The Spring/Summer 2024 season has brought back timeless elegance with this season’s big men’s fashion shows in London, Florence, Milan and Paris showing a strong commitment toward sophisticated dressing.
The collections on display made clothes feel fresh again, with designers and high fashion brands paying close attention to how garments fit and look while staying easy and comfortable to wear. The trend shifted from street-style clothing to more practical workwear, with clothes having versatile pockets.
At the same time, the fashion industry is going through a big change toward gender-neutral fashion. More and more people are wearing clothes that don’t conform to solely one gender.
Evolving attitudes towards gender, coupled with a yearning for a more relaxed and expansive approach to attire, are at its core. Millennials and Gen Z are leading this notion of certain colours, shapes and garments not being confined to any single gender.
In essence, the fashion world is embracing gender fluidity, inclusivity and a spirited sense of play. It is also embracing the idea that anyone can wear anything, regardless of their gender.
As designers and brands venture beyond conventional confines and redefine gender norms in fashion by changing the traditional rules of who wears what, consumers find themselves with newfound avenues to genuinely express their identities through their clothing choices.
ALL THAT GLITTERS
Maintaining its presence since the Fall/Winter season, the reign of embellishments in menswear continues to soar.
Scattered across the majority of menswear collections, these adornments staunchly reject any notion of understated opulence. Classic indigo jeans at Loewe are veiled in rhinestones, while Dior’s jacket-shirt fusion boasts a lavish embroidery of crystals. The runway stories are further adorned with sequins, beadwork, glitter and textiles woven from metallic threads, showcased in the collections of Ami, Gucci, Emporio Armani and an array of others.
The trajectory of glitzy, disco ball-inspired attire is poised to cast a formidable influence in the realm of men’s fashion for the Spring/Summer 2024 season. Taking cues from the acclaim of silver trousers as a definitive style statement in women’s wardrobes during the Autumn/Winter 2022 phase, Gucci strides ahead. It unveils a panoramic all-silver ensemble during its Spring/Summer 2024 menswear exhibit.
The captivating charm is translated via lots of tiny mirror-like pieces put together, creating a colourful and shiny effect similar to the bright glow of a disco ball.
This trend presents an opportunity to embrace metallic hues and textures, infusing garments with gleaming, light-reflecting elements. Gucci’s all-silver ensemble stands as a vivid example, illustrating the potential and resonance of disco ball-inspired dressing.
As this trend gains momentum, it’s a good idea to add shiny metallic details to pieces that resonate with the disco spirit, while adding a bit of luxury to your assortment planning.
PREP SCHOOL
The Spring/Summer 2024 season finds its sartorial muse in the aesthetics of boys’ schools, as vividly portrayed on the runways of Dsquared2 and JW Anderson.
These brands paraded a medley of striped rugby shirts, cricket polos and athletic shorts, invoking a wistful ambience reminiscent of a boys’ changing room.
Notably, Jonathan Anderson himself donned an Irish rugby shirt for a show-stopping finale. Rugby shirts having asserted their trendiness in the women’s realm too, forecasting the enduring reign of the sporty allure in the impending year.
Louis Vuitton’s iconic Spring/Summer 2024 exhibit, starring Pharrell, unfurled checker prints and pixelated camouflage. Staged at the illustrious Pont Neuf in Paris, the event seized attention with its expansive runway and an illustrious audience. Louis Vuitton’s quintessential checker print — famously known as the damier print— commanded the spotlight. This pattern embellished a diverse array of pieces including bags, jackets, suits, shoes, hats and even nail art.
BLOSSOMING MASCULINITY
While florals have long graced the fashion scene, a fresh breeze has swept in with the inclusion of floral jewellery, adding a novel facet to men’s attire and further fuelling the flames of gender-fluid fashion.
This season unfolds a marked shift towards infusing classically feminine motifs into men’s fashion, mirroring the graceful dissolving of gender confines. Prada’s recent menswear exhibition catapulted the floral trend to new zeniths by reinventing everyday floral patterns into exquisite embroidered masterpieces.
This ingenious approach demonstrates how floral motifs can transcend into refined works of art, unshackling themselves from the stereotypical links to femininity.
Furthermore, floral accents proliferate across diverse fashion domains, spanning from vivid and audacious prints to subtler, subdued interpretations. This adaptability empowers individuals to weave florals into their ensembles in tune with their unique style and inclinations.
The inclusion of florals in men’s fashion not only injects visual allure but also promotes self-expression while challenging conventional gender norms. As this trend continues its evolution, it unleashes captivating opportunities for designers and brands to navigate the confluence of masculinity and floral exquisiteness.
SOOTHING NEUTRALS
From calming beiges to crisp winter whites, neutral tones effortlessly grace the early days of Spring.
This trend celebrates a subtle and simple style, highlighting minimalism and top-notch quality. Exuding a sleek and precise geometric vibe, the trend presents a youthful and fresh take on luxury.
Drawing inspiration from brutalist architecture, it combines textures of copper and gold with foundational shades like stone grey, gentle greens and earthy browns. For more formal occasions, picture harmonious and classic looks.
