The Thriftcast: Fall Trend Forecast, What's Selling now, and the Context it Exists in

Christina discusses the trend forecast for the fall season on her ThriftCast episode. She mentions the resurgence of color in fashion, particularly influenced by the Y2K trend. Reflecting on the transition from minimalism to colorful styles, she emphasizes the societal shift towards embracing more vibrant and whimsical clothing choices. Christina predicts that fall fashion will feature earthy tones and muted bold colors, with turtlenecks being a popular choice. She also shares insights on recent top-selling items in her resale business, such as fairy core pieces and plans to stock jackets and boots for the upcoming season. The influence of media, like movies depicting past eras, on current fashion trends is highlighted by Christina as well. Hi, I'm Christina, your resident thrifter, and welcome to the ThriftCast. On this episode, we're going to be discussing the incoming fall season, the trend forecast I have for it, and what has been selling already, as well as analyzing all of these things through a social-political context. So, before we get into the trend forecast for the fall, I think we need to discuss the trends that have already happened in the spring and summer. The first one I'm going to mention is pretty simple, but it's just color. Color is back in, and back in in spades. For so long, color was kind of a commodity. I don't know, people weren't really wearing color as much. And I think over spring and summer, there was a huge popularity increase for Zara Larson Corp, which was really just a sensationalized name for colorful Y2K, in my opinion. But sometimes I think that society needs us to repackage trends and just rename them and give them a sensational name for that time. And I think that's exactly what Zara Larson Corp did. But if you don't know, Zara Larson Corp refers to her colorful, almost mermaid-esque kind of style. It's a lot of miniskirts, tank tops, but everything's very colorful. I think sometimes she wears some face makeup with color to, not full face, but she'll do blue blush and put glitter on her face. And like I said, it's very mermaid-esque, is what I would boil it down to if I had to. But this has really gotten super popular over the spring and summer. Even in my own business, which I do clothing resale on Depop, you can follow me if you'd like, it is Christina W03, and it's Christina with a K. But on my own business, I've really noticed the color has been doing really amazingly as well. Color, beads, sequins, anything like frilly, things like that have been doing really amazingly. But also on another level, I do think that it's more than just creating a sensationalized name and repackaging a trend, as much as I know I just said that, and I do still stand by that, I do think that there also is the level of the fact that we used to be so into minimalism, beige, gray, white, and black. And that was something that really ruled our clothing zeitgeist there for a second. And there really wasn't any whimsy in clothing. Even if you look at Yeezy, I think is a great example of that era, was just, even though Yeezy was a streetwear brand, it was still a minimalistic brand, in my opinion. It was a brand that everything was like, gray, white, beige, black. I don't really remember there being any colors, to be honest, but I could stand corrected. But that's just to say that for so long, we were in such a minimalistic society. And then we started to make this transition a couple of years ago, I think around COVID, to be honest, I think was around when we started to make this transition more into colors again. And actually, maybe before COVID, because even I remember in my junior year, I was already super into thrifting and stuff. I remember the trends at that time were windbreakers, and primary colors were really popular at that time too, I remember. If you could find a striped t-shirt that was red, blue, and yellow, like, oh my god, you were the coolest person in school. Anyways, so I think that's kind of when we started to make that transition again, back into color and kind of getting our whimsy back. And I also think that at that time, like the 80s kind of style was getting popular again too, like I remember those, like the 80s windbreakers were in style again, and I remember feeling super jealous of the girls at school who had those because I was never able to find them at the thrift store. But yeah, so I think that this is kind of the context that we're like, existing and going into fall is that we have so much, of course, we have the history of all time of fashion and stuff. But if we're looking like, through these very pivotal eras that we've lived through, like the world is a very different place today than it even was in 2016, and the clothing's very different today than it was then too. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's been a road to get where we are today, and the trends have kind of like been a ladder, you know? So we start off with the primary colors and just bring back some color into the world of beige, gray, black, white, and that's like one step up. And then the next step up is introducing colorful windbreakers again. Introducing the 80s is the next step up after that, or you know, who knows exactly. But the point is that it's taken a lot for us to get to this point, and the fact that girls are wanting to wear pink and bright blue and, you know, instead of black is a great sign, in my opinion. And I think that these trends are only going to continue more as we go into fall. Granted, fall colors are going to be more muted, but as I was looking through Vogue, I saw a lot of like turtleneck sweaters, like maroon, mustard yellow, dark