2024 was a year of whiplash cultural change in every arena. Political careers were built while others faltered, pop iconography saw the birth of a new queen in the form of Charli xcx, and as usual poignant memes acted as chronological touchstones along the way. With culture changing at such a rapid pace, it can sometimes be hard to keep up! Major fashion houses decided on their successors as Matthieu Blazy moved to CHANEL and Alessandro Michele to Valentino, while others lost their storied leaders, like Galliano’s departure from Maison Margiela. It makes one excited to see what will happen in the fashionverse come the New Year.

Adverse aesthetics jostled one another in a crowded room, entreating fashion lovers to each follow a respective path. Am I a fashion deconstructivist? Maybe antifashion? How about indie sleaze or maybe soft glam rock? Am I a Terry cloth prep or more of a longline cashmere duster chill girl? Moreover, what reference am I evoking and how can I make it as coded as possible whilst also being recognizable to my peers with the same taste? Whatever your sartorial and cultural inclinations, 2024 was a year that had something for everyone. 

Very Minure, Very Mindful

Lest we forget the adage that ruled over all of us this year and encouraged us to take on the effect of a prudent, cardigan-wearing secretary. In all of our demureness and mindfulness, we broke away from the oversized, shirred, and distressed antifashion of the likes of Balenciaga, Maison Margiela, and Vetements. Instead, we moved toward a modernized Audrey Hepburn girlishness of prim skirt suits, minimal makeup, and thin-rimmed rectangular glasses. Think The Row, Mame Kurogouchi, and old Céline. This year the mindful, demure woman bridged the divide between the golf-driving Polo Lounge prep and the coquettish The Devil Wears Prada office siren.

Brat Summer

Brat Summer was the utter antithesis to our mindful and demure lives. With the release of Brat and the co-headlining of the Sweat Tour, Charli xcx synthesized the anti-establishment ethos of punk with the nowness of hyperpop. Over Brat Summer, we didn’t vape—we smoked cigarettes. We didn’t sip our drinks—we chugged. We exchanged our nice crisp wool gabardines for tattered denim jackets and wore our eye makeup in a smokey haze à la Tom Ford’s opium den reveries at Gucci. The long reign of the “clean girl” dissipated in front of our eyes in favour of an aesthetic return to the messy, alcohol-soaked floors of the nightclubs of the 2010s.

Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance

No other movie this year penetrated our vanity and reminded us of our split subjectivity like Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance. Unable to accept the loss of her celebrity as she ages, Elisabeth (Demi Moore) takes a pharmaceutical injection known as “the substance” that splits her into two versions of herself; the fifty-year-old Elisabeth and the young, beautiful Sue (Margaret Qualley). Concomitant with taking the substance is that only one of the pair can be living at a time, and the two must alternate between life and medically sustained stasis every seven days or risk death. Although visually gruesome, the film is oddly therapeutic. It reminds me of the devastating consequences of letting one’s desire run amok. In the wake of Ozempic-mania, The Substance is a welcome commentary on the unchecked pursuit of feminine beauty.

Brittany Murphy’s 2005 Balletcore

Is there a fashion icon more revered than Brittany Murphy, may she rest in peace? This year, the fashion internet sustained the relevance of balletcore with the resurgence of that iconic photograph of Brittany Murphy smoking outside of a ballet class circa 2005. She wears a black ballet leotard, baby pink thigh-high stirrup socks, and black almond-toe Louboutins—all while carrying a CHANEL purse and Louis Vuitton bag. Not since the 1980s have stirruped legwear been such a chic addition to an otherwise maudlin outfit. Dare I say we will witness the return of the adult tutu in 2025?

Holding Space

This was perhaps the most bizarre yet mesmerizing cultural moment of 2024. It was so ubiquitously shared on social media that I don’t even know that I need to describe it, but for journalistic purposes, I will. A placid Tracy Gilchrist interviews Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande for the Wicked press tour. Gilchrist remarks that she has seen people “holding space” for the lyrics of “Defying Gravity”. Erivo intently responds that she hasn’t witnessed the same phenomenon, and shares a meaningful look with Grande while Grande grasps one of Erivo’s fingers in a show of emotional support. There is an oddly tense back-and-forth about whether or not the “holding space” actually transpired, and Gilchrist reminds the two of her media credentials. Happy endings, though, as the parties come to a mutual agreement that the holding of the space did indeed take place.

Alex Consani is Fashion Model of the Year

Alex Consani became the first ever transgender model to be named Fashion Model of the Year at the British Fashion Awards. The decision wasn’t without controversy, however, as some detractors argued that Consani, as a transgender woman, should not be nominable for the female-only category. Consani confronted another one of these firsts this year when she and Brazilian model Valentina Sampaio walked the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show as the first transgender models ever to do so. My hope for 2025 is that we can confront these firsts for transgender women with a little less vitriol and a little more reason and compassion.

The Tabi is Cool Again

The Tabi silhouette has held many cultural significances throughout its centuries-long history, but none more self-referential than the Maison Margiela’s iteration of the Tabi shoe. Though its popularity amongst fashion heads has waxed and waned over time, the Tabi shoe entered a new identitarian iteration this year – post-ironic. No longer is it some kind of smarmy in-joke to wear Tabis and thus embody the meme of the “Tabi wearer” who supposedly has a just-beyond superficial taste in fashion. This year, Tabis shifted back to their rightful cultural place of being a shoe that is perfectly ugly-chic – an easy way to inject spectacle into what might otherwise be a bland outfit.