Lounge
2025 fashion trends: Nostalgia is still in, so are animal prints
Summary
A roundup of fashion trends that will flourish in the new year
Nostalgia is likely to trend in 2025 as well, going by runway fashion, and the Golden Globes, the year’s first red carpet event and a fashion pageant of sorts. You can see the trend continuing at home, if you sift through the latest collections of homegrown designers, racks of fast-fashion brands and trawl the ’gram for celebrity looks. It’s there to see in corduroy dresses and shirts (The Row made them a thing in its spring 2025 collection), trench coats in different shapes (Kriti Sanon wore a feathered one to the London fashion week, while Diljit Dosanjh kept it a simple black for his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi), and unending interpretations of corsets.
Besides this classicism, there are many trends that will rule 2025, and here are some suggestions to keep you looking your best for the rest of the year.
Also read: Your style guide to contemporary Indian occasion wear
PLAY WITH MOTIFS
More brands are adding playful, often childhood-dipped, motifs to fashion. In the Milan showcase of his spring-summer 2025 collection, for instance, Dhruv Kapoor put his childhood stuffie, a fabric bunny, as a print on dresses, pyjamas and jackets. Moschino, meanwhile, has added the sunshine yellow smiley emoji on jumpers, tees and bags, perhaps indicating a desire to a reconnect with simpler, more cheerful times.
A similar pull towards a “slower, more deliberate pace is driving the emergence of the ‘villagecore aesthetic’, which embraces the simplicity and richness of rural life," Anuradha Chandrashekar, co-founder and chief creator of ICH NEXT, a homegrown trend forecast platform for fashion retail that has clients like Myntra and Amazon, told Lounge. She predicts patterns and motifs inspired by folk art, like Gond Bhil, Warli and Chittara, will become a big part of mainstream fashion.
YEAR OF THE SNAKE
“Animal prints are set to become the season’s rising stars," French AI trend forecaster Heuritech has declared in its 2025 trends report.
After the re-entry of the leopard print, “an outrageous neutral" as famously described by designer Michael Kors, in the trends cycle in autumn/winter 2024, it’s time for another animal print, the snake.
With 2025 as the year of the snake as per the Chinese zodiac, expect to see sleek snake prints, from jackets and shoes to shirts and trousers—as evident during Dries Van Noten spring-summer collection—or in exaggerated forms when mixed and matched with other motifs, as Pharrell Williams exhibited during the Louis Vuitton show last year.
Also read: Janavi India x Pantone: A line of cashmere shawls, saris in mocha mousse
COLOUR CARDS
Pantone might have declared Mocha Mousse as the colour of 2025, but it seems both neutrals and bright colours will enjoy equal takers.
Fashion forecaster WGSN, in collaboration with colour system Coloro, has called Future Dusk, a shade between blue and purple, as the colour of 2025, stating, “from 2025 onward, the importance of dark shades will increase as the polycrisis worsens and consumers opt for more versatile and durable colours".
Social media platform Pinterest, too, made a similar observation in its annual trends report, predicting dark cherry red, a shade depicting passion, richness and ambition, to be present everywhere, from home decor to the runway and make-up aisles.
SHINE BRIGHT
The Golden Globes saw celebrities wearing more metallics than the go-to black, confirming the versatility of the shimmering fabric to create futuristic as well as retro ensembles. Metallics have also taken over the runway, with designers such as Rick Owens and Gaurav Gupta experimenting with distressed metallic and high-gloss finish fabrics in their recent collections. In streetwear, brands like Zara and H&M have also added them to ripped jeans, jackets and skirts.
Also read: 2025's big fashion trend: elevated basics