green, those kind of color palettes, where it's definitely earthy kind of tones but muted. And I think that that's especially what we're going to be seeing here in the fall. But I also think that the other thing is that because we're already experiencing this popularity of Y2K and Y2K trends, I wouldn't be surprised if there is going to be some kind of like TV show or movie or something of the sort that takes place in that era, or maybe late 90s, that may especially like catapult the trends here soon in the fall. But even if we're just going off of what the media has already shown us, we had the Michael movie come out earlier this year, so to me that tells me that 70s are definitely back in. Later on this year, I think that we have the Anthony Bourdain movie coming out, which I wouldn't say that he's particularly only 70s, but I would say that he lived through so many decades of time that we're so pivotal to where we are now, that his influence kind of applies to that. Granted, I think that his story is maybe taking place closer to the 90s, but even still, I think that these are things that are informing our fashion trends, as much as being reflective media of what's going on in the world, too. It's all connected, really, and the reason why I say that is that as much as these are just films, they're not just films. When you watch a film, it takes you back into whatever era that film is supposed to be existing in. I think that the Michael movie really left people craving for that time in the late 70s and early 80s of when Michael Jackson was making his debut on his own and going to concerts in that era, and just the rest of that rock and roll era, to be honest, was very sensational. I think that the Michael movie really just allowed for a new generation to remember how big Michael Jackson really was, but also fashion falls underneath that same umbrella, too. One of the things with Michael was that his fashion was so his own fashion. Obviously, it had its own inspirations of military jackets. Honestly, I could see there being some inspiration from the Beatles, to be honest. I think of their band suits that they wore, as well. This is all to say that I think that the media this year has really contributed to the fashion trends, as well, and will only continue to contribute to how the trends develop here in the fall. Like I said, though, I do think that the earth tones, the muted, bold kind of colors will be really in. I do think that turtlenecks are kind of a timeless piece, but I think that they'll be especially popular this year. Let's get into some of the things that I've been selling recently. Some of the things that I've been selling really great for me right now are tank tops. I did do a big drop last week of um tank tops and more or less summer-like tops, just because we're reaching the end of summer now, and I just wanted to make sure that I got that inventory out before it was out of season. All that to say that a lot of what I've been selling is tops, tank tops, and a lot of the stuff that I posted last week, just because with this week being my finals week, I wanted to load my shop up and just kind of be able to cruise this week. So what's been selling a lot has been fairy core stuff, which is a lot of what I get, to be honest. If a fairy would wear it, I'd probably pick it up. Sequins, lace, ribbons, sweetheart necklines are selling really quickly for me as well. I've also had some items that have been listed for a while sell, and some of those were this pair of like floral tooled leather clogs, and this one top with like a bunch of crystals embroidered on it. I was really surprised that one didn't sell sooner, because that one had been listed I think for five months, and it was a really insane top, and I actually don't know where it is, so I need to find that. But anyways, but also gearing up for fall, I have kind of been stockpiling a lot of jackets, and I'm excited to see how fast they sell, to be honest. I have a bunch of different leather jackets, a couple of more winter sherpa kind of longer jackets, I have a faux fur jacket, a couple of other really cool ones that I think will do really well, and I'm just really excited to list those soon. I also have a couple of like really gorgeous pointed to heel boots that I think are going to do really great. What else is there? I definitely also have some sweaters I need to be listing soon too, but sweaters I kind of can go either way with, usually because I source so much of my inventory from the bins, which is weighed by the, or you know, charged by the pound. I tend, or at least lately, I haven't been picking up sweaters just because it's been summer and they weigh more, so they cost more, if that makes sense. And so I have a couple that I need to list, but I think that's all I have to list for the fall so far, but I'm really excited about the boots and the jackets for sure. Those jackets I think are going to do really amazing. The jacket trends I think have kind of stayed the same the last few years. I think that leather jackets, longer kind of like Penny Lane kind of style jackets, furs always in, faux or real. So I feel like sometimes fall can be a little bit repetitive, just in the sense that we are getting ready for colder seasons, so our wardrobes, there's more capability for layering, but also like as far as jackets are concerned and stuff, there's really only so many styles of jackets, but I do think that leather jackets and the longer kind of Penny Lane jackets, like we've seen the last couple of seasons of fall, are still going to be in. But I could also maybe see a resurgence of like the really long almost like matrix style like leather jackets too. I could see that maybe picking up in trends too. But with all