Spring Trends

         Winter may still have us in its chilly grasp, but spring is fast approaching.  This means that new spring trends will soon be coming onto the scene.  In theory fashion trends start when designers put out seasonal fashion lines a few months before the clothing is intended to sell.  The clothing that will come into style this spring appeared in fashion shows this past fall.  In the months between when designers show their lines and when actual humans wear said clothing, magazine editors write reports on common themes they noticed across the many designers' runway shows.  The themes that suit the editors' tastes are what get labeled as upcoming trends.  Buyers for major retailers gauge which items they expect will sell well, and purchase these items.  The fabulously wealthy purchase custom made clothing from designers they like.  Celebrities generate hype for a trend by wearing it to high profile events.  By the time the actual season rolls around, the big wigs of the fashion world have already picked their favorite or most marketable trends, invested time and money in convincing ordinary people that these trends are a good idea, and put those trends onto the shelves retailers.  While we the masses do not get to pick trends for each season, we can determine how long these trends last.  This is somewhat like natural selection. Seasonal trends are somewhat random, but only the ones with mass appeal survive.  Clothing that can survive should look good on a wide variety of body types, and be easy or comfortable to wear.  Usually clothing that fails this falls out of favor, and fails to influence future trends.

          New trends do not mean you have to throw out all of your old clothes.  Older trends survive even as new ones come into prominence, and simple staple clothing can always look chic.  You do not need to be a slave to new trends, but you can certainly incorporate the ones you like into your current wardrobe.  I've compiled the most widely predicted trends I could find for spring 2016 below.  Get inspired by the ones you like, and laugh at the ones you find ridiculous.

Women's Clothing Trends

       Victorian Romance

It was 40 degrees outside when I took this picture,
that was a terrible idea.  Please channel your
inner Victorian in a weather-appropriate way

• What is this? High collars, floral print, flowy fabric, delicate ruffles, sheer fabric, lace, and just being very feminine in general.
• The Good: The clothing itself is very pretty.  The concept of Victorian Romance is broad enough that it can manifest in a wide variety of ways.  Sheer and lace have been in style for some time, you likely already have the pieces you need to achieve this look
• The Bad: This can look very old or very heavy if too much of your body is covered in overly ornate fabric
• How to wear it: Contrast the heavier elements of this look with lighter or younger clothing choices.  If you opt for a conservative neckline or length, balance this with lace, or sheer fabric.  If you opt to wear more ornate floral patterns, offset this by showing more skin.  Romantic outfits will pair well with delicate or ornate sparkly accessories.  

      

       Bedroom Clothing as Real World Clothing

This is a slip dress,
now you know.

• What is this?  This trend includes dresses that resemble sexy silky nightgowns or slips.  A slip is usually a simple spaghetti strap silky, lacy or plain fabric undergarment worn under a dress.  They look like plain spaghetti strap dresses.  
• The Good: This is sexy comfortable and will show off your body, if you already own a sexy nightgown, or one of your older relatives has a dress with a detachable slip, you don't need to go buy one of these dresses
• The Bad: You cannot hide a bra with straps under these dresses, you either have to show the straps, go strapless, or go braless.  More generally, you can't hide anything under these dresses, so you can't be uncomfortable with any part of you
• How to wear it: I am suspicious of this trend, it strikes me as difficult to wear and inappropriate for many situations.  If you happen to like this look though, you have a few options.  You can try pairing the dress with a leather or bomber jacket and boots for an edgier look.  For a more bohemian look, try a long matte colored slip dress with lace cutouts, or an interesting pattern and a head wrap.  You can elevate the slip dress by pairing it with a blazer or  sweater and more elegant accessories such as long necklaces.

       Exposed shoulders 

Exposed shoulders let you show
off your guns.

• What is it?  Off the shoulder, halter tops, especially the ones with higher necklines, and shoulder cut outs
• The Good: This can be done in a few different ways, giving you options.  The shoulders are a fairly benign part of the body to expose, making this wearable in a wide variety of environments.  For most women, their shoulders, and the upper part of their chest look nice.  This means many women should feel comfortable wearing some sort of exposed shoulders.
• The Bad:  Your shoulders may get cold.  If you wear something off the shoulders you will need to wear a strapless bra, and some off the shoulder sleeves limit the range of motion of your arms.
• How to wear it: There aren't exactly rules to how to wear this.  Just have fun.

