Hello Knitting Friends! I’ve just returned from Vogue Knitting’s Live Event, ready to report on upcoming fashion trends in knitting.
If you’ve never attended a knitting convention, by all means give it a go. If you’re a fan of the Vogue Knitting magazine, it should be on your bucket list. Some of the best events were actually seeing the sweaters and knitwear from the magazine modelled on the runway (with a front row seat to boot!) and getting to hear the editor-in-chief talk about designs in the magazine.
What knitting fashion trends will you soon see? Here’s the fashion forecast from Carla Scott, the new editor-in-chief of Vogue Knitting:
- Big, unusual sleeves (bell shaped, oversized, and highly embellished with design elements).
- Argyll: Lots of Argyll diamond-shaped patterns were featured, looking timeless yet fresh
- Fringe and Embellishments: Beads, embroidery, long fringe, and other blingy design features, along with metallic yarn
- Chunky hats and sweaters: slouchy hats and big, oversized sweaters are here to stay
