Sea witches? Castlecore? Our trend predictions for 2025.

Hello, and welcome to Group Chat, where culture reporters Rebecca Jennings and Alex Abad-Santos discuss the topics currently blowing up our (and probably your) phones.

We made it. The end of 2024 is here.

As with the conclusion of every year, there’s a tendency to measure it by looking back over the past 365 days and see the stuff we did, all the things we didn’t, and everything that happened around us. Remember “Espresso?” The Costco Guys? When the tide turned on Blake Lively? Were any of those things on our radar in 2023?

One of the other traditions at the dawn of a new year is to look forward to the things yet to come. What will 2025 bring? Castles? Sea witches? Brown? In this installment of Group Chat, your correspondents are peering into the future at the trends allegedly on the horizon. Some spring from larger cultural shifts, others feel like capitalist psy-ops slyly designed to make you buy more stuff, but all speak to the bigger, perhaps bleaker picture of the constant push toward the aspirational and trendy.

Alex Abad-Santos: Rebecca, you are the pioneer of the Halloween clown trend, dressing like a jester before everyone else did. Before we get into 2025, are there any noteworthy movements that we still could partake in before the new year?

Rebecca Jennings: So I was checking out Pinterest’s trend predictions thing that they do every year, which analyzes what search terms and pins are trending toward the end of the year, and it’s always so fun to flip through.

Alex: Stop. Right. There. I’ve only ever accidentally logged myself into Pinterest. Are you a not-so-secret Pinterester? Are you Pinteresting?

Rebecca: You’re not on Pinterest?!?!?!?? How do you organize your apartment-slash-style-slash-hair inspo pics?

Alex:I have a disorganized, unwieldy photo album on my phone.

Rebecca: I still love it. It feels like a space apart from the ugliness of other platforms, and I love the “Pinterest Predicts” thing they do every year.

It’s especially exciting because you can check out which trends you were a little early to and therefore feel superior about it. The top one was “Cherry-Coded,” a.k.a. all things cherry red, and my birthday party theme this year was “red” and my cake had cherries on it. So this is me bragging about that.

What are the trends you think you were early to this year?

Alex: As a person of elderly millennial experience, I’m chronically late to trends. Though I will say that I am now a wearer of big pants. I was once out dancing with a guy I liked, and while inebriated he had a moment of flashing honesty. He said, “Wow, your pants are so tight!”

But not in a good way. Imagine a man’s voice in your head, just repeating the word “tight” like it was derogatory.

I shriveled into a raisin of myself, and I kept imagining my legs looking like vacuum-sealed, oblong meat. The next day I bought big pants. And honestly, what a relief to no longer wear skinny pants.

Rebecca: First of all, wow, that was very vulnerable of you to admit. But you embraced the new style! Are there any trends on “Pinterest Predicts” that you think are wrong and/or bad? Make your case!

Alex: I am deeply interested in “Pickle Fix.” As the name suggests, pickles are going to have a big 2025 and as someone who is deeply into pickles — this pleases me greatly. I had dill pickle pizza at the Minnesota State Fair earlier this year and it was briney deliciousness. My stomach and heart yearn for more pickles.

At the same time, I am also worried for “Sea Witchery.” If this is true, we are going to see so much wet, crimped hair.

Rebecca: One Pinterest trend I was extremely psyched to see was “Castlecore,” which, as someone who briefly considered majoring in medieval history, is very exciting. I think Chappell Roan’s VMAs knight look was emblematic of this, and I’ve seen a bunch of my friends experiment with chainmail recently.

Alex: Umm, excuse me. Wasn’t that called Roan of Arc? Also wait. What does “seen a bunch of my friends experiment with chainmail recently” mean? Like are the girlies chain-mailing at Gage & Tollner? How much should I believe in a term called “Castlecore?”

Rebecca: If they’re doing chainmail accessories, it’s not at Gage & Tollner, it’s at, like, random fashion events or a birthday party or something. It definitely is a natural evolution of like, fairycore and wenchcore and cottagecore and all of the other microaesthetics that amount to a lot of puffy sleeves and asymmetrical skirts and corsets. But also, I am desperate to hear your thoughts on Pantone’s color of the year, “mocha mousse.”

Alex: Listen, I just want to be in a room where they let all the other competing Pantones know that they haven’t won color of the year. Disappointment must feel so immense there. When was the last time a true orange won?

But here we are talking about “mocha mousse.” The first thing that came to mind is that it’s the color of Zendaya’s sweater in Challengers — the sweater where she becomes rich and famous after coaching one of her twinks, the one she secretly resents, to the top of the game.

Rebecca: Personally, I think it’s actually a gorgeous color.

Alex: The impact of Zendaya wearing a sweater cannot be overstated.

Rebecca: But I also think it’s indicative of a thing I think about a lot, which is that people are sort of terrified to have any striking personal style that strays from what we consider chic and contemporary. We see it in the ways that people are so anxious to evoke “old money style” and “old money hair,” when like, the whole point of being old money is that you don’t really have to worry about any of that stuff. You can dress however you want because a) you have access to it and b) the power and status is the part that counts, not how you look.

Alex: I mean, isn’t the engine of a trend to strike fear into you. Like, trends largely exist because many people are scared of being seen as an outsider. So you buy into a thing that — let’s be honest, will probably only live for a few months at most — to temporarily placate those fears.

I saw a tweet the other day asserting that the Succession characters dress like “old money.” Yet, the entire point of that show is that the dad is the first Roy with money and the kids are all new money clowns.

Rebecca: Totally. I think we tend to care more about aligning ourselves with trends when we’re scared. Sarah Manavis wrote this great piece about the “beige-fluencers,” women like Molly Mae Hague, Matilda Djerf, and Hailey Bieber, whose whole thing are that they are very blonde and very tan fashion business owners, and they also live this very traditional life where they romanticize going to bed early and not drinking and having your house be very bland and “tasteful.” So many women in their 20s look up to them as the be-all, end-all of aspirational lifestyles. But it’s also inherently quite conservative and a little sad, I think.

The Pantone color reminded me of that fearfulness that a lot of young people are feeling right now, that they always have to be perfectly done-up and never too messy. Are you seeing any of this in your world, or am I just taking “mocha mousse” way too seriously?

Alex: I’ve been thinking about this in a different-ish but ultimately similar way. Mostly, I think of where these women live and work and it’s usually LA or New York City. I think, especially with the latter, the fantasy of living in New York City for a lot of people now is synonymous with very bland luxury. And though LA’s worst reputation was that it was fake and full of beautiful people starving for an acting gig, it still wasn’t bland rich people.

So I guess this whole feeling that everything aspirational is bending toward bleak, bland, and “wealthy” is a little depressing to me.

Rebecca: I love this take that the shift from LA as the site of aspiration to NYC being it is a bellwether for boring trends. Here’s my question: Are men embracing this stuff? Or is this purely a “girl who spends a lot of time online” thing?

Alex: I feel like men — unfairly, probably — don’t really have to be on trend most of the time. Like the worst we can do is wear something that Die, Workwear will make fun of, but for most dudes getting to that point of fame isn’t really a concern? Though, now that I have big pants …

Rebecca: Every time an elder millennial embraces big pants, a trend forecaster gets her wings. With that, happy holidays everyone!