Fashion in 2021
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In our Eco-motional Fashion microtrend, we explored the new wave of change-makers paving the way towards a more positive, human-centric approach to sustainability.

Even before we published our much-anticipated Sustainability Report, we were exploring the glaring need for fashion businesses to confront past mistakes when it comes to eco-consciousness. As part of this, ethical consultancies emerged to offer brands a new perspective on the climate crisis, such as Dirt, a charity that helps brands understand their history as well as promoting and funding biodynamic farming.

Meanwhile, another ethical consultancy, CogDis, is focusing on sustainability through a spiritual and human-centric lens. The name CogDis, a portmanteau of cognitive dissonance, refers to the idea of tension between belief and action in relation to consumption behaviours. ‘In our society, the emotional side of sustainability has been sidelined – the fear about climate change, the outrage about social injustice,’ explained co-founder Faith Robinson in our accompanying Q&A. ‘There’s never been space in the industry to acknowledge how that feels.’

This June, payments service Klarna confronted people’s lockdown looks – through a clever campaign inspiring fashion exploration.

The brand's multimedia campaign included a short film that starred sartorially slick musician A$AP Rocky – who had recently been announced as a shareholder of the company – returning to the streets of New York after the city's longest period of lockdown. Emerging from his home in an old dressing gown, the video saw passers-by tease him about his tired threads, before A$AP Rocky clicked the Klarna app to find a sharp new outfit.

With a sign-off to ‘Drop your lockdown look’ and ‘Get smooth again’, the campaign promoted Klarna’s role in facilitating frictionless shopping and payments. As we enter 2022, we can expect to see more businesses encourage consumers to step out of their Homebody cocoons and use fashion to re-engage with the physical world.

In 2021, fashion brands started to carve out their space in the metaverse. We spotlighted Gucci back in May, when the luxury house opened its virtual doors with the creation of a digital garden in the gaming platform Roblox.

The Gucci Garden offered a virtual complement to the brand’s real-life Gucci Garden Archetypes multimedia exhibition, hosted in Florence, Italy. Offering the chance for people around the world to visit the interactive gallery, visitors to the Gucci Garden took the form of ageless, gender-neutral digital mannequins, which, as they navigated the space, transformed into digital artworks in their own right.

In the space, virtual visitors were able to shop for limited-edition digital Gucci items for their avatar, created solely for the experience in Roblox. ‘While fashion and art may feel out of reach, the metaverse is bringing them closer and making them more accessible for millions of people, building on Gucci’s quest to empower individuals and expanding self-expression to new virtual territories,’ read a Roblox statement.

The case study showed how fashion spaces are increasingly being built in the virtual realm – where next-generation shoppers are playing and socialising – as opposed to the physical.

Now that you know what shaped 2021, discover what’s on the horizon. Download our Future Forecast 2022 report comprising 50 new trends across 10 key consumer sectors, insights from our analysts and interviews with global innovators.