The Fashion Trends That Took Over 2020

The year that sweatpants ruled our wardrobes.

You can tell a lot about our lives from looking at past fashions, so if you flicked through our closet from this year, you’d see we were clearly going through something! From extravagant, over-the-top everyday outfits to blue light blockers to sweat suits, to not knowing if we should bother with shoes let alone even wear pants while we work, to finally getting dressed up again, here’s a quick look at our year in fashion.

2020 started off bright with Copenhagen Fashion Week inspiring us to wear head-to-toe tonal outfits in almost every colour of the rainbow and naturally, we swayed towards pastel shades sweet enough to satisfy any sugar cravings.

We then took it a step further and decided that dialing up the colour simply wasn’t enough and we wanted to be EXTRA with exaggerated details, like big sleeves and OTT accessories, taking over our everyday wardrobe. We were having so much fun playing with fashion and experimenting with our style... and then lockdown happened.

We did our best to stay positive and found joy in dressing up, even with nowhere to go, until we realised we only needed to be dressed from the desk up while we Zoomed into work from home. Blue light-blocking opticals became our new all-day-every-day accessories as we binge-watched everything from Schitt’s Creek to the lesser-known Jennifer Aniston rom-coms and even Xanadu to keep us entertained since we couldn’t socialise in person. It says a lot about iso when our must-watch movie list includes an 80s roller-disco fantasy musical, but nevertheless, that ultimately sparked a brief return of retro style and roller skates once lockdown restrictions eased.

@mariakarmo

Emphasis on brief because, let’s be honest, this was the year that sweatsuits, home clothes, pyjamas and basically anything stretchy completely dominated our style. Matching fleece sweats and track pants were the biggest of all trends in 2020 to the point that even when we were allowed to venture out, we’d do our best to find ways to dress up our comfy clothes.

Our love for casual loungewear didn’t stop once the sun came out either, we simply swapped our fleece for linen sleepwear and called it street style. It took us baby steps to get back to dressing up again – first with stretchy knit dresses, followed by breezy linen and cotton styles, and eventually suits and separates (albeit styled with sneakers and flats because we couldn’t give up comfort dressing cold turkey).

Speaking of shoes, fluffy slippers were our footwear equivalent to sweats, which we of course wore out of the house. It was either that or wear chunky sandals, which we still have a love-hate relationship with.

As life gradually ‘returned to normal’ so did our desire for getting dressed up again. The search for party dresses started well before dancing on the dance floor was legalised, but we were hopeful and ready to celebrate the year coming to an end. Regular talk of summer fashion trends (like actual trends, not just sweatpants in new colours) kicked off the season with a bang, and we guess you could consider it a sign of what 2021 brings.

Our Runway Everywhere inspired everyone to make a fashion parade out of everything, not to mention get experimental with outfitting again. The Clash and Retro Resort trends had us overdosing on pops of colour and attention-grabbing prints, while The Wanderer and Rebel Refined trends helped to provide a calmer balance in earthy linens and monochrome tones.

That’s our 2020 style in a nutshell, what did your wardrobe look like?

Shop 2021 Style