What we wore in 2024, and what we’ll wear next

The return of boho style is tipped to enter a new chapter, amid a growing desire for fashion that lasts beyond trends.

Sienna Miller attends the Chloe womenswear fall/winter 2024-2025 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on February 29, 2024. Picture: Getty Images

A year is a long time in fashion, which is probably why it takes 20 of them for something to be considered vintage. Meaning that yes, those low-rise jeans and ultra-wide belts worn circa 2004 are very much vintage. The other funny thing about fashion is that it’s about what’s next (and next), it’s also cyclical. Take the low-rise jeans mentioned above. Their return in the past few seasons – including, shock and horror, skinny jeans – was alarming to many of us who lived through them the first time. In 2024 a similar foreboding accompanied one of the most pervasive fashion trends – the return of boho.

Last fully experienced in the early aughts when British actor and eternal It-girl Sienna Miller was a constant jangly coin-belt wearing presence, the return of boho was signalled at the debut show of Chemena Kamali at French fashion house Chloe. Miller, perched in the front row, wore a wafty white lacy dress, leather jacket and the Chloe wooden wedge sandals heard around the world.

The show, very true to the spirit of the Chloe woman – one first imagined by the house’s free-thinking founder Gaby Aghion, who is credited with inventing “ready-to-wear” clothing as we know it – was something of a gear change in fashion. As Kamali has said herself, it was not so much about bringing boho back as it was capturing a certain spirit and a way of dressing that many women missed during the seemingly unending reign of minimalist fashion.

A model walks the runway during the Chloe womenswear spring-summer 2025 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on September 26, 2024. Picture: Getty Images

On that, the year was one for rebelling against the ‘‘homogeny’’ of fashion. This is not merely the unending minimalism and yes, quiet luxury, that has dominated recent seasons, but the feeling that social media has flattened people’s own preferences and personal tastes by serving up the same looks for everyone. At the most recent Prada fashion show in Milan co-creative directors Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons mused on the flattening of personal style that the ‘‘algorithm’’ can wreak.

As the show notes set out: “Today is a period of endless information, driven by algorithms where each person sees their own version of the present, their own reality curated for them.” What the show stressed, with a runway show filled with a delightfully madcap array of pieces – nodding to Prada’s archives and a futuristic vision – was ideas of personal style that can’t be created by wearing only what you see others wearing. It proved that real style is original and unique, bringing together what really ought not to have worked together but somehow did. Think a silver sequined dress with a yellow windbreaker or leather swimmers with a brown suede coat.

This breaking down of ‘‘rules’’ fits with other key trends from 2024. Shorts became appropriate for the office, with the likes of Chanel and Givenchy sending tailored short suits down the runway. You can get the look from labels such as Frankie Shop and Swedish brand Toteme too.

Irish actor Paul Mescal can also be blamed for their ever-increasing brevity and stamp of approval as red carpet garb. Though it must be said, not everybody is on board with shorts that are quite so … short. Mescal, meanwhile, has also done the lord’s work in making cardigans rather sexy with his itty bitty takes on the once immovably sensible garment (so too models such as Kaia Gerber and Bella Hadid).

There was also the embrace of double denim, in previously unimaginably luxurious ways, there was an uptake of lady-like elegance – spied everywhere from Miu Miu to Celine – and leopard print officially became a ‘‘neutral’’. There were banker pinstripes and ’80s bubble hems, point toe pumps, cardigans were never sexier and sequins are now for day time. The point being that by now we should embrace the idea that everything goes.

As for the much whispered phrase of 2023 – Quiet Luxury – according to Kate Benson, buying director at luxury online retailer Net-a-Porter, it’s over. “After a period of Quiet Luxury ruling the trends, brands are decisively moving away from this and doubling down on their DNA and being much bolder in their aesthetics,” she says.

Benson also believes the boho trend that returned in 2023 will see a new chapter this year – she’s already noticed more brands getting into its flow.

70s-inspired pussybow blouses fit with the vibe for next year. Image via Net-a-Porter

“I particularly loved the romantic dresses and skirts at the Saint Laurent show. This also translated into some of the best non-apparel for the season with suede-fringed bags from Valentino and moccasins from Isabel Marant,” she says.

When it comes to a fashion muse for 2025 Benson says we should expect a 70s vibe.

“This season it feels appropriate to look to 70s style icons taking a layered, maximalist approach to dressing. I have Loulou de la Falaise on my mood board for her cool, nonchalant style. The bold jewellery in the Saint Laurent SS25 show harked back to the design collaborations that she did with Yves Saint Laurent so she feels particularly relevant,” she says. At the top of her own wish list is a pair of crochet sandals from the brand Kashura and a Chloe ruched Runway jacket.

Another change in the way we dressed last year that will carry through? Sexiness. In a recent interview on the podcast Fashion People stylist Allison Bornstein – who went viral for her ‘‘three word’’ approach to getting dressed (for example, her own: “classic, 70s and elegant”) says clients are wanting to dress a whole lot sexier than in the past.

What people want now, she says, is a little more slink and drape. At least five people told her recently that they want to dress like Sylvie on Emily in Paris.

A sheer look from Ganni.

Camilla and Marc’s Camilla Freeman-Topper agrees that this year we’ll be dressing with elevated slinkiness and chic contrariness. “2025 has a distinctly dressed up, grown up quality in the silhouette, with a subtle and refined element of sexy,” she says.

“It’s about a mood rather than a trend and investing in special wardrobe pieces you will wear and love for years, and that will take you anywhere. You’ll see women wearing suede trenches and pony hair pumps, perfectly tailored deconstructed wool trousers, or a sheer draped dress styled under a utilitarian long line coat. She’s effortlessly chic,” she says of 2025’s woman.

Freeman-Topper succinctly sums up what she hopes people will leave behind: “Dressing for other people.”

That resonates with Anna McLaren, founder and creative director of Australian label A.EMERY. In 2025 McClaren hopes to see more people truly dressing for themselves, with “a more curated approach to dressing, where personal style truly shines”.

Nobody has done more for shorts than Irish actor Paul Mescal. Picture: Getty Images

“We envision people styling timeless wardrobe staples in their own distinctive way, carrying these pieces across seasons with intention,” McLaren says.

Indeed Ditte Reffstrup, creative director of cult Danish brand Ganni, thinks 2025 might be the year that we leave trends behind.

“I think we’ll see a return to more sustainable and timeless pieces. There’s a growing desire for fashion that lasts beyond trends, with classic silhouettes making a strong comeback,” she says.

“People will be moving towards more versatile, investment pieces that can be styled in many ways. I’d like to see more focus on individual style, craftsmanship and self-expression, and less emphasis on fleeting trends.”