What We’ll Be Wearing Next Year

So I was on Getty Images looking for some historic photos, when my eye was caught by an actual current event.  It is Fashion Week in China, and apparently all the industry-related universities have their own fashion shows at the same time.

The first thing I noticed was all the models shown with gas masks. ( I did a search for “Chinese fashion week gas masks,” and a lot of stories popped up, but all the links I checked had lots of ads and paywalls, so I am reluctant to link to any specific story.)  But what I gathered was that with all the air pollution in China, for at least the last two years,  breathing masks have been designed as fashion accessories.

There is also a trend of wearing something over your face – a wire structure or a transparent mask with an animé-style face on it.  Maybe this is one way around being tagged without your knowledge in pictures posted on the internet?

These next five seem based on a combination of textile craft work and carrying your bed around with you.  Not anything I expect to see actually being worn, but they made me smile — especially the third one, which really looks like the designer picked up random craft scraps and combined them into an outfit.

 

 

These next three show beautiful craftsmanship, I think, and while I would feel conspicuous dressed in such an outfit, I could certainly adapt some of the details and use them on an outfit I would wear.  (Some of these may be from last year.)

There are over 1800 pictures in the Getty Images category Chinese Graduate Fashion Week, some from previous years.  Some outfits are bright and cartoonish, some are minimal and sophisticated, and some are classically beautiful.  I don’t know anything about the many schools represented in these shows — maybe each university focuses on certain fashion traditions and trends, I don’t know.  But I did enjoy seeing things so far outside my usual interests and inspirations, and if you need a little mental break, I would encourage you to go take a look.