Mens Fashion Trends Spring 08 onwards
Having been in the urban fashion business a fair few years now we have built up our knowledge of trends and fashion and along with that have become intuitive to the market and aware of what is happening, because of this we are often approached by individuals, magazines but above all manufactures to give advice and our opinions on where the men’s urban streetwear market in the UK is going. We or rather some of our suppliers have had considerable success by following our predictions. Two come to mind, one many years ago when we told a very good friend and clothing supplier of ours to move away from jeans and start making cords, which became their best seller for many seasons. More recently about 12 months ago we advised a major UK clothing company that they should produce some all over prints in bright colours, these hit the market 8 months ago and proved once again to be huge sellers for them. So what’s happening now with UK men’s fashion on the underground tip?
The cut of Jeans is the most important change here, we all remember the phat cut and in fact we still sell plenty of them, but a while back emo hit the market and whilst many of us may not consider ourselves emo it did have an effect on the clothing trends and jeans got tighter, not the leg hugging gripper style but things did generally go slimmer and people were starting to take notice of technical issues like rise (the length between the gusset and waist band). That’s all history now and the new cut on the market is “carrot leg” which is a combination of the gripper at the ankle and relaxed around the hip and thigh, the other thing to note is the rise with a move away for low rise to a higher rise so when you wear them on your waist there’s a “bag” or the jeans hang around the crutch.
Washes are really all over the place from bleached to raw and include blacks and greys, the major new happening with washes is over printing on raw denim then washing and brushing back, hard to explain if you haven’t seen them but it’s like a raw wash with depth and texture. Selvage denim still continues but you should see the prices dropping.
The other major design alteration I see a lot of but hasn’t hit the UK yet (we have ordered some for spring 08) is double yokes. If you imagine wearing 2 pairs of jeans one lower than the other you’ll get the idea. There was a trend in Europe, mainly in womens fashion of very high waist but I’ve not seen this transpose over to the males yet and it may not due to our bulging waistlines;-)
Colours and prints, the whole all over mad bright nu rave design thing is set to continue but there is going to be a move to plainer more detailed clothing by this time next year.
Layering has always had its followers but for the last few seasons we have seen more lightweight hoodies and the whole flannel shirt thing is going mental and will continue with heavyweight over-shirts next autumn. The one thing we are seeing is detail, as mentioned above plain and detail are the next big thing and we are seeing hoodies made from contrasting fabrics, so the body may be plain French Terry but the hood may be some form of ribbed fabric but same colour, this is also being seen on shirts, t-shirt and over-shirts where they are adding hoods to make new garments or to make them look layered.
Camo, sure it still has it followers and some companies still do well with it but I do know of 2 UK companies that are in deep trouble and they have been well known for their camo fabrics and designs. One of the companies had very bad sell through for retails last winter and the other is looking for new outlets on the internet even when three years ago, when we approached them, they would not think of supplying an internet shop.
General observations are that since the credit card crash, Northern Rock etc. it has been lean times for most bricks an mortar retailers and some have failed to survive, others have entered the internet market but with established companies already there and dominating the market it’s hard for them to jump that learning curve. Other have consolidated their brands and just cut back, all this means that there’s going to be less choice from the independent clothing sector and the big boys who can weather the storm will. Also consumers who struggle to make ends meet will shop at low cost outlets and spend less on designer and independent fashion brands, for the meantime anyway.
The cut of Jeans is the most important change here, we all remember the phat cut and in fact we still sell plenty of them, but a while back emo hit the market and whilst many of us may not consider ourselves emo it did have an effect on the clothing trends and jeans got tighter, not the leg hugging gripper style but things did generally go slimmer and people were starting to take notice of technical issues like rise (the length between the gusset and waist band). That’s all history now and the new cut on the market is “carrot leg” which is a combination of the gripper at the ankle and relaxed around the hip and thigh, the other thing to note is the rise with a move away for low rise to a higher rise so when you wear them on your waist there’s a “bag” or the jeans hang around the crutch.
Washes are really all over the place from bleached to raw and include blacks and greys, the major new happening with washes is over printing on raw denim then washing and brushing back, hard to explain if you haven’t seen them but it’s like a raw wash with depth and texture. Selvage denim still continues but you should see the prices dropping.
The other major design alteration I see a lot of but hasn’t hit the UK yet (we have ordered some for spring 08) is double yokes. If you imagine wearing 2 pairs of jeans one lower than the other you’ll get the idea. There was a trend in Europe, mainly in womens fashion of very high waist but I’ve not seen this transpose over to the males yet and it may not due to our bulging waistlines;-)
Colours and prints, the whole all over mad bright nu rave design thing is set to continue but there is going to be a move to plainer more detailed clothing by this time next year.
Layering has always had its followers but for the last few seasons we have seen more lightweight hoodies and the whole flannel shirt thing is going mental and will continue with heavyweight over-shirts next autumn. The one thing we are seeing is detail, as mentioned above plain and detail are the next big thing and we are seeing hoodies made from contrasting fabrics, so the body may be plain French Terry but the hood may be some form of ribbed fabric but same colour, this is also being seen on shirts, t-shirt and over-shirts where they are adding hoods to make new garments or to make them look layered.
Camo, sure it still has it followers and some companies still do well with it but I do know of 2 UK companies that are in deep trouble and they have been well known for their camo fabrics and designs. One of the companies had very bad sell through for retails last winter and the other is looking for new outlets on the internet even when three years ago, when we approached them, they would not think of supplying an internet shop.
General observations are that since the credit card crash, Northern Rock etc. it has been lean times for most bricks an mortar retailers and some have failed to survive, others have entered the internet market but with established companies already there and dominating the market it’s hard for them to jump that learning curve. Other have consolidated their brands and just cut back, all this means that there’s going to be less choice from the independent clothing sector and the big boys who can weather the storm will. Also consumers who struggle to make ends meet will shop at low cost outlets and spend less on designer and independent fashion brands, for the meantime anyway.
Tags:
Labels: Camo, independent fashion brands, Mens Fashion Trends Spring 08
posted by Unknown at 10:24 am
2 Comments:
Heard a lot about double yokes. Inspired from people actually wear 2 pair of jeans. How is that comfortable? (the 2 pairs not the double yokes...)
-Jing
JUZD Bamboo Streetwear
didn't realise that's where it came from never had the urge to wear 2 pairs myself but they could do some amazing things with different washes on the bands
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