       

      Spanish influence 

You can tell I am cool because I am leaning
against a brick wall

• What is it?  This is actually a set of trends inspired by Spain.  The theme across the 'Spanish' designs appears to be large architectural ruffles, and red, sometimes black and red.  This look tends to be powerful and ornate.
• The Good:  The Spanish inspired concept, similar to the Victorian Romance concept is vague enough to allow different experimentation.  These looks convey power.
• The Bad:   Large ruffles and ornate patterns can quickly overwhelm the body, and look old or costumey.  
• How to wear it:  Try incorporating red and black into your outfits.  A safe place to start is by adding red accents to black and white outfits (lipstick, shoes etc).  You can incorporate many of the other trends, such as off the shoulder, or lace into this one by wearing those trends in red or black.  If you go for a large ruffled skirt or pants, balance it out with a sheer, lace, or more form fitting top.  If you go for a dramatic ruffled top, balance that out with a sleek simple fitted skirt or pair of pants.

      

       Stripes 

Stripes--here to add fun to even the most
ugly of buildings, DRL

• What is it?  I think you know what stripes are.  Pin strips, thick colorful strips, any strips will do.
• The Good: Stripped clothing is easy to find, slimming if you want something slimming, and can draw the eye across your outfit in interesting ways.
• The Bad: Horizontal strips can add weight which many women do not want.
• How to wear it:  For many types of stripes, one's eye will be drawn along the stripes elongating you in the direction of the stripes.   Place stripes along parts of yourself you wish to look longer such as your legs.  That said, don't fear horizontal stripes.  Try mixing stripes with another pattern. For example you could pair a striped shirt with a floral scarf.  Just make sure there is contrast in the scale of the pattern (big stripes and a small pattern, or small stripes and a big pattern) and that the colors pair well.

     

       Shiny things

Same brick wall as before, but I get even more
cool points because I have one foot against
the wall this time.

• What is it? Sequins, metallic fabrics, and anything that sparkles.
• The Good:  Sequins have been in style for a while.  If you like them , you probably already own something sequined.  Sequins and shiny fabric can be very glamorous.  They call attention to you, and whatever parts of you, you happen to like.
• The Bad:   Sequins and shiny fabrics can look cheap and tacky if executed poorly.
• How to wear it:  As always, balance is key.  If you wear shiny, or sequined anything, then that item is the focal point of your outfit.  Keep everything else simple and sleek.  Reflective materials call attention to themselves.  Put shiny material over parts of yourself that you like.  You can achieve a more subtle shine by wearing sequins under lace or sheer fabric.  Since sequin is heavy and eye-catching, sequined clothing should fit you well, or be very well made, baggy sequined clothing won't do anything for you.  Metallic fabric can have beautiful movement, or look very sleek.  Try to wear flowey metallics or very crisp or fitted metallic clothes.

Women's Hair Makeup and Accessory Trends

       Hair

Evidently, this woman is also not me, please ignore
 everything about her except for the shiny thing in
her hair

     

I don't have enough hair to show you what a twist looks like
on my own head, but luckily the internet was here to help.

       As one who tends to lose fights to my hair, I like that many of the hair trends this season are either low maintenance, easy to execute, or take the focus away from how the hair is styled.

• For Long Hair: If you have long hair sleek high ponytails may be the do to try.  For a more glamorous ponytail, use a strand of hair twisted around your hair band to cover it, or cover the hairband with a sparkly decorative hairband.  For an edgier look try braiding said ponytail, or for the less skilled hairstylists out there try a twist.  Whats a twist? Split your ponytail into two chunks, then twist said chunks around each other to the bottom of the ponytail. Done.  Messy, low maintenance up-dos are also coming into style, so if these ponytails are too complicated for your hairdressing skills, you still have options.
• For Short Hair: If you prefer to wear shorter hair, a long choppy bob may be a trend worth trying.  I am a big fan of a choppy bob because your hair is cut to look good in its natural shape.  This cut requires almost no styling to look good.
• For Everyone: Regardless of your hair length, two trends emerged for everyone.  The first is decorative hair pieces, this could be a scarf, a sparkly comb,  or anything interesting you want to shove into your hair.  Not only does this add more accessory options, its a great way to hide a bad hair day.  The second trend is sticking to natural hair textures.  Given that fashion typically defines a very narrow beauty ideal, I am excited that designers want to encourage women to embrace their natural hair texture this year.

