Everyone becomes clairvoyant at the beginning of the year. Like many, my feed is saturated with various predictions, premonitions, and rejections for 2024. But will the year abide? Instead of resolutions, I made a list of things I am letting myself spend money on in the new year: 3 perfume samples, a new (leather-bound) notebook, and taking my Frye Boots with dangling soles to the cobbler. When it comes to making predictions, however, I feel a little more cautious. We turn to the inverse of the gift guide: the trend forecast. It’s the perfect time of year to hedge your bets that your own aesthetic impulses will be reflected in the broader culture. Why deny yourself the satisfaction of predicting something and getting it right? Since I’ve never had the gift of prophecy, I’ll stick to forecasting my personal desires for 2024. Here are the textures, colors, objects, and sensations that I would like to carry forth in the New Year…and would be even more thrilled to see adopted at large.
Beet Pink
In the new year, I want the tips of my fingers stained at all times. Beet blood is watery like ours, and twice as hard to clean. I’ve been enjoying pickling beets with dill and black pepper, watching the beets leak and glow in the sunlight while I chop them up. Magenta brine. I sprinkle them into salads, tearing them into chunks until my hands are stained and there are flecks of juice dotting my clothes. I should really get an apron… in fact, maybe aprons are also in for 2024. Anyways, they’re delicious, and you can’t beat the color ;)
Competing Textures
I think clashing will be important in the New Year. Think of pairing unexpected fabrics together: linen and tulle, silk and organza. I’m feeling particularly drawn to gauze. The underbelly of an oyster mushroom. I think it will be a texture year, where garments fall into favor based on the physical sensation of handling them, rather than their shape. Tactility will usurp form. It’s a year to delve into our more visceral senses: smell, touch, and taste. There was an encyclopedia book I had as a child that included swatches of different textures you might otherwise never encounter: sharkskin, tiger fur, the sea floor. Of course, these textures weren’t the actual material, they were facsimiles, but that was also kind of the point. I want a fabric that feels like something it’s not. A fabric that briefly and willfully deceives me. This will involve combinations that defeat their own context: fabrics vying for the centerpiece. Your outfit should be having an argument.
Misused or Obsolete Accessories
In keeping with taking things out of context, I think it would be fun to adopt objects as accessories and use them for something other than their intended purpose. For example, take a variation on the tool belt. Instead of tools, fill the compartments with items that would otherwise go in a purse. This commitment to wearing the contents of your purse will do what the fanny pack could not. Instead of bulging out, your items will be embedded in the outfit. Much more streamlined. Something about carrying all your objects in a pouch around your waist — rather than on your arm — also calls to mind gathering or filling the front of your shirt with berries in the summer. Collection should be messy. The tool belt as purse might open the window to different kinds of daily activities, or at least a different way to do them. Instead of being lopsided, the weight of what you’re carrying is distributed by the tool belt. Maybe it’s because 24 is an even number, cleanly divisible, that makes this idea of balance and distribution so appealing. Speaking for myself, I’m tired of carrying things on one shoulder. It’s not good for your back.
Another accessory that could be fun to incorporate in 2024 would be binoculars, specifically opera binoculars. There are a lot of options for styling these: wear them like a necklace, carry them in a pouch, or tuck them into one of the pockets of your tool belt. Not only are they beautifully made (I really like these ones from eBay), but it’s cool to carry something that expands the reach of your senses. You never know when you might need to use them, but when you do, you will look very sophisticated.
Compartments
Recently, I’ve seen multiple TikToks predicting that in 2024, buttons will become the new bows. I can’t help but feel that this marks the subtle cultural tilt from coquette (which arguably falls under the umbrella of indie sleaze) back to twee. Buttons are very twee. So are pockets. I believe pockets — or compartments in general — will swing to the forefront this year. This goes hand in hand with the tool belt, but I think other compartment formats aren’t out of the question. Who doesn’t get excited by a garment with an unexpected pocket? What might be in there? If it’s a secondhand item, there’s a chance you’ll find something from the previous owner. Since it’s still winter, take this opportunity to squirrel something away for spring. Forget something important — favorite lighter, necklace borrowed from your mom, spare house key — in a random little pocket. Rejoice in a few months when it returns to you. The more compartments you have, the more chances for you to experience this brief and blameless joy. You won’t even have time to be mad you lost it.
…Steampunk
I went back and forth on whether or not to include this one, but I can’t imagine how devastated I’d be if I left it out and then it ended up happening. It feels less embarrassing to just predict it and possibly be wrong. Besides, being wrong is in for 2024.
I think it will be a steampunk year. You can probably see how I’m arriving at this conclusion based on my previous predictions: asymmetrical toolbelts, contradictory fabrics, and aesthetic components taken out of their element all seem like harbingers of a steampunk renaissance to me.
Steampunk has its roots in 19th-century technology and Victorian fashion, hence the somewhat jarring collision between visual signifiers of regency like parasols and lace with spokes, gears, and other elements of pre-industrial invention. What I’m suggesting isn’t the return of the steampunk convention or the steampunk aesthetic as costume/cosplay. Instead, I think we’ll start seeing the details of steampunk enter the fold: accessories that mimic machines, aesthetic incongruence, antiquity, the grotesque. Already, I’m catching whiffs of this (the popularity of Poor Things seems like a significant example).
Steampunk is closely associated with fantasy and science fiction, which might be similarly due for a resurgence. Looking back on predictions of the 21st century is particularly fascinating: what is reflected by a world that doesn’t exist? It feels increasingly difficult to imagine a reality that technologically exceeds the one we’re living in. But in continuing to exist, it becomes our job to imagine a future beyond the boundaries of the present. Part of the whimsy of steampunk comes from tapping into the art of prediction itself. 19th-century visions of the future may feel quaint and illogical compared to the technology we have now, but they are not stingy with possibility. On the other hand, there’s nothing about iPhones or AI-driven software — or any of the other ways we are mining and degrading the future for profit — that sustains magic. The return of steampunk could be an opportunity to be inventive in unprecedented ways, not just in terms of how we present ourselves, but also in how we act and move through the world. A more functional and prosperous future begins with imagining it. And for all the predictions we get wrong, we inevitably do get a few right.
Some final takeaways. In 2024, carry a book under your arm everywhere you go. Embed your prized possessions into your outfits, as if at any time you’ll need to make a run for it. Forget to charge your phone.
If I’ve learned anything from watching people share their trend forecasts, it’s that it has a lot less to do with what you’re predicting, and more about saying it with sufficient authority. Wear what you want with enough conviction, and it will be reflected. Within reason, of course. ☞