Written by Naomi May

The Little Mermaid! The Thong Song! Designers sourced inspiration from the most unlikely of places for their spring/summer 2023 collections. The result? A smorgasbord of colours, textures and muses.

The world of fashion might not be celebrated for its permanence – pseudo or micro-trend, anyone? – but nobody can criticise it for a lack of originality.

As a riposte to the sombre state of global affairs – war, financial crises, worldwide assaults on women’s rights – the most recent fashion month was a fitting tribute to the displays for which the industry is revered. This was a fashion month that was awash with real clothes – for the most part anyway, this is fashion after all – that were designed for real people and real lives with just a squeeze of lime and a hint of cheek.

Across the board, there were diktats from the denizens of the fashion world to re-engage with nature: in Copenhagen, Samsøe Samsøe’s show was called Gone Fishing; in New York, Maryam Nassir Zadeh started her press release with the word ‘waves’ – a nod to more than just the azure tides lapping the shore; and in London, Riccardo Tisci drew inspiration from the British beach for what transpired to be his final collection for Burberry. There are few sources of inspiration as plentiful and restorative as those provided by Mother Nature herself, but this being an industry that can’t help but push boundaries and expectations, these trends are indicative of the world we live in today: not unfamiliar, but establishing new frontiers every day.

Heart on your sleeve  

Perhaps in a bid to elicit a little more compassion from all of us, designers used their spring/summer 2023 collections to encourage a collective wearing of our hearts on our sleeves – sometimes quite literally. At Acne Studios, hearts were stitched into the fabric of blood-red dresses; for London’s buzziest style star, Nensi Dojaka, blink-and-you’ll-miss-them hearts were sewn onto the necklines of dresses; in Milan, for Sportmax, hearts adorned long-sleeved, ab-flashing crop-tops. 

In the way that 2022 has been the unequivocal year of the butterfly (on clothes, in hair, etc), next year is shaping to be the year of the heart – that thing that keeps us all ticking over. When in doubt, wear yours on your sleeve.

Under the sea  

That the trailer for the live-action reboot of The Little Mermaid has amassed 24 million views since it dropped last month is a nod to how the fabled marine creature has clearly made it to the top of designers’ mood boards for next summer. Not only did seafoam green and gentle lavenders – the shade of Ariel’s bikini top in the film – prove to be the nascent shades for next season, but shimmering sequins and floor-sweeping hems are becoming the new fashion fin. 

On your bike  

Would you? Should you? Could you? The return of the pedal pusher conveniently coincides with the hike in numbers of cycling rates, which are now up by 150% up against the first pre-lockdown weeks of 2020. Their virtues are plentiful. Zimmermann’s were crochet, Tory Burch’s were scuba, Ottolinger’s were cotton – but there is no hierarchy when it comes to the sartorial proficiency of pedal pushers. These are short-trouser hybrids that guard modesty underneath vertiginous hems and enable the often neglected skin of the legs to get a little air and sun. Should your pedal pushing references need some sharpening, look to the wardrobes of Grease and Dirty Dancing for a gentle push – pun intended – in the right direction.

The rise of the rear

The dispatch from the spring/summer 2023 shows was clear: now is the time to go arse first. Woven into Riccardo Tisci’s final collection for Burberry were sweeping dramatic dresses, which, once the back was turned, suggested that our derrieres are set to become the new erogenous zone of the body. For those not willing to blatantly bare theirs, other designers nodded to the rise of the rear in the form of bottom-skimming trousers with only a peep of underwear to preserve your dignity. In fact, there’s a song for that – Alexa, play The Thong Song. 

A slice of lime 

Get ready for bright bursts of lime to become your main squeeze if Michael Kors, Ester Manas and Balenciaga are to be believed. Size-inclusive purveyor Ester Manas’s collection, which was deftly named Sunset Body, reimagined what a summer body looks like. Its incarnation is “delicious, pleasurable and glittering” while drenched in shards of lime that fall so beautifully that they could be liquid. Michael Kors crafted shimmering silks in tart lime shades, and in Paris, even Demna Gvasalia endorsed the shade, with sweet-and-sour lime hemlines trudging through the Balenciaga mudslide, which the designer conceived. The takeaway is clear: this is one seriously ripe trend that’s simply waiting for you to give it a squeeze.

Images: Getty; courtesy of brands

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