The Lycra Company, a global leader in developing innovative fibre and technology solutions for the apparel industry, has launched its directional legwear trends forecast for AW23/24. This season designers look to the future by taking inspiration from nature and traditional crafts, layering it with science and technology.

Each year through an alliance with the trend forecasting experts from Stijlinstituut Amsterdam, The Lycra Company presents a forward-thinking predication of the cutting-edge trends through a capsule collection that showcases the latest legwear innovations. This series of creative legwear is intended to inspire and dress-up a new generation of legwear users whilst satisfying unmet consumer needs in legwear comfort and performance.

“Our legwear trends forecast has been inspiring and supporting customers for over 20 years and is an example of the value-added benefits customers enjoy when working with The Lycra Company,” said Sybille Bald, strategic marketing director for legwear at The Lycra Company.

“In a post-pandemic world where many live with one foot in the physical reality and the other in our digital communities, technology and creativity are key in defining new identities. This year’s forecast looks at how this, in turn, enables fashion and legwear to express individuality and foster brands to become more diverse and imaginative.”

Research findings suggest that consumers are placing even more value on functional benefits including product quality, efficacy and sustainability. While on the emotional side, the desires for fresh impulses, energy and positivity are emerging as both the garment makers and users look toward new horizons. The Lycra Company and Stijlinstituut Amsterdam together have identified four key themes that tap into this spirit and address the needs of today’s consumer.

Inspired by nature, perfected by science. This trend explores a simulated view of nature with its three key looks: Fossil Camouflage, Organic Tech and Algae Cool.

Look 1: Fossil Camouflage

Inspired by the patterns and textures of pre-historic nature, the key to this look is texture, combined with practical functionality, delivering legwear that is made to work hard and last.

Key technologies:

Lycra Soft Comfort technology offers the ultimate all-day comfort and easy donning whilst staying in place. Coolmax toughFX technology transports moisture away from the body with permanent evaporative cooling, plus rugged durability.

Look 2: Organic Tech

An enhanced nature. Using high performance materials and high-tech survival aids to get a deeper and closer connection between technology and nature.

Key technologies:

Lycra Shaping technology with Lycra Adaptiv fibre brings comfort with smooth, yet firm support. Lycra 3D technology offers a smooth, uniform appearance and freedom of movement.

Look 3: Algae Cool

Rooted in the positive aspects of biocentric thought, this look takes inspiration from the beauty and power of nature’s patterns, systems, and networks.

Key technologies:

Lycra Xceptionelle technology is a patented garment construction that enables the creation of hosiery with no sewn-in panels and anti-friction zones, accommodating larger silhouettes in a fashion-conscious way. Thermolite Everyday Warmth technology is the perfect answer for everyday sock consumers, offering warmth and comfort by using technology that traps heat from the body and moves moisture away from the skin. A solution to help keep warm in the current global energy crisis.

Fearlessness, confidence and inclusivity remain at the core of impactful legwear fashion, empowering women towards a positive future.

Look 1: Woman Domination

Women’s empowerment has many faces. Makers and designers must keep breathing new life into the body-positivity movement, focusing on self-love, beauty, health and wellbeing. Designs that utilise technologies to improve inclusivity and wearability of a range of shapes and style.

Key technology:

Lycra Made To Fit You technology provides the perfect stay in place band for all thigh sizes with no digging in and red marks.

Look 2: Canvas Skin

A look that taps into the ancient art of using a skin as a canvas Body art is the ultimate individual expression, self-realisation and expression of body-ownership. Sheer designs with a tattoo-effect and 3D stretch dominate this look.

Key technologies:

Lycra Super Summer Sheer technology delivers incredibly sheer hosiery that’s also durable, due in part to ladder-resistant Lycra Fusion technology. Lycra Freef!t technology brings added comfort and shape retention to waistbands, with no digging in and rolling over.

Socially-minded designers and makers look to revive and reinvent craft traditions for the modern age, placing emphasis on creating designs that will last well beyond just one season and have their own authentic story to tell.

Look 1: New Collective

Tapping into a new generation’s desire to tell their story, to have a narrative, layered, collected and collaged garments combine influences rooted in memory, history, music or travels. Garments that adapt to the wearer’s needs and activity, supporting them on their daily journey.

Key technologies:

Made from 100% post-consumer recycled resources, Coolmax EcoMade PRO technology helps keep the wearer comfortable, cool and dry, no matter what they demand of their apparel. Lycra Adaptiv fibre delivers the feeling that it was made just for you. It provides shaping and compression as needed and makes garments easier to put on and take off.

Look 2: Hippie Origin

Recycled, upcycled and reused. Designers looking at ways to create breathe new life into old fashion items, keeping them in the loop for longer. Upcycling found and recycled items by layering embroidery, dyeing and painting, repairing, cutting and even collaging whole items.

Key technologies:

Lycra Xtra Life fibre delivers long-lasting comfort, fit and shape by helping to resist fibre damage that can shorten the garment’s wear life. Lycra Dry technology moves moisture away from the skin, evaporating quickly while helping to keep feet dry.

Look 3: Art Fair

By reconnecting with traditional crafts such as knitting, creators are writing stories with yarn.  Narrative-rich textile crafts boast a beneficial slowness of pace, creating fashion for the future, rooted in the past.

Key technology:

Made from 100% post-consumer textile waste, Coolmax EcoMade All Season technology keeps the wearer comfortable at different levels of activity and across seasons.

As consumers increasingly express the desire to break away from the real world to embrace escapism, designers are revealing the potential of virtual and augmented realities.

Look 1: AI Design

As machines begin to learn and create, the new technologies impact the perception of beauty. Finding ways to work with AI to enrich practices through aesthetic and creative imagination.

Key Technology:

Lycra FitSense technology offers compression across targeted power zones, maximising shaping and control, without compromising comfort.

Look 2: Meta World

Digital natives are interested in being dressed online and offline. They live a considerable portion of their lives in digital communities and will be the first to envision a future where fashion transcends the physical body.

Key technologies:

Lycra freshFX with HeiQ technology provides the benefits of comfort, fit and shape with freshness and hygiene applications. Lycra Xtra Life fibre delivers lasting comfort that keeps its shape.

Look 3: Virtual Team

A growing fashion subculture uses digital design to re-model real-world clothing, uploaded on the blockchain or modelled by real people, inspiring wearers and makers.

Key technology:

Lycra Energize fibre delivers graduated compression, helps to enhance muscle recovery, and protects against injuries.

www.Lycra.com