       Eye Makeup

While not screamingly obvious, there is indeed
a line of blue eye make up right above my
eye liner

• Many of the makeup trends described below are rather bold.  The eye and lip trends are not intended to be worn together.  Pick one area of your face to be bold with, and go more mild with the rest.
• Blue Eye Makeup:  No need to go overboard here, but a swipe of blue eye shadow can be lovely and dramatic.  If you are not as rediculously pale as I am, consider putting white eye makeup on underneath where you want to blue to go, this will help the blue pop more.  Blue eye make up will pair best with brown eyes as it will make the warm brown color pop in contrast to the blue.  
• Glitter Eye Makeup:   Yes glitter and sparkly things are inescapable this spring.  If you feel daring you can try glittery eye make up in a couple of ways.  one option is to use a slightly sparkly versions of the colors you typically use.  The more noticeable option is to wear a a clean sharp line of dark eyeliner above your eye, perhaps wearing winged eyeliner, and then adding a sharp line of glitter eye liner right above the dark eyeliner line.  
• Bold Mascara and Eyeliner: If glitter and blue eyeliner aren't for you, but you are still interested in this season's makeup trends, you can try just using more, or a more intense mascara than you typically do.

       Lips

This picture not only shows red lips, but you
get a bonus, statement earring (see below)

• Red Lips:  This is good for most women who wear makeup because most of us own red lipstick.  If you do not own any, you will want to find a shade that suits you.  Darker colors tend to make your lips look smaller and brighter ones tend to make your lips look bigger.  If your skin has cool undertones (if the veins in your wrist look blue) then lean toward bluer shades of red.  If you have warm undertones (if the veins in your wrist appear greenish) lean toward more orange shades of red.  

     

       Face

Thanks to the magic of bronzer we can see
what I would look like with a sunkissed face.
Maybe not a sun kiss, maybe just a sun hug,
or polite sun handshake.

• Sunkissed Skin:  This should be a fairly natural look, if you happened to be one who naturally wanders through the dessert and never gets sunburned.  Okay, so this isn't really natural for most people, but you are supposed to pretend it is by keeping the rest of your makeup understated.  To get this look you can expose your skin to the sun by natural means (just wear sunblock). If you cannot tan, like me, use more bronzer, less blush, and more neutral lip and eye makeup to achieve this look.  Just remember not to go crazy with bronzer, your neck is still pale and will look bizarre against a significantly darker face.

       Jewelry

• Statement Earrings:  I really like this idea because earrings can easily be made quirky and interesting.  You can wear mismatching earrings, silly earrings you find at a craft fair, or larger fancy grown up earrings.  No matter what, try to have fun with it.

Men's Clothing Trends

        A quick note on men's fashion.  For a long time men's fashion changed very slowly and was almost entirely ignored by the fashion world.  Because fewer men care about fashion, men's designers tend to either produce very simple clothing that they expect men would be willing to wear, or utterly outrageous clothing that is meant to be art, and never worn.  Today this is starting to change.  Even so, you get a very inconsistent picture of what men's trends will be.  Some sources only report the avant guard trends they seen, while others only report very wearable trends, and there is almost no correlation between the two.  Below is a mix of trends from both types sources.

       1950's Inspired

This was the least offensive bowling shirt I could find.
If you want to see it's uglier cousins just google bowling
shirt

• What is it?  This trend encompasses bowling shirts (loose, pointy collared button down shirts with large vertical stripe patterns), shorter tighter shirts, and high waisted fitted trousers.
• The Good:  The fitted tops provide an opportunity to show off that men don't often get.  The higher waist on the pants can create an illusion of long legs and a slimmer waist.  The bowling shirt is casual and comfortable.
• The Bad: More fitted clothing may not be easy for many men to wear.  Almost all bowling shirts are just ugly. 
• How to wear it:  If you feel like showing off, a slightly fitted collared shirt with high waisted jeans or dark pants should do the trick.  To be a less showy, wear a fitted t-shirt with a leather jacket or blazer over it.  This sill still look sharp but leave you feeling less exposed.  If you are possessed by the need to wear a bowling shirt (can we tell I don't like them?) pick one with an appealing pattern, like light plaid, or wear one open as a jacket with a t-shirt underneath.

      

       Statement Outerwear

Dear Men, please get over your concern that
intricately decorated clothing is too feminine,
your reward will be this jacket.

