Fall 2022 Ready-to-Wear Color Trends

Twice a year, we spend time poring over the latest runway shots of designers’ collections. Why? Because fashion plays a huge role in setting trends for industries way beyond the runways. Trending colors may not always make their way directly into residential or commercial interiors. Yet, being aware of what is happening in fashion gives insight into what is happening in the culture more broadly. This month we were looking at the Fall 2022 Ready-to-Wear collections.

Fashion is a fast-paced industry that reacts to the population’s mood quickly. Trends here are a bit like taking the country’s pulse. You quickly get a sense of how people are feeling. This season, we saw designers asking some interesting, and at times heavy, questions. What does America stand for, and for whom? How does fashion respond to the war in Europe? What has the pandemic changed permanently? How do we enjoy fashion just for the fun of it?  

The collections were as varied and unique as the designers, but as always, there were some common overarching themes. One theme is that designers created garments inspired by more formal items such as suits. Yet within those suits, they maintain a level of comfort we’ve grown used to over the past three years by making them oversized or using forgiving textiles. There were also a lot of excesses, such as huge silhouettes, exaggerated lines, and maximizing materials. Speaking of materials, there were a lot of highly textured textiles such as velvet, satin, leather or vinyl, denim, and knits.

What about color?  

In the Fall 2022 Ready-to-Wear collections, we saw spring’s hottest color, pink, sticking around into fall. Also, showing strong were a lot of other hot colors such as red and orange. At the other end of the spectrum, there were a lot of cobalt blue and royal purples. Green and yellow were there, although not as overwhelmingly. They were often jade greens and canary yellows when we saw them. There were also some lighter pastels in the mix, particularly pinks, lilacs, coral, and powder blues. Regardless of the hue, all colors were highly saturated and pure.

Regarding neutrals, black is still there, but we saw many more browns, camels, and grays.  

In many collections, designers used different versions of one color together for striking monochromatic outfits. It was often texture that showed the contrast. For example, Tom Ford paired a knit sweater with a leather skirt and shiny tights.

If these colors inspire you, you can download a free color card of the top colors we saw trending. We’ve even included hex numbers to make them easy to use in your next project.   

As always, we’ve created a Pinterest board full of examples of what we spotted. You can head over there to check it out for a quick view of the colors we saw. How do you feel about these color stories? What do you love this season?