Soaring Skirt Trends For SS17

Skirt trends have always been a wardrobe staple for women. And as trends keep evolving, the skirt trends too has seen various adaptations in silhouettes and patterns. The skirt is versatile and can be worn just as easily to a business meeting as to a brunch party. Pair it with a tee, classic aviators and sneakers or with a fitted shirt and high heels, the style options are immense and equally interesting.

Beginning from the Victorian ages and going right up to December 2016’s party season, the skirt has never ceased to amaze. It has changed in length, style & fabric, however, every new trend has promised to surprise and endear.

Many skirt trends that were previously fashion staples in the past decade have been seen to make a comeback. Such is fashion, it is cyclic in nature and gives a lot of opportunities to reuse in interesting ways.

A quick look at skirt trends for 2017 showed that the mini, maxi, ruffled, pleated, tiered and even velvets are here to stay!

Highlights from Influencers to the Red-carpet

Influential international fashion bloggers like Blaire Eadie, Julie Engel and Chiara Ferragni are recommending bling, metallic & jewel tones. Even designers like Max Mara, Gucci and Mui Mui are adding sequins, embellishments & glitter to shoes, jackets, clutches and especially skirts.

While the mini skirt is here to remain, 2016 saw more women veering towards the longer and flowy silhouettes. We saw Taylor Swift rock the pleated skirt on a few occasions preferring the midi & maxi lengths while Victoria Beckham styled her’s in a business-casual look. Of course, Selena Gomez gets it right with a mini denim skirt which got her all of 7.1k re-pins, proving the popularity of the trend. On another occasion, she rocked the maxi skirt with a long side slit. That alone got her 17.4k re-pins!

Gywneth Paltrow showed off her superb fashion taste with her luxe knit evening skirt by Micheal Kors at the latter’s store opening.  But it was Miranda Kerr, a fashion diva who left them all behind when she received 26.2k re-pins for her beautiful tapestry inspired midi pencil skirt. Even our home-grown Priyanka Chopra couldn’t resist the temptation of a flowy maxi skirt on her trip to Paris.

Back home,  fashion blogger Aayushi Banngur (StyleDrive) wore the maxi pleated skirts twice in the last 2 months itself and collected a total of 6k+ likes on Instagram. Pallavi Ruhail, on the other hand, wore a sequin pencil skirt to the Polo League launch gala and received 1512 likes in just 2 weeks!

Retail insights

Every major retailer/brand has collections for midi & maxi skirts in pencil and pleated styles across diverse fabrics.

Mango, H&M, Zara, Only, Forever New already have a wide range of skirts to choose from. Even more online-focused brands such as Fab Alley, Dressberry & Koovs have caught up to the trend.

Stylumia Ranking

Search on Stylumia revealed the top-ranked skirts as below. Retailers like Myntra, Asos and brands like Sassafras, Harpa, Noisy May, Cottinfab, Roadster, Miss Selfridge and Purple Feather took the top spots with their knee-length, A-line, pencil, midi, denim, floral and mini skirts.

Consumer Search Trends

Consumers are viewing skirts via three parameters – length, style and more recently fabric. Let’s look at this in more detail.

We compared common search terms for consumers through different skirt lengths. As seen in the chart below, if we club the terms ‘mini skirt’ & ‘short skirt’, we get a total interest of 123% whereas for ‘maxi skirt’ & ‘long skirt’, it is 94%.

However, the trend shows a different story depending on the region. It was noticed that India had the highest search for long/maxi skirts followed by the USA. Miniskirt/short skirt was searched wider in Australia and Mexico.

It is interesting to note that in a period of 5 years, the mini/short skirt search interest has remained the same while the interest for maxi/long skirt has been cyclic. Prominent peaks were seen in the period of May-June every year from 2013 to 2016. Overall, the preferred skirt lengths have been ‘mini’ and ‘maxi’.

Within India, it is rather interesting to note that the Top related Query is ‘Maxi Skirt online’ indicating that consumers were looking to purchase the item of clothing online and the top colour searched was ‘nude’.

Globally, ‘denim’ was the most searched fabric, when it came to skirt trends. This was followed by ‘suede’.

Search skirt trends in India

In India, the highest search was for ‘Cotton skirts’.

‘Pleated’ seemed to be the item of choice for celebrities and bloggers alike especially in the second half of 2016. However, consumers globally have been searching for the classic ‘pencil skirt’ which is a definite wardrobe staple for women who can dress it up or down, depending on the occasion.

Summary

It is known that the origin of the teeny-weeny skirt dates back to 4700 BC. This item has surely travelled a long way since and has evolved from puffy to voluminous.

While in a market like India where work-wear for women is still in its infancy, we are adding this piece of clothing in interesting ways that the West hasn’t witnessed. Fusion-wear has swept the Indian market; co-ords (matching skirts & crop tops) were the rage last year and women were also seen pairing their maxi skirt trends with lehenga cholis, blouses and crop tops.

It will be interesting to see how this garment will continue to create its own style rules and find new ways to enter the consumer’s closets!