that being said, what do these trends and what I'm noticing selling more often mean in the context of the political state of the world right now? And the answer might be a little bit obvious. It's that things are kind of rough. That's kind of what that means, is that things are kind of rough right now. We're experiencing a lack of liberation, and the way that we're trying to seek liberation is through our clothing. And I think that's a lot of why we've been seeing color come back too. There's two reasons I would say. One is that color makes us makes us feel happy. I went through an era a couple of years ago around a couple of years ago around COVID, but I was dying my hair a bunch of different colors. And when my grandma like would ask me or people would ask me, like, why do you color your hair? It's like, oh, it's because when I see the color, it makes me happy. And sometimes when you're going through a hard time, or the state of the world is just a hard time, I think what we need is color, because when we see it, it makes us happy. And I think that's just a very simple just correlation as people. We tend to pick things that are our favorite color when we pick out bedsheets, or pick out our comforter, or pick out a phone case, or the color of our phone, or whatever it is. We're more likely to pick out our favorite color. And so I think when we're going through a hard time, color is really what we come back to, because it reminds us of being a kid, you know, like being a kid and wanting to wear a pink dress, or wear the blue shirt, or, you know, obviously don't be like, kept in boxes based on gender. But I'm just more so saying that I think that would be more of the universal experience. But the other reason for color would just be that there's obviously a correlation of more colorful fabrics and textiles being more popular, and us going through war, not great presidential leadership, and lacking civil rights, whether it be civil rights for men and women, or civil rights for white people, and all the other people in the world. I'm sorry, not in the world, but in the country. And of course, the first example that comes to mind is the 60s, and the mini dress, the mini skirt, and just how like, when you think of 60s, like you kind of think of like, the psychedelic colorful textiles of that time, or the colorful floral textiles from that time. And there are a couple of different reasons, of course, that contribute to this. The first thing that comes to mind is unions. A lot of clothes were made, were union made. And so when I source items myself, if I see a union made tag, I know that it was probably 70s or 80s. And that's just because I think after that was kind of when union kind of went out of popularity. So I think that at the time, a lot of these union workers were probably prioritizing these fabrics. Of course, they were also more popular. But I also wonder if that maybe made it easier, and also made it so that women were making the dresses shorter, and were making the skirts shorter, and saying, hey, there's a demand for this. There's a demand for these textiles. There's a demand for, you know, X, Y, and Z. And on that same kind of note, I also think that because sewing was a much more common skill of that era, I also think that women were able to take a skirt that they got at the store and sew it to make it shorter, or take a dress that they got at the store and hem it shorter, or whatever it is. There was so much more ability for customization because of that, too. Or if you're making your own clothes, you can make the length or the hem as short as you want it to be. Granted, that's a very material perspective as to why that was going on. On a larger perspective, of course, the reasons psychologically why we were gravitating towards that was, of course, the discovery of psychedelics and LSD at that time, rock and roll, and also Vietnam. Those were all really big reasons at that time why the psychedelic patterns were so popular, and why the cut of the minidress was so popular, and why they were putting beetles onto, well, not actual beetles, but the beetles onto paper dresses was basically a thing that was really popular back then, too, was that they would have paper dresses, which was basically, imagine the classic 60s mod minidress, you know, but then it would have George's face on it, or Ringo's face on it, or John's face on it, or... why am I blanking on the other one? Uh, Paul! How did I forget Paul? Um, I also think that they did Bob Dylan, too, which, anyways, I'm digressing heavily, but sometimes I think about that, and how it's sad that they don't exist anymore because they were paper. And yes, I mean literal paper, they were, like, actually paper dresses, which is what's kind of insane. But the thing is, is that this goes back so much further than the 60s, in my opinion. I was reading an article, and this article was from Design and Merchandising magazine, or D&M magazine, and they were just talking about how fashion has always been political. And in this article, they had touched base with flapper culture, and I thought it was really interesting how flapper culture really did pave the way for the 60s. And if you think about, again, like, the cultural significance at the time, we were going through Prohibition, and also up until that point, a lot of our dresses were four-length, layered with petticoats, corsets, and fuck, who knows else in between. And in response, women decided, hey, I've had enough of this. I'm going to get a dress that's short and has some beads on it, it has some frills on it, that way I can twirl around, dance around, and have the time of my life with my Prohibition alcohol that I found somehow. That was me role-playing a flapper, by the way. But