We’re living in the age of micro-trends. It seems every week, TikTokers experiment with something new and then suddenly everyone scrambles to report, legitimize, and assign meaning to what would normally be something ephemeral. No one could be blamed for thinking that if everything’s a trend then nothing is a trend; and yet looking back at the year, some objects did indeed emerge into a state of semi-permanent inescapability.
At the spring 2025 shows in September, it seemed that designers were eager to shed the quiet luxury blanket that has been covering the industry for the past few years. At Bottega Veneta, Matthieu Blazy called for a sense of childlike wonder when getting dressed, while at Prada, Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada proposed we break free from the algorithm and dress in whatever’s in our closets, sending out recreations of old season-pieces. Off the runways, the world appears to also be moving in a more playful direction. How else to explain the rise of little plush toys and colorful bead embellishments that began appearing on handbags and shoes? Or the jelly shoes that immediately transport the wearer to their youth?
And since it is indeed our job to report, legitimize, and assign meaning to these trends; here are the 15 objects that defined our year.
