As we welcome in the new year, the fashion landscape of 2024 has begun to take shape. Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok are already showcasing rising trends, with ‘Ins and Outs’ videos becoming a prominent format for trendspotting. In these videos, individuals curate personal lists of both favoured trends (‘Ins’) and those they disapprove of (‘Outs’). Covering lifestyle choices, fashion preferences, and aspects of pop culture, these videos provide a window into the tastes of content creators and contribute to the ongoing evolution of trends. 

To delve deeper, this January I interviewed University of Birmingham students to uncover their personal fashion ‘ins and outs’ for the upcoming year.

Computer science student, Asia Petrie, encourages bold, colourful choices.

What are your fashions ‘ins’ this year? What do you want to see more of in 2024?

AP: I’m thinking more accessories. I’m thinking hats. I’m thinking scarves. I really like the big scarves, the Acne Studio scarves in particular. I love how they’re big, loud, and colourful.

Do you think 2024 should be the year of bigger silhouettes, brighter colours?

AP: For sure, I think that’s my ‘out’ for this year: colours that wash you out. Have fun! Live your life! Where is the fun in just wearing like a plain black t-shirt and jeans because you’re scared of what people are going to think? 

Two second year students, Honor Cookson, and Hannah Ford, held similarly colourful opinions:

HC: I want more colour! Brown has been in for so long; nudes have been in for so long. So has black and white, obviously, they’ll never go out of style. It doesn’t have to be loads of colour, but you know?

HF: I think for me, with neutrals, blacks, and whites, they’re classics. I know that when I’m older and look back at me in those things, I won’t feel like ‘ugh’, but when I look back on the colours I wore, say in 2020, when it was that really saturated indie phase, I look back on the things I wore then and think, ‘Oh my God’. I think the speed at which trend cycles are going at the moment, it’s not healthy or sustainable to have this many, such extreme colours, cause as soon as that’s out, no ones touching that again. With classics, it slows down that cycle, it’s more sustainable.

What other sort of colours do you want to see this year, and where would you want to see them? 

HF: In people’s jewellery, like with mixing metals. I think silver is coming back, we’ve had the year of gold, now it’s the year of silver.

HC: You know what, I back that.

HF: I do think the last two years have been so gold heavy, and I think especially with indie sleaze coming back in, I do think silver will make more of a recurrence.

HC: For sure. 

HF: I also think the thing that’s becoming really popular at the moment, you know how people are finding out whether they’re a ‘true Winter’, or a ‘light Spring’. I think it’s going to be ‘in’ to like, find your own personal, what colours suit you and your undertones, what style suits your body type.

I suppose that does subvert micro-trends because of how personal it is.

HF: And it means everyone’s wearing flattering clothes!

Two other students singled out specific branded items they want to see more of this year.

What are your main ‘ins’ for 2024?

1: My big in of the season is going to be like slouchy, chunky, large, leather bags. 

2: The crotchet, hatched one?

1: You’re thinking of Bottega Veneta, the leather hatched one. I like the slinky, lazy, Kate Moss-esque ones.

Are there any other specific brands or items that you’re hoping to see more or less of this year?

2: Uggs obviously. I think Uggs are gone. They’ve come back, and now they’re going, I think.

1: Well, I’ve always liked Uggs as a comfort item, not a fashion item. I don’t wear my Uggs because I’m like, ‘this is a fit’, I wear my Uggs because I’m like, ‘these are comfortable and warm shoes’.

2: Exactly, but I think they’re going out.

1: I think it depends on the Ugg. Like, the Ugg Tasmans, I think, are in. The low-cut ones, with the embroidery, and they’re slightly chunkier. But I get what you mean.

After interviewing so many different people, each with their own take on what is ‘in’ or ‘out,’ it seems that the prevailing trend for 2024 among University of Birmingham students is centred around the pursuit of personal style.

I feel this was expressed best by students Honor Cookson and Hannah Ford.

HF: Micro-trends are out!

HC: They’re not going to go out though.

Are there any in particular that you think are particularly fashionable, or particularly unfashionable?

HC: I’m over the whole, ‘this aesthetic’, ‘that aesthetic’ with women. Like, ‘clean girl,’ ‘mob wife’, ‘this makeup’, ‘that makeup’, ‘caramel girl’, whatever. People put new names to it but still.

HF: I agree, it’s like the branding of women.

HC: Yea, and you have to fit yourself into that. You’re so ‘this core’ or ‘that core’. That’s so ‘out’ right now.

HF: Yea, wear what you want to wear, and look good doing it. But let’s not brand and commercialise that.

With so many influences shaping fashion within the current media, students at the University of Birmingham seem to be steering away from the constantly changing trend cycles to embrace that what is ‘in’ this year, is expressing your own individuality. The campus conclusion is clear – finding personal style is the ultimate trend of 2024.

Read more from Life&Style here:

Gen Z, Social Media, and the Crisis of Beauty

The Perils of Productivity TikTok

Sleep: How Much Does It Truly Affect Our Appearance?