Designers fully embraced this trend with Max Mara Resort offering a lengthy mohair coat featuring oversized, rounded shoulders and broad lapels that were cinched at the waist with a drawstring belt and playfully adorned with pom poms in their resort collection. Meanwhile, Maximilian Davis at Ferragamo introduced an ivory-toned tunic dress with a sash belt and a matching wool gabardine shawl—an elegant embodiment of the trend’s essence.
These tones pair beautifully with finely tailored outfits and fitted designs. On the casual side, envision a playful blend—a fusion of laid-back comfort and tasteful luxury.
RED RISING
The colour red has firmly established itself as a frontrunner for the Spring/Summer 2024 season, validating the predictions laid out by fashion experts worldwide.
Louis Gérin and Grégory Lamaud, the visionary minds behind Texworld, have articulated a transformative shift away from rigidity, proclaiming the end of a world governed by efficiency and straight lines. Instead, they embrace the enigmatic path, where design flourishes through a wandering creative process.
This journey into the unknown takes on the rich tones of a deep red hue, setting the stage for the eagerly anticipated emergence of ‘Future Dusk’ in 2025.
The transformation is marked by a blend of uncertain and uneven shades, intriguingly ambiguous pigments and intricately interwoven colours. Through this unique interplay, chaos becomes a wellspring of creativity, a notion thoughtfully explored by Première Vision.
Visually, this dynamic transition translates into an abundance of red nuances that span across the spectrum of colours — carmine, crimson, brick, purple, garnet, tile and dark red, to name a few.
The dominant presence of red not only arrests the gaze but also reaffirms the value of emotional stimulation and engagement.
This symbiotic relationship between red and the care economy is accentuated by the concept of ‘Radiant Red’, as also deciphered by WGSN. The poignant hue embodies the yearning to cultivate a culture of affection, empathy and tenderness, aligning with the ethos of a more caring and loving society.
THE JUNGLE EFFECT
The Spring/Summer 2024 men’s fashion collections took out a few pages from The Jungle Book, bringing in the wonder of nature. This time around, fashion designers and brands resorted to lively green patterns and designs that take inspiration from the lush plants of the savannah on classic suits.
Comme des Garçons Homme Plus made this mix of styles look incredibly beautiful. A jungle theme became a big inspiration, with large tropical flowers on jackets and shirts— this style was approved by Sacai, Dhruv Kapoor and Valentino.
Marine Serre also joined in by using pictures of wild animals on some coats. If you looked closely, you could also spot small touches of leopard prints quietly mixed in among the designs.
This convergence of nature-inspired ideas added new energy and a feeling of excitement to the world of men’s fashion for the upcoming season – akin to bringing a sense of adventure into the clothes people will be wearing.
GREEN TEAM
Green is another hue reigning supreme for the upcoming Spring/Summer 2024 season. Its adaptability, akin to navigating ski slopes with ease, reflects our capacity to adjust. While green is often linked to the green economy and eco-friendly products, this season goes beyond traditional botanical shades like sage, lichen, olive and fir. Instead, it ventures into vibrant and luminous chromatic realms.
These brilliant greens highlight shared values such as respect and equity. Referred to as ‘cyber lime’ by WGSN, this nearly neon hue energises both body and mind. Establishing a strong connection between nature and technology, it underscores the importance of prioritising nature’s role in inspiring new colour innovations and biological materials.
Taking on various forms, including minty, lemony, or yellowish shades, especially in denim fabrics, green is transformed for the season. Lime greens also emerge, reflecting the convergence of physical and digital realities in the ‘Everything Net’ era, blending organic forms with synthetic realism.
The vivacity of these greens finds harmony through celadon and jade tones explored by textile studio Nelly Rodi. Moreover, these colours draw from precious stones, refined ceramics and the practices of lithotherapy—believed to restore functions and harmonise the body and mind. They evoke an ‘ancestral magnificence’ that reintroduces flamboyance into modern society.
OCEANIC REVERIE
Emerging first at Première Vision in February 2023, the colour blue envelops us in a rejuvenating aquatic journey. This trend in colour transcends the confines of conventional gender associations, symbolising a pivot towards fluid, gender-neutral tailoring, mirroring the blurring boundaries within the realms of masculine and feminine fashion.
A plethora of blue shades—, right from indigo, klein, denim, electric, French blue to azure— dive into the yearning for equilibrium and restraint. In an era marked by the intertwining of work, leisure and the influence of digital technology, consumers seek a harmonious blend. This yearning is influenced by the prevalent sports culture and the upcoming 2024 Olympics, which echoes the lifestyle of the Spring/Summer 2024 season.
Spanning from the depths of indigo to the expanses of sky blue, this colour symbolises a necessity for perspective and space amidst tumultuous times. It captures the enigmatic balance between swift responses to immediate demands and the acknowledgment that all things require time.
Nelly Rodi correlates this sentiment with the surge in outdoor tourism, reflecting a primal urge for motion and movement. Above all, the revitalising embrace of oceanic blues encapsulates the notion that nothing truly perishes; instead, it undergoes a metamorphosis in shape, purpose and even nomenclature.
This philosophy invites us to reclaim our capacity to perceive, to welcome change and to embrace the novel contours of the world, as eloquently phrased by Texworld.
