What will we be wearing in 2022?

In anticipation of a time in the not-so-distant future when we can do things again, like dressing up and attending a party with a lot of people

K Radharaman launched Alamelu, a seasonless, everyday luxury brand, three months after the end of the first lockdown in 2020. “We noticed that women were gravitating towards statement pieces that not only fulfilled the need for comfort but also the joy of wearing a bit of India on their sleeves. In Alamelu, you’ll see a little bit of India in everything,” says Radharaman

Our first fashion story on the first day of January is always written with an optimistic frame of mind. It’s one opportunity to not dwell on the unknowns, but to believe that fashion can still surprise. Sure, there will be fashion coverage throughout the year; reporting on exciting new announcements and clothing ideas and, with any luck, less-airbrushed industry narratives on the wonderful neutralities of genders and pronoun introductions. We will track stories on how to style ethically, and on changing consumer behaviours, and homesteading “India” as a cultural sentiment and our collective sartorial destiny. Do we “cheugy” and carry on?

The biggest headline of 2022 is already here. Effective January 1 onwards, the government has hiked the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on finished goods such as apparel, textiles and footwear from five to 12 per cent. This is a kind of inflation hit that would be felt by almost everyone, and is a significant blow to the industry already pushed to the brink by Covid-19 and the looming threat of Omicron. “We were already struggling to negotiate with a nearly 30 per cent jump in costs of raw materials such as silk, cotton, linen, viscose introduced in 2021, and now an increase in GST. It’s poorly timed, and will definitely fracture demand. I’m not usually an alarmist but it’s hard to look at this in a positive way,” shares K Radharaman, founder of House of Angadi.

Radharaman, however, is hopeful that the shift is temporary. As sobering as such knowledge may be, it is cause for hope. Looking ahead, what will get us through is creativity, disruption and loads of guts.

Redefining the term ‘sustainable fashion’

When people believe in the symbolic gestures of their clothes, it creates a ripple effect on their thinking processes and part of those are your emotions. “We’ve become more culturally rooted and Covid has brought Indian pride home,” feels Radharaman. The buying ethos in 2022 will continue to be led by values of sustainability and provenance. “We noticed that women are gravitating towards statement pieces that not only fulfill the need for comfort but also the joy of wearing a bit of India via accents on their sleeves,” adds Radharaman. 

Harmeet Bajaj

Harmeet Bajaj, full-time academician and part-time designer, hopes that fashion turns down a few notches on using the term “sustainable” quite so freely. Instead, she suggests investing in making clothes that are designed to endure. “It’s [sustainable] a big buzzword, which includes re-designing a whole ecosystem. Conscious consumption is perhaps a sounder term for designers and consumers.” Buying good quality, well-made clothes might cost you a little extra but it reduces the size of your wardrobe. “Almost 50 per cent of your wardrobe comprises clothes that were bought because it was a good deal. We need to stop chasing the cheap needle and bring back the ethos of ‘heirloom’ in 2022 as a way of encouraging quality clothing,” she says.

The Y2K aesthetic reigns king

But you already knew that, didn’t you? So here are some stats to help you decipher the mega utopianism of the Y2K (early 2000s) trends. Stylumia’s extensive data research reveals a 40 per cent increase in marble prints, black and white prints by 46 per cent and stripe patterns by 51 per cent, sequins saw a 38 per cent rise and hot pinks at 30 per cent.

“Bomber jacket will be the new blazer,” declares Kumar. The waist-length jacket originally created by Air Force technicians and made famous by Top Gun’s Tom Cruise, is obviously not a new style trend. The bomber has been spun in many directions over the years, but in 2022, the outdoor performance piece will carve its own place as an important wardrobe essential.

Generation Z become entrepreneurs

Ganesh Subramanian

Ganesh Subramanian, founder and CEO at Stylumia, says that the number of consumers shopping online has crossed the 100-million mark. Last year alone, they noticed five lakh new small and mid-level merchants. The former CEO at Myntra launched Stylumia in December 2015, a Bengaluru-based platform powered by computer vision to offer simple, intuitive, visual intelligence to understand the in-season and post-season performance of brands and take instant actions. “Combing through KPI [Key Performance Indicator] and product imagery, we can review/analyse your in-season business 10x faster. Traditional spreadsheets are no longer required. We bring context and help derive patterns on global and local scale, based on consumer habits,” Subramanian explains. As technology makes reaching a wider audience easier, Generation Z entrepreneurs are powering D2C e-commerce. “Gen Z is discerning. They are driven by the principles of ‘buy less buy better’, looking closely at sustainable alternatives of thrifting, recycling and re-wearing. For bigger players, the competition is no longer from the Goliaths but from the Davids,” warns Subramanian. The Indian fashion market is close to $80 billion yet not many designers have capitalised on the D2C potential. “They [designers] continue to believe that creativity and data don’t go together; however, I’d argue that data augments creativity. For them [designers] getting a customer is like flipping a coin. If you don’t put your customer in the centre, there are more misses than hits. Higher revenue happens with smarter, not more, online inventory.”

Feel-good clothes, part comfort and fully sexy

Many retailers are championing versatility in their apparel assortment for 2022. There will be a big focus on “warmth, comfort and health”, designer Narendra Kumar hints. Versatility and adaptability will once again define the sartorial story; it’s as important for clothes to work hard as you do and multitask, taking you from home to conference rooms and sometimes, through your evening plans.

(Left) A model in a bomber jacket from FKNS by Narendra Kumar (right); Kumar says: “Sexy clothing will come back in a big way in 2022”

At the same time, there is an uncontainable sense of certain abandon that perhaps comes from defying two years of housebound pragmatism. Read: a desire to break out of tracksuit bottoms and into an exuberant hue of sexy confidence. “People are asking: where is the sexy in our clothes? Skin will come back in a big way. We have missed it,” says Kumar.

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