• What is it? This is a broad category of dramatic outerwear predicted to be stylish this spring.  It encompasses large scarves, suede jackets, and ornately decorated bomber jackets
• The Good:  You can wear something interesting and out there, and still look professional in a conservative environment as long as you take your coat off when inside.  Men's fashion tends to be bland, this is a nice contrast to that.
• The Bad:  Some pieces such as the silky floral bomber jacket may be a bit too feminine for some men to feel comfortable with.
• How to wear it: First remember to wear clothing underneath, these are only jackets.  The large scarf goes well with a plain jacket underneath it.  A suede jacket should look good over most outfits as long as it is not a bizarre color.  An embellished jacket will be the focal point of your outfit.  Simple or distressed jeans will provide nice contrast to the showy jacket.

       

       Floral print

Embellished jackets are just a gateway drug to floral shirts.

• What is it?  Clothing with a floral pattern, or floral details on it.
• The Good:  This is just bright and happy, it can add interesting detail to an otherwise plain outfit.
• The Bad:  Some men may feel uncomfortable in a traditionally feminine print.
• How to wear:  Go for shirts with a subtle floral print, perhaps keeping the colors more muted, or wear clothing with floral details.  Good options are t-shirts with a floral pattern on the sleeves, button downs with an ornate floral pattern on the collar and cuffs, and snap back hats that either have a large floral pattern over the entire hat, or a smaller floral patter under the brim.  The smaller the area with a floral print on it, the smaller you want the pattern on the print to be.

     

         Distressed Jeans

Coming Soon, pictures of actual ordinary
guys in clothing I suggest men wear.

• What is it?  Distressed jeans does not mean unhappy jeans.  Instead they are jeans that are faded, ripped, or otherwise look like you wore them into battle (no bloodstains please)
• The Good: These jeans have a bit of a badass rock n' roll vibe which is always fun to channel.  You don't need to buy new jeans for this look, you can just battle demons in an old pair until the jeans are battle worn.  By battle demons in your old jeans, I mean attack your old jeans with scissors.
• The Bad:  These jeans do not look professional, so it will be difficult to wear these anywhere you are expected to dress up.
• How to wear them:  Wear them for an ordinary day about town.  Pick a pair that fit you like a pair of slim fit not skinny jeans, and that do not expose large chunks of your skin.  Wear these with a graphic t-shirt, and a leather or other trendy jacket.  These will pair well with combat boots or nice sneakers.

       

       White, Green and Gray

But in the mean time, please enjoy these
unrealistically attractive men in clothing
I suggest men wear.

• What is it:  If you weren't sure, white, green, and gray are colors, apparently the key colors for men to wear this season.  They are not meant to be worn all at once, each color can be appreciated individually.
• The Good:  White clothing has a happy summery feel, also it pairs easily with other colors.  Gray is more subdued than white, but pairs just as well with most colors.  Green is less flexible than the other two colors, but you can pair different shades of green together in interesting ways.
• The Bad:   You must learn to coordinate colors (not sure this is such a bad thing).
• How to wear it:   You can start just about any outfit with a crisp white shirt, and just add layers or embellishments as you see fit. A gray shirt or gray pants can also act as a neutral base and pair with just about anything.  You can also layer different shades of gray on top of each other, I would use a lighter gray for an outermost layer.  You can wear a deep green pair of pants to make an outfit more interesting.  You can also wear layers of green, I would keep the outermost most layer subdued, and pair this with a non-green (maybe gray) pair of pants.  Wearing all green will make you look like a leprechaun.

Men's Hair Trends

The pompadour fade, which sounds mildly like a name for a
pretentious character on a children's show.

• You don't need to change your usual hairstyle, but if you were craving a change, or are about to get a hair cut consider trying a cut conducive to some of these looks.
• 1950's hair  That's right, we cannot escape the 1950's as a touchstone for trends this season.  Fifties hair is appearing as a trend in two different ways.  The first is the hard side part--always classy and not terribly difficult to execute.  The second is the pompadour, hair combed back and up from the front of your head (think Elvis hair).  For a more modern take on the pompadour try the pompadour fade.  It's a pompadour on top and a fade on the sides and back.  
• Short Fade If channeling the fifties ins't your thing, a fade to very short hair is also in style.  If you are still confused about what a fade is, it is a cut in which hair is razored down to the skin at the bottom of the sides and the back of your head, and then the length of hair is slowly increased moving up the sides and back.  The hair appears to fade in as you move toward the top of your head.
• Fringes: If you don't want to channel the fifties, and your like having more hair on your head, normal length hair with fringes (hair that hangs over your forehead) is also coming into style this spring.

     

       Well that was a large amount of information.  I hope you get inspired by some of these trends.  Just remember, blindly following fashion trends does not indicate a sense of style.  Instead what looks interesting is incorporating trends you like into your own style.  Now go my friends, and conquer spring fashion!