Tiffany Hsu Predicts the Future of Fashion
We chat with Mytheresa’s Buying Director about the next big trends, sustainability and the future of the metaverse.
Mytheresa‘s Buying Director Tiffany Hsu is known worldwide for her impeccable sense of taste as her over 200,000 Instagram followers can attest. Starting out as an artistically-inclined teenager who didn’t know what to do, Hsu followed in the footsteps of John Galliano and enrolled in Central Saint Martins, jump-starting her sartorial career as a buyer.
Since then, the London-based creative has been at the helm of the online luxury retailer for nearly six years, so naturally, she was the first on our list of fashion experts to identify next year’s biggest trends. With New York Fashion Week on the horizon and 2023 arriving in four short months, we chat with Tiffany Hsu about the influence of the metaverse on fashion and what streetwear trends we can expect.
Read our interview below, and be sure to follow Tiffany on Instagram.
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As Mytheresa’s buying director, what fashion trends do you anticipate to be big this coming fall? Are you seeing any fashion cores and aesthetics that might take over in 2023?
I think the next six to 12 months will be a pretty dramatic shift. Everyone’s a little bit done with simple fashion. We’ve been through two years of the pandemic working from home and dressing in casual clothes. I’ve seen quite a lot of loud colors, silhouettes and statement-making styles, whether it’s Y2K or something more sophisticated, like structured shoulders. I just feel like everything is going to be 15% bigger and louder. Within that, there are obviously a lot of micro-trends, like the Euphoria influence, which won’t be stopping anytime soon. Sexier things will become even sexier and minimal is becoming even more minimalistic. Maximalism is, of course, going to get more extra and is mimicking this loud ’80s approach and feeling where people are dressing to be seen.
There’s also a major surrealistic inspiration, stemming from art. Looking at Loewe, it has a more artistic inspiration, where you’re seeing lots of bodies and hands incorporated into pieces. A lot of designers are also celebrating the female body through nude body prints, cinched waists, minimal cuts and body-hugging outfits. A lot of it comes from us having hibernated for two years and people wanting to show off their bodies, have fun and celebrate what they have.
There’s also an underlying influence of thrift store style, which is not necessarily only shopping second-hand. We’re seeing a lot of people re-creating eclectic outfits from their closets and what they can find, especially with the younger generation — it’s more budget-friendly and sustainable.
Sustainability has become a major point of interest for consumers. Do you see this reflected in how and what you buy for Mytheresa? How does sustainability impact the buying industry itself?
I think everyone is becoming more aware of what’s happening with the environment and the circulation of fashion, as well as the overall production cycle and how things are created just to be wasted. Everyone’s taking extra care to shop from brands that are strictly producing what is needed rather than overproducing. Consumers are more interested in shopping with labels that use end-line materials or stock fabrics and are utilizing what’s already there rather than having to produce more.
Working in the luxury sector, people tend not to overproduce anything. We only buy what we think we can sell, whereas fast fashion produces to fill a giant store that’s five floors of the same product. Luxury fashion is a lot more circular because you wouldn’t throw a Gucci bag in the bin. You can reuse luxury items because they’re timeless in nature. You can pull it out in 10 years’ time and it still holds the same value because it means something. I think we are definitely moving forward and everyone is more conscious about being sustainable.
However, it’s not easy for everyone, especially smaller brands. It’s also quite hard to define what sustainability is. The most sustainable thing is not to make anything and not to consume. Fashion isn’t essential because we don’t need it to survive, but it is emotional and it does make us happy, which is important in its own right. I think people buy what they love aesthetically, otherwise, you wouldn’t be shopping. I think the way we translate our sustainability ethos into our buying strategy is to avoid items we know are badly produced or use cheap labor. We also do a lot of things internally to offset our carbon footprint.
How do you think digital aesthetics, fashion and virtual worlds are impacting fashion aesthetics?
There’s definitely a heavy digital influence on physical garments. A lot of fashion has become quite surreal and I think it started before the metaverse with gaming and anime. You can see a lot of this comic manga influencing the younger fashion generation. The ability to 3D-print also opens up different ways of production, allowing you to make things that are a little out of this world. Fashion takes influence from everything, especially the social climate. To a certain extent, digital fashion isn’t practical yet people are buying looks for their avatars so it’s definitely a business to be had. Fashion and the metaverse will most likely grow parallel to each other because people still have an innate desire to hold and own physical items. Clothing is so emotional that I don’t think digital clothing will fully replace it.
Are there any emerging brands and designers that are catching your eye right now?
A. Roege Hove, DIDU, RUI, Roberta Einer and Dilara Findikoglu are definitely at the top of my list.
