It’s been a big summer. We watched the World Cup and followed the New York Knicks to their NBA triumph. We climbed Mount Olympus with Tom Holland, Zendaya and Matt Damon in The Odyssey, and sailed around Muskoka, Canada, in teen show Sterling Point. The affluent among us boarded yachts, and the fancy-free hit beach clubs or night clubs in Ibiza. Some of us bookended the summer with Milan and Paris Men’s fashion weeks in June, and Copenhagen Fashion Week’s 20th anniversary in August. But now, it’s back to school, as the September womenswear show season kicks off in New York this Friday. And the memories of summer, and the cultural moments it brought, are influencing next season’s trends.
Once again this season, we sat down with some of the industry’s leading data analysts and trend forecasters ahead of the shows to understand what’s next for the season ahead, based on consumer behavior, street style, social media data, and the men’s and Copenhagen Spring/Summer 2027 shows. The upshot? Fashion will continue to fight its way back from the quiet luxury, clean girl aesthetic next season, with fresh ideas and experimental styling.
Messy girl summer
It’s been brewing for some time, but recent albums and press runs from the likes of Charli XCX, Olivia Rodrigo and newer talents Adéla, Slayyyter and CMAT have cemented that the clean girl is on the way out. Welcome to messy girl summer, achieved mainly through clashing colors, prints, and effortless styling.
WGSN notes “free-style expression” as an adjacent SS27 mood. “Building on rising momentum from catwalk to street style, free-style expression subverts prim suburban codes through an expressive, self-styled lens,” says Kim Cupido, senior catwalks strategist at WGSN. In practice, it will look like pastel colorways, dreamy florals, and tactile materials paired with offbeat styling, including graphic tees, pattern clashes, and unexpected footwear. “This maximalist narrative celebrates playful individuality and irreverence, serving as a key precursor to future self-expression trends.”
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Slogan tees, a key style of the trend, are up 156% for SS26, based on in-store and online arrivals data from retail intelligence platform Edited. While majority sellout — meaning the amount of styles where over 50% of the SKUS were sold — on spotted and striped garments were up 108% and 29%, respectively, from SS25-SS26, which EDITED analyst Karis Munday partly attributes to a rise in layering patterns with separates to achieve the messy girl look.
As seen at CPHFW from designer Sson, contrasting prints, or those such as polka dots and stripes, with the same pattern in different sizes are bubbling up. “Layering and color-clashing in different hues is a key trend, with a lot of like stacked T-shirts, sheer overlays, contrasting tanks, and hybrid pieces,” says Frida Tordhag, analyst at Paris-based trend analytics firm Heuritech.
