2024 TREND FORECASTING
MädChen Global Tastemaker (Finger On Cultural Pulse) Tells You, 'O Ignoramus, Upcoming Bops And Flops: What's Hot, What's Not, What's About To Pop Off
My beloved readers, it’s back to our regularly scheduled programming: ME.
I know you have been waiting with bated breath, listlessly scrolling past the copious IN and OUT lists from your least favourite instagram meme pages, internet publications and gatekept influencers for MY take. The world waits with bated breath - and who am I to deny you a glimpse into my dark and twisted mind? Rest assured, I am sitting here like Leslie Mann in The Bling Ring, complete with my vision board, ready to let you know exactly what fashion trends, abstract concepts and overall vibes are going to be HUGE in 2024.
I’m not going to lie, I had a whole paragraph written about reading this as you settle into your New Year’s morning hungover bed rot, get yourself a electrolyte drink and pull this up like the morning paper of days of yore. And yet. Somehow it’s the 3rd of January. So whatever. I think being on time is super in for 2024, but I also acknowledge that I contain multitudes (am a hypocrite) ❤️ So here you go! Drop YOUR forecasts in the comments below MädChen nation 🔥
IN
MALE FRIENDSHIPS
Let’s first clarify: I obviously do not mean that men themselves are in. I would NEVER stoop so low. However, I do think it might be time to throw the dogs a bone. What if you all went crazy and started talking about your feelings with one another! (Not me tho) Men outside of the West are literally all holding hands with one another - not a care in the world. Why are you not doing the same? This is the year for men to really pursue friendship. With each other? Sure - let’s celebrate that! With me? Maybe - stay on your fucking toes! Let’s celebrate that!
LISTENING TO MUSIC
I can’t be the only one who has seriously been vibing to some music recently. Have you guys tried this? Ultimate mood booster when you want a little pick-me-up. Really helps wallow in your sadness when you are low. So many songs to choose from! Let me know if you have ever listened to music, and if so, comment your favourite kind down below! Follow me on Spotify here :)
EARLY MODERN EUROPE
Girls. I’m talking fashion. I’m talking from the Normans to the Tudors. I’m talking long skirts and I’m talking square necklines. Paganism is the new Heavenly Bodies. I did not slay severely in my year 6 trip to Hampton court in a vintage Westwood corset age 10 for you to pretend as though I didn’t see this coming. Caroline Polachek does it so well, but look out for places like Di Petsa, Chopova Lowena, and even some Gucci, or mid 2010 JW Anderson for modern takes on medieval references. We’re halfway there with the resurgence of bloomers, we just need jackets with slashed mutton sleeves. Look at the latest Ferragamo campaign, look at everything Florence Welch has been trying to tell us for the past fifteen years, look at the shields in the ERL SS24 collection!
GEORGE SANTOS REPUTATION ERA
The greatest eras in our culture have come when our main pop girlies have been in the absolute trenches. Madonna’s before Confessions, Britney’s pre-Blackout shaven head, Beyoncé in The Elevator pre-Lemonade, and of course, Miss Taylor Swift’s Kanyecellation pre-reputation itself. Though times may look tough right now for Santos-inators, getting kicked out of Congress is truly only the start of what I am officially forecasting to be one of the most seminal pop careers of all time. And we’ve already kicked it off with a tell-all on Ziwe reminiscent of Posh on Ali G. You say deplatform a liar and a scammer? I say let’s give congress the true gay representation it deserves.
ADDISON RAE
Speaking of main pop girlies - this is more of a trend forecast for the next five years. I’m calling it right here and now (the way I have been calling it for months now), that Addison Rae is going to be the next pop phenomenon. She has the look, the styling, the producers, and the personality. She’s already mastered the staged paparazzi shot. She’s truly come from the dregs of our society (Hype House) and the public loves a rags to riches moment! Quite frankly, with a few singing lessons she’ll have the talent. Most crucially for successful pop artistry, the gays are rallying behind her. X equals Y leads to Z. Personally I’m all for it - it’s about time we had someone at the VMAs who can actually dance.
