Autumn / winter 2017 fashion trends: Style notes for the season ahead

Just as you are lying by the pool with your summer head still on, the A/W’17 fashion trends are already landing in stores… so put down the trashy novel and start making notes.

From futuristic fabrics, to tonal dressing, fashion’s throwing some frivolous and occasionally revolutionary ideas our way next season. There’s nothing to stop you from getting ahead of the pack and working a few of these into your wardrobe right now. These are the trends worth noting…

Hi, Shine

When Karl Lagerfeld built a Chanel rocket launch pad in the middle of the Grand Palais at Paris Fashion Week, the trend for space-age fabrics was confirmed. Fluid silver lamé is used for evening dresses at Paco Rabanne, while Christopher Kane uses iridescent foil and J.W. Anderson declares chainmail to be the unexpected new party fabric.

Get the gloss

Raf Simons made his debut at Calvin Klein, coating every outerwear option in his collection in clear plastic. Elsewhere, Miu Miu, Roksanda and Fendi are also going big on the patent and PVC.

Tonal time

Roksanda, Preen and more of the big names in London have declared that it is time to brush up on our colour coordination, championing top-to-toe tonal dressing for all. The key to getting it right for now, it seems, is to offset with one accessory in a contrasting hue.

Corduroy comeback

Prada, Mulberry and Lemaire lead the charge for a cord revival, reimagined in new, feminine silhouettes. The new corduroys come in blush, terracotta or teal – a far cry from the geography professors of yesteryear.

Sharp suiting

The top takeaway from the latest round of shows? Get yourself some decent tailoring. For the new season, jackets are more fitted and less shoulder-padded than the last. Celine, Stella McCartney, Calvin Klein and more, say that looking the part is as good as being the part.

Granny knits

If Christopher Kane says the cardigan is back, who are we to argue? His come readily pilled with shiny buttons, while Gucci even team theirs with Nanna’s pearls.

This feature doesn’t apply to me in the slightest, but every woman with big boobs has been there, apparently.

You get out the shower clean and fresh but as soon as you start drying your hair and getting ready, the boob sweat begins. Within ten minutes it sometimes feels like you actually need another shower.

But thankfully there finally might be a solution in the form of a new style of bra.

Admittedly, the Ta Ta Towel looks bizarre, ugly and far from a pretty lace number. And it would slip off me in seconds. But it could spell the end of one of the most annoying parts of bigger girls’ going out routines.

Buyers are going crazy for the new bra – with many designs listed as sold out on the official social media pages.

But this feature would definitely have applied to me; Pregnant women have also been praising the new bra, which costs £35, saying it is good on sensitive nipples and absorbs leaking breast milk.

The woman behind the new design, Erin Robertson, came up with the idea after having a nightmare getting ready for a date.

Writing on her website, she says: “I tried everything. I tucked tea towels under my breasts, I tried dumping baby powder all over me, I even put a t-shirt on and tucked it under my boobs.

“I kept thinking: “There HAS to be a better way to keep the beads of sweat from dripping down my stomach.”

She kept thinking about it for the whole date (I can only assume it wasn’t the most exciting evening…) and the idea finally hit her when she got home. Soon her prototype was ready and she started handing them out to her friends.

They became a big hit and are now being sold online to people across the world.

So goodbye sweaty boobs – you won’t be missed (apparently).

One of Victoria Beckham’s key features is that she has always been very slim.

VB is now suing a takeaway over a “thoughtless” advert boasting that its pizza crusts are thinner than her. The slogan on the back of their pizza delivery van is emblazoned with a skeletal caricature of the fashion queen.

Sidhu Golden Fish and Chips in North Tyneside proudly declares its pizza crusts are thinner than VB.

A spokesperson for the former Spice Girl branded the images, which consist of a skeletal caricature of her eating an apple, “thoughtless” and “inappropriate”. The slogan on the back of their pizza delivery van is emblazoned with the caricature of the famous WAG wearing a sash which reads “Anorexic Fashion Icon”.

Ouch. That’s got to hurt.

The fashion designer’s spokesperson said: “It is highly inappropriate to trivialise such a disorder, and defamatory to be so thoughtless with a person’s reputation in this way, sadly this is now a legal matter.”

Manager Soni Sidhu said that he never meant to offend anyone with the advert – and that his customers see it in context. He said: “As the manger and on the behalf of all our staff and owners I would like to state we recognise how serious eating disorders are and would never make light the seriousness of people with eating disorders.

VB’s people in response commented, “To trivialise anorexia in a pizza advert is appalling. There has been a lot of good work done around mental health recently, especially by the royals, in reducing the stigma attached to eating disorders. This is a step in the wrong direction. The people responsible for this should hang their heads in shame”.

Over to you. What do you think?