Brands that want to get ahead of fashion trends and new styles need to go big and bold to blaze a trail in the industry. Major fashion events around the world will often be the prime showcases of how top-end designers intend to set the mark for the season or year to come, but it’s often in the celebrity space that the general public will begin to notice and pile into a new style or trend.
You only have to look as far as the red carpet for the VMA Awards to see how varied the fashion scene is right now, but even in the selection of the most striking attire at the 2021 VMA Awards, there’s a blending of styles and trends. From Jack Harlow’s more subtle green leather suit with a black turtleneck to Lil Nas X’s pink biker jacket with split-toe Maison Margiela Tabi boots, it’s clear that the lines blend with each outfit.
This isn’t a surprise, or even anything new, particularly from the front of gender lines in fashion being blurred or even melded together. With the LGBTQ+ movement picking up tremendous speed over the last few years, people look to the faces of the fashion and entertainment industry to react. As we can now see, a blending of styles across the board looks to be the approach that’s sticking right now.
Fun with fashion beyond the historic style lines
Back in 2014, Karl Lagerfeld’s Chanel Paris show stunned the world of fashion by unveiling the iconic luxury lines on models, but this time, with pairs of trainers making up the footwear. It was a big showing of high fashion recognising this new trend that blends couture and streetwear, be it to give the ensemble an edge or for comfort, which customers increasingly crave.
Now, it’s not uncommon to see someone fork out on luxury, absurdly expensive trainers from brands like Nike or PharrellxAdidas to pair with more formal attire. It’s led to many venues that would traditionally enforce a smart shoewear policy to reconsider what the parameters of such rules are. After all, a pair of Nike Air Max 97 Gold Bullets would imply a more luxurious shoe than many of the brown leather lace-ups that you see in such venues.
Into 2023, a reinvention of what formal wear means looks to take hold across fashion. With the preference for remote work coming to the fore, more people will see work attire as not needing to be as formal as in the past. What this would seemingly do is unlock a much more creative and statement-driven movement for special and major occasions, making a big deal out of those secluded events.
Importantly, for many people, fashion and dressing up are becoming a much more entertaining part of their lives. Celebrities boasting new styles on the red carpet is one factor of this, but so too is the rise of fashion mobile games. Super casual games that you dress up your avatars as you see fit – sometimes via puzzles – have really taken off, with The Sims: Mobile, PitzMaker, and the Fabulous series of apps gamifying the fashion experience.
Entertainment blurring the lines in its own industry
Fashion is now moving to blur several of its longstanding lines and looks to be part of a much larger movement that seeks to remove the hard lines between sectors. In entertainment, this can be seen across a range of platforms and products. Most notably, the rise of interactive shows and movies has been impressive, to say the least. It leans heavily on decision-making, allowing the viewer to pick how Bandersnatch, Possibilia, or You Vs. Wild plays out on-screen.
It’s not just mediums that are being merged, either, as distinctly different entertainment experiences are now being blurred together. Through the use of live technology and real-time, interactive play, visitors to an online casino can play blackjack as though they were in the casino studio itself. It’s this live element that blends the convenience of playing at home with the luxury of playing at a casino, be it on games with a specific dealer or in the special celebrity room of live blackjack.
Live casino gaming has been pioneering in this regard, and now, the music industry is looking to get involved. Going beyond a live stream on Twitch, the Encore app is connecting live musicians with the online audience like never before. The app is interactive, letting you watch live and ‘clap’ to show your support. Artists also get a stack of features to play with, including ways to use augmented reality to alter the setting and talk to the audience.
Blurring the gender lines of fashion in the spotlight
Major designers like Marc Jacobs and Gucci have been all over the new wave of gender fluidity in fashion, as well as gender-neutral garb. The latter looks to be catching on away from the luxury brands especially, with unisex products filtering down to lower-cost fashion stores and brands. Spurring on this adoption, of course, are the celebrities embracing fashion that blurs the gender lines, with Emma D’Arcy front and centre of the movement now.
A new star in the spotlight, D’Arcy played the older Rhaenyra Targaryen in the TV adaptation of House of the Dragon. The show was a roaring success, with D’Arcy put up for numerous industry awards. On all of the red carpets, they especially caught the eye for their striking outfits and hairdos. One ensemble featured sparkling FILA trainers with a white sweatshirt and gold satin-like trousers, while their British GQ Men of the Year Awards saw them sport black leather everything with steel-capped boots.
Then, there’s also the first solo male to appear on US Vogue’s cover in a dress: Harry Styles. The former One Direction bandmate has been at the forefront of this fashion movement for some time, with his custom Gucci wear at the 2021 Grammys being a fine demonstration of him blurring the gender lines in the industry. Of course, the likes of Katharine Hepburn, David Bowie, Marlene Dietrich, and Elton John all came before them.
Fashion continues to blur its own lines to bring about a new wave of styles and trends, and while it does, the entertainment industry and its celebrity entertainers seek to do the same.