that culture really did pave the way for the 60s, because if it hadn't been for Prohibition, the flappers and women not only, like, branching out in their styles and being more risqué and provocative with the styles that they were wearing, it was also about women's sexuality and sexual liberation, too. Because the other thing that happened in the 60s was birth control was created and made it so that women could get it, even if they weren't married. Which is something really crazy, but I've talked to my grandma about a few different things related to this, and it's that I remember her telling me about how when she was 18, which was, would be in the 60s as well, I don't know when exactly this was, but she had went to the gynecologist and was trying to get birth control, and they wouldn't let her get birth control because she wasn't married and her husband wasn't approving of it. Another thing was that she was one of the first women in Cincinnati, which is where we still live, to be able to own her own house without a man as well. Because she bought a house where, I think it was that the previous owner hadn't fully paid the loan off, so she was able to resume that loan, and because it was a federal loan, not a state loan, that's why she was able to own her own house, even though women at that time, single women, were not supposed to be owning land or property. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is the context that the mini-dress was existing in. We were living in a racist, homophobic, sexist world, and the way that women decided to say, hey, this isn't going to work, and it's not going to work for very long, is by putting on their mini-dress, putting on their go-go boots, and going out and dancing and shouting. It was such an important thing at that time, as trivial as it seems, or as stupid as it seems. Yeah, dancing was really important, and putting on the slutty little dress was important, and putting on the heels that make you feel good were important, and that's why fashion will be something that I'm always super passionate about. It's just that fashion throughout history has served as such a powerful tool for women, and not just for women, but especially women, just because it's one of the few ways we can communicate that men can't stop us from communicating it, you know? Like, they can try, but they can't pry it from our dead cold hands, you know? And also fashion for women has become such an important part of American culture that I just don't think it's something that could really be taken away from us at this point. And to connect it back to today, think about all the issues that we're seeing. A couple years ago, Roe v. Wade was overturned. Look at our president. He is a confirmed rapist. We have glorified concentration camps across the country. Civil rights are hardly a thing. I mean, they're in the Constitution, but we're not really following that. You know, the list goes on, but we have glitter. We have color. We have our miniskirts. We have our dresses. We have our heels. We have our music. And we'll be damned if we don't see this pendulum swing back. And I think that that's really what fashion is trying to say right now, is that these bold colors are more than just bold colors. They're saying, hey, we remember the echoes of times before us, and we're going to let it echo again. We're going to remind you that this didn't work before, and that it's not going to work now. I think that's like, I don't know. I know I kind of keep saying the same thing, but there's a sense of pride that I feel with the trends that are coming, because I feel like for so long, I've been feeling like the trends of the 70s are coming back. And, you know, I've been really, you know, I always loved Prince and Michael Jackson, that era of music, especially. But also that era of fashion is so special to me, too. And, well, of course, I selfishly enjoy these trends coming back so that I can wear these things. I also understand, like, the social and political importance of why they're coming back, like why Velvottoms got popular again, and why platforms got popular again, you know? Like, it's because we're going through a really hard political time, and we'll be damned if we let them get away with it, you know? It's like the very short, the bridge version of it. And I really hope that fashion is able to give you as much hope as it gives me, because I think that with disco getting popular again, and music, that's another thing that gives me a lot of hope. It's just showing that, like, we've been through times like this before. We've gotten through times like this before, and we'll continue to get through times like this in the future, too, if we have to. And, yeah, so I feel like sometimes the trends in fashion is like, almost like your mom telling you, honey, everything's gonna be okay. We've gone through this before, and it'll be okay. And I know that this is just a fashion podcast, but if I can give you any reassurance, it's that everything's going to be okay, and that the pendulum will always swing, for better or for worse, but it will always swing. And right now it's for worse, but it'll swing for better in the future. I really appreciate you listening to my semi-discombobulated fashion rant here. I hope that it was as cohesive as it could be, and that you were able to walk away from this podcast learning something new, whether it be about trends of fashion's past, or trends of fashion's current time, or whatever it may be. I really hope that you were able to take something away, and I hope that you have an amazing week, and that every day provides something that puts a smile on your face. This is Christina, and I am signing off from the ThriftCast. I will see you next time.