All The Things That Actually Influence Fashion Trends, Such As The Color Of The Year

A deep-dive into how and why orange has skyrocketed in popularity.

We’ve just finished probably one of the most important fashion months of our lifetime. With an unprecedented number of creative directors debuting runway collections across some of fashion’s biggest brands, the high-fashion industry has gone through quite the reset.

But as highly anticipated as this month’s runways were, and as much as they will influence where the fashion industry goes from here, we cannot predict what is next for fashion based on the runways alone. Thanks to the widespread use of social media, runway show images or looks are no longer the only available source for high-fashion inspiration.

Miranda Priestly’s famous “cerulean blue” monologue in The Devil Wears Prada describes how trends seen on the high-fashion runways—specifically, cerulean blue—are adopted by more mass-market brands, and eventually become popular on a large scale. But if, in 2025, it’s no longer just runways that dictate color trends, what does? And if cerulean blue is no longer the dominating color of the times, what is?

WHAT DRIVES FASHION TRENDS THESE DAYS?

To understand some of the driving forces behind what ends up being in fashion nowadays, let’s take a look at the recent rise and fall of different color trends.

In 2023, pink was everywhere. In the world of entertainment, the Barbie movie—which even resulted in a book highlighting Margot Robbie’s fabulous, very-pink outfits on the movie’s press tour—certainly contributed to the pink craze. In the world of sports, this was also the year one of the world’s most famous athletes, Lionel Messi, signed with MLS team Inter Miami and started wearing their signature—yep, you guessed it—pink jersey. Pink became more popular than ever.

databutmakeitfashion

A post shared by @databutmakeitfashion

However, consumers today get tired of trends quickly, with some micro-trends only sticking around for a couple of weeks. So, shortly after pink reached its peak, it started to fall in popularity. Consumers started getting tired of the pink craze and, since 2023, pink hasn’t been able to reach such high levels of popularity. People wanted something new.

In 2024, that seemed to be green. Much like pink the year before, green was everywhere. Charli XCX’s neon-green-colored brat album not only earned seven Grammy nominations, but also inspired a new wave of bold, unapologetic style. Simultaneously, another of the world’s biggest musicians, Colombian singer Feid, was selling out stadiums of fans dressed in his signature green. Pantone would later turn Feid’s green into an official color. And finally, the Wicked movie, which became the highest-grossing film adaptation of a Broadway musical, kept green—albeit now a deeper, emerald shade—in the spotlight.

Green was to 2024 what pink was to 2023. And, of course, just as fashion trends rise, so must they fall. The green craze died down. And today, it’s being replaced with orange.