FUGLY HAIRCUTS
Guys I am so fucking serious right now. I have never been more serious in my life. Anna and I were talking about what haircuts we are going to get. We both pulled up photos of this one fringe. That’s how you know. I’m not just talking about a bang. I’m not even talking about a fuck-ass bob. I’m talking about a sick and twisted beyond baby micro-fringe that looked like your hairdresser was getting bulldozed from the back whilst going at your forehead with a chainsaw. Aside from the fashion victim fringe - anything that makes your parents go oh no darling, men go huh? and your female friends reach out to see if you need emotional support is so in. Getting in the salon with a bucket of bleach next week - watch out!
GOOD OLD-FASHIONED DATING
Look me in the eye and tell me with a straight face that you’re going to find your husband on Hinge. You can’t? That’s because you’re never going to. Wake UP, Charlotte! Why do you make a Hinge profile with your friends? Because it’s too mortifying to actually take ownership of an online dating presence. You don’t need to (god forbid) actually go up and talk to a person you’re interested in - the incels reading this post will be happy to know the official MädChen-endorsed flirting technique is leaving a number with a note. Just do it! Silly adrenaline high - the person is more likely to go for a drink with you (curiosity + they don’t know what you look like) - and it’ll be a good story. Lowering your standards is always ok if it will be funny.
GETTING OFF THAT DAMN PHONE AND READING A BOOK
Babe, stop what you’re doing right now. Unclench that jaw. Take a deep breath in, and out, and take stock with your body. Are you hungry? Thirsty? Tired? Now, look up from your pocket-sized computer and glance over to your bookshelf. Is there a fine layer of dusting filming those uncracked spines? Do you even have a bookshelf at all? Now, gaze inwardly. Look, no really look at yourself and ask - when’s the last time you read a book? That’s what I thought, you fucking flop: not since you downloaded TikTok. GET OFF THAT DAMN PHONE I AM SO SERIOUS!!! I DO NOT CARE WHAT YOUR EXCUSE IS!! LEARN SOMETHING FOR ONCE!!! MädChen approved reading list includes: Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy), Hamnet (Maggie O’Farrell), Angels in America (Tony Kushner), Beloved (Toni Morrison), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Tom Stoppard), A Ghost in the Throat (Doireann Nì Ghríofa). I will literally send you a personal book recommendation - FOR FREE - if you don’t like any of those. Read, bitch. Do it in public if you only want to for the attention. Get up off your ass and start contributing to society.
THE YOUNG-GIRL
I know that you’re already sick of the bows and the misinterpreted Lana and the chronically online girlblog takes, but the girl I envision is of a much more abstract and all-encompassing vibe. Go read Preliminary Materials for the Theory of the Young-Girl by Tippard and we’ll have a conversation about how youth and femininity are the two of the most exoticised, policed, and sought-after qualities under capitalism. We’ll have a conversation about what self-identifying as a Young-Girl means, and how Chet Hanks is just as much one of us as Sylvia Plath. I’m calling on all the Young-Girls to realise your power as the ultimate consumer and rise above this economic hellscape. We have nothing to lose but our pastel pink chains!
TRANSCENDING YOUR PHYSICAL FORM
Soooo over this whole earthly prison situation. My vibe simply cannot be encapsulated in a single body. What about my slay internet presence?! In 2024, leaving your physical form behind and transcending into an aura, a being, an overall (weird and off-putting) atmosphere is so in. It’s what all the girls are into these days!
THE PRESS TOUR
Not that this hasn’t been in, it’s just that I’m pointing it out to you now - like many things this year, it has been oversaturated by Barbie, with Margot Robbie’s biblically accurate doll reconstructions (how that stylist got so many collabs is insane/a testament to Mattel’s gargantuan press budget), but Zendaya loves a little movie reference too. Gone are the days of Kim Kardashian at toilet paper launches, here to stay is Jennifer Lawrence having a psychotic breakdown over hot sauce live on air. As press tours get bigger and increasingly fantastical, expect the wardrobe for the premieres, interviews and magazine shoots to get increasingly on theme. There is a right way (Sydney Sweeney in Miu Miu for Reality) and a wrong way (basically anything Timothee Chalet has done for Wonka) to go about this. Take note of your favourite starlets in 2024 - the press tour with reign supreme!
MOULD
Not just in our flat (I may or may not be going through a mould-induced psychosis), but aesthetically. TikTok always needs a new hyper-obsession, and I think mouldcore would blend the late 2000s early internet nostalgia perfectly with the sleek futuristic Ottolinger vibe that’s propelling us further towards our obsession with self-machinisation & 1960s chrome futurism.
2010
This is my big trend forecast - everyone’s been saying it for the past two years (including me) but now the cycle is so sped up, we are long overdue. Don’t panic! It will return changed, in ways you may not recognise. Some of it may already be here. God forbid I bring this blog to a place of economic analysis (take me out back and shoot me if I ever stoop so low), but we are coming out of a financial stagnation that’s reminiscent of the 2009 crash. A lot of 2010 trends - including, crucially, fast fashion - came out of a fiscal need to provide clothes that were cheap to make and cheap to buy. No one can really afford to buy or sell anything too crazy. Hair accessories are back because bows are in. Corporate officewear is back (normcore), girlblogging is ED tumblr back with a twisted vengeance. Babe, look at me in the eye. This is what you need to prepare for: Military jackets, tight trousers (not a full return of the skinny jean because we will wear knee-high boots over the top), peplum (bubble hemlines), flats (ballet pumps), eyebrow piercings, moustaches, UGGs, ombre dyed hair, I could go on and on and on. The hipster walked so the indie softboi could run.
OUT
TREND FORECASTING
So you know that iconic monologue Meryl Streep does in The Devil Wears Prada? The one where she explains how the fashion industry works and gags Anne Hathaway severely by being like ‘that fugly sweater was picked out for you by the people standing in this room?’ Well turns out, that’s actually kind of no longer the case…. Reader, I know. I know that you just gasped out loud and clutched your pearls. Obviously I don’t mean silly little posts like these, even though everyone and their mother seems to have decided to publish one this year lol. We have unprecedented access to so much art and fashion data - you can pull up the Campbell soup dress made out of paper from 1966 just as quicky as the Fall 2016 Moschino show with all the burnt dresses. No one in recorded history has had access to every single fashion reference of all time - until now. And in that way, trends are now kind of obsolete. Some companies pay hundreds of thousands to trend forecasting agencies to tell them what will be in for the next year, or even decade - but now, everyone has access to the same information, and it’s getting harder and harder for them to tell us what’s up. You have the information now - so you have the power!
READ RECEIPTS
Never have I ever had them on. Loved ones who do - what the fuck are you on? I don’t want to know if you spent five minutes concocting a perfect response, or lost object permanence and took three weeks! Whether or not you read my message is frankly, none of my business and not something I’m interested in. Turn off read receipts in 2024.
ADIDAS SAMBAS
Have definitely reached their saturation point. Maybe a few extra months if you have the Wales Bonner ones, but otherwise, maybe think about waiting to invest before you cop the thrice-marked up Depop pair. The Trainer Of The Year has gone from superstars, to those fuck-ass McQueen ones that would have Lee rolling in his grave, to the Balenziaga speeds (collective trauma shudder) in the past ten years. Trust & believe that the time is coming for the next trainer. My guess? Something bowling-esque, not platformed, rounded toe, endearingly pyknic. The Miriam Margolyes of shoes in leather or suede. That being said - if you like them, buy what you want! Don’t let TikTok define your life!
REVOLVING DOORS
Both physically and metaphorically over it. What business do I have, in heels, entering a fancy establishment, fucking trotting over myself in a humiliating little circle just to get to where I need to go. Everyone watching you trip over the hem of your skirt. Deciding whether or not to squeeze into one compartment with your friend or awkwardly pause the conversation to shuffle in mutual shamed silence. A man should ALWAYS be there to open a door for me - that’s just a given. Also: L in Leo is for loyalty, and I am completely uninterested in fair-weather friends. Add to the list fads, buying anything that won’t last, having to turn around before you’ve got to your destination because you don’t have your keys, forgetting information (especially people’s names) immediately after it has been told to you.
GOOD TASTE
Don’t care, over pretending to be ashamed of my musical theatre playlist. What the fuck even is good taste - probably some Upper East white woman who only paints her nails clear because even a mauve would be considered too whoreish for her philanthropy in gardening society. Guess what - I liked Saltburn, and I liked it because it was bad, and I’m tired of defending myself! I’m not going to sit through a black-and-white movie - I hated Roman Holiday when I was seven and guess what, I’d probably still hate it now because I don’t understand why anyone is pretending that Malcolm and Marie was good either. Sometimes people laugh out loud on the street when they see my outfits, and good for them! God forbid anyone has any fun when consuming media. Get over yourself, accept you will never be Joan Didion and stream Dedicated by Carly Rae Jepsen. Buy a frothy pink dress from LoveShackFancy! Release yourself! You have barely 100 years on this green planet and you’re going to spend it listening to a 12 minute acid rock song by The Doors? I don’t fucking think so babes.
KEEPING YOUR SADNESS IN YOUR BODY
If you haven’t read the RFQ article on loneliness, you’re probably not reading this one, because why the fuck are you even on Substack in the first place. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not trying to tell you to articulate every single negative emotion you feel. (literally impossible to identify the melancholy contained within the human spirit but whatever) God forbid the MädChen 2024 trend forecast included trauma-dumping on your main story. I’m saying work it out of your body. Write it down or cry it out or ask a friend or dance it off or dare I say move in space. Don’t keep it in there because it will stay until you’re like 80 and repressed as fuck and unable to be present with your grandchildren.
CODIFYING EVERY FASHION EVENT / MOMENT IN YOUR LIFE
I’m not trying to enter into any sort of discourse of the death/revival of subculture - god knows I don’t have the knowledge or the patience - but I am making a plea against every single niche and specific thing that a group of people enjoy being immediately packeted up for easy product sales. I think we all hit out limit with Tomato girls last summer, but it’s time to just let people do whatever they want. We’ve never had so much sheer data on our fingertips, which is cool & everything, but the whole point of the human experience is feelings and states of beings that cannot be put into words, let alone binary code. Hate the comment that’s like ‘oh, so I’ve never had an original experience in my life’ YES YOU HAVE!!!! JUST NOT ON THAT DAMN PHONE!!! lol
THE AUTEUR-IFICATION OF THE CREATIVE DIRECTOR
You know that thing that happened back in the 50s where suddenly everyone decided the director was the most important person in the whole of the film and every single film that came out was a direct reflection of themselves as an artist? The cult of personality that emerged around people like Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, other boring old Hollywood flops? Why have we suddenly started doing this with fashion? It’s not just a 90s Marc Jacobs cultural hype thing, it’s a hiring and firing at lighting speed dependent on a singular collection helmed as the be-all of a person’s career. 90% of a collection is designed, made, conceptualised by a team of 10-100 people - look at how good Gucci’s collections were between Alessandro Michele and Sabato de Sarno! Pharrell’s entire Louis Vuitton inception has been dedicated to the teams who design bags, shoes, shirts in response to a brief he presents. Creative Directors, nine times out of ten, are not the singular geniuses they are presented as, but are backed up by hundreds of thousands of skilled workers, designers and creatives. Stop trying to make them auteurs. And hire some more women while you’re at it!
FAMILY INFLUENCERS
I cannot be more serious - stop putting your toddler on the internet! Look at the way literacy rates are going with the inception of the iPad baby - the last thing your daughter needs is meticulous documentation of her existence complete with a forum of hundreds of thousands of people commenting on every move she makes. Your son should not see an all-seeing Eye of Sauron iPhone camera dangling over his cot instead of his parents faces.
DESIGNER ON THE RED CARPET
It’s time to bring back off-the-rack Macy’s for the Grammy red carpet. It’s time to bring small and upcoming designers to the forefront of the cultural consciousness. So help me God, I do not want to see another neon tulle MGC Dior midi gown. I do not know how many more neon tulle ballgowns I have in me. Zendaya has so much power because she’s nine times out of ten she’s wearing archive. Think Hari & Margot in Dilara, or better yet - harken back to late 90s early 2000s film premiere’s when Ashley Tisdale would show up to the carpet in jeans and a skirt. If you have enough star power you won’t need Valentino to smother your talent in a feathered cape. This is the gauntlet I throw - girls: bring it to the runway, runway b-bring it to the runway.
Speak soon - LOVE U XXXXX