actual narrative.

Granted, there are a few key details that don't quite align — namely the decimation and conversion to battery cells of humankind by intelligent machines — but, nonetheless, we're strutting in to a 2022 that promises an expanding digital universe complete with its own styles and trends, unconstrained by the possibilities of physical design.

It’s hard to know what this will look like because the rules, where there are any, are different. But what we do know, with the rapid rise of NFT fashion, and Facebook’s concerted push to promote the product, is that we’ll be looking at more and more advances in the technology and more and more unexpected style choices to match — advisable or otherwise.

With the steady filtering of streetwear into fashion over the last few years, we’re now experiencing the natural progression of that uneasy merger.

True, it's hardly new for sportswear brands — your adidas, your Nike, your PUMA, etc. — to put the work in when it comes to making their clothes wearable outside the athletic sphere. And true, too, even at the purest end of that — brands who exist, theoretically, only in that realm on a highly technical level — labels like Satisfy and Ciele are making the case for running unashamedly in the cold light of day.

Nevertheless, the real breakthrough for 2022 looks to be coming from Fashion itself; a last-minute collaboration between Nike and COMME des GARÇONS at the end of this year having shown us just what can be done with more than a little outside-of-the-box thinking, and PRADA’s continued work with adidas now finally bearing fruit when it comes to style.

This, of course, is not an exhaustive list. And, of course, the future remains unwritten. Nonetheless, these are just some things to look for in the twelve months ahead; a year that will, undoubtedly, bring its own surprises.