What to expect in world of fashion in ’18

Wintour said in a video for the magazine’s website.

• Fashion Week will become even more splintered: What’s the goal of New York Fashion Week? These days, chances are you’ll get a different answer depending upon who you ask. This year, it was private appointments for industry elite, sometimes in a designer’s showroom or in the penthouse of a posh Manhattan hotel. For other brands, it was an over-the-top runway show designed with Instagram-worthy moments in mind. Some designers previewed looks for coming seasons; others tried to turn the boost in exposure into sales by showing off apparel that could be sold on the spot. This cyclone of questions will probably keep brewing in 2018, prompting more designers to experiment with their own Fashion Week formats in search of the answers.

One thing that could offer some resolution, though, would be a permanent home for New York Fashion Week. The developer for Hudson Yards, an up-and-coming luxury retail destination along Manhattan’s far West Side, is supposedly bidding to be the official home for the biannual event when the development is completed in a year or so. If that happens, it might just provide the pull and pizazz needed to unite the week’s oodles of events.

• Some retailers will get more techy, others will focus on experiential shopping: What if you could get an up-close look at something without actually being in the same room as it? That scenario may soon become the future for online shopping. Some brands have been toying with ways to integrate virtual reality with shopping the Web to provide a more intimate, detailed look at apparel and accessories before buying them. Watch out for more technology incorporated into store displays, too. For instance, what if you picked up a bottle of honeysuckle-scented perfume and a field of those shrubs bloomed on a digital screen in front of you? That sort of thing is already starting to happen in brick-andmortar stores as a way to try to boost product connection and spending.

• Color pops and natural beauty: Shake off the winter doldrums next spring with vivid pick-me-up colors — orange, deep lime green, electric pink and sunshiny yellows were particularly popular, as were romantic pastels (think powder blues, blushes and mints). Pantone predicts that ultra violet will make a splash, but it wasn’t widely seen on the runway for next year. Plus, it’s not all that versatile or universally flattering, so don’t go overboard with incorporating it into your wardrobe.