Is de val van de microtrend aangebroken?

Tomato-girl Summer, Coastal Cowgirl, Coquette, Blokette: At the moment these terms may not tell you much, but someday they had the fashion industry firmly in their grip. Retailers hurried to adjust their collections to keep up with the hype. However, their influence was short -lived. One day Content Creators scored their followers to supplement their wardrobe in Baby pink ‘Barbie’ style, the next day they reflected Kay Corleone from The Godfather in leopard jackets and large sunglasses.

These are microtrends, a trend type caused by social media that has changed fashion. These volatile trends are often mentioned as the cause of the loss of individual style, the traditional trend cycle and the once so tight seasonal calendar. They have forced many brands to revise their working method or even to speed up.

However, this rapid movement has received criticism, in particular in the area of ​​the impact on the environment, because these short cycles are being considered more and more wasting. Their existence depends entirely on the ability of shoppers to constantly renew their wardrobe, which is contrary to the growing awareness of the impact on the environment. Moreover, due to changing expenditure patterns, consumers are less and less able to keep up with this weekly ‘core’ aesthetics. So, just like their own lifespan, could microtrends disappear quickly? Analysts from WGSN think so.

A saturated market pushes consumers towards individualism

Jessica Seddon, senior strategy adviser for buying at WGSN, says about the trends that were once so popular, which was so popular by social media: “They were too saturated in the market between 2023 and 2024 and it was not sustainable, in terms of the environment, but also personal expenses. Consumers’ purchasing power is not strong enough to keep up with all changing trends, so that has encouraged them to return to personal style and more thoughtful consumption. ”

Where it was still possible last year to distract a specific microtrend almost monthly – Brat Summer dominated September, while Mob Wives kicked off the year in January – it became more difficult in 2025 to determine the trending ‘aesthetics’ of the moment. Instead, attention seems to be less on a general look and more on concrete products that have gone “viral” in a certain sense. For example, colorful retro sneakers have conquered the hearts of fashion lovers, just like striking ties and ultra -short shorts.

According to WGSN, consumers use a more practical approach to purchases and ask themselves the questions ‘what’ and ‘where’ about items before they buy them. The trend prediction agency investigated this in one of its FW25 trends, ‘now Eclecticism’, which suggested that consumers crave individuality in the midst of a rejection of standardization. They therefore consider how important items can be styled instead of limiting them to a specific aesthetics.

The platform used the Poet Blouse, a loose -fitting blouse that was sometimes decorated with large fringes and who had found its place between microtrends such as coquette or cottageecore, as an example of this shift. The silhouette has been transformed within more recent designer collections, so that it has detached itself from the limitations of Tiktok-like aesthetics and has adapted to various themes. In the pre-fall 2025 collection of Max Mara it can be seen, for example, in combination with tighter looks for the city dweller.

So how can retailers and brands benefit from this change?

According to WGSN, fascinating storytelling is crucial to really communicate with consumers under this new form of shopping. This also requires a nose for detecting the trending aesthetics with potentially in the short or long term, so that their most important influences are derived. The trend platform then underlines the increasing importance of authenticity, especially now that shoppers are making more and more purchases based on lifestyle and personal taste instead of aesthetics.

This only emphasizes that the values ​​of a brand must remain consistent in all aspects of its outer image, including in Cross-category merchandising, which, according to WGSN brands, offers plenty of opportunity to expand their ethos and at the same time remain loyal to their core. Clare Scullion, strategist at WGSN Retail and Buying, said in the insights that were shared with FashionUnited: “Retailers embrace more and more cross-category merchandising, which creates stories that respond to these lifestyles and offers versatility to respond in the season. This will also continue to offer plenty of opportunities in the future to stimulate upselling. “

This relates to working with organizations and other fashion brands that fall within the area of ​​interest of existing consumers. Nike’s collaboration with Apple for the Apple Watch Nike+ is a good example of a successful partnership that the consumers of the sports giant offered a technological product that fits in well with their fitness goals. Nike was less successful in his collaboration with jeweler Tiffany & Co., where the joint footwear did not match the interests of the respective customers of both brands; One side, Nike, hesitated about the prize, the other about De Stijl – Tiffany’s consumer was not very interested in Streetwear.

This only underlines the need for brands to focus on the actual interests of their consumers, where they still pay attention to trending cultural influences, but with the aim of breaking the noise of over -stimulation in a saturated product market. WGSN concluded that ‘differentiation will be crucial for maintaining the interest of the consumer’ in this environment, whereby massive microtrends are pushed aside and instead the importance is attached to the long -term attraction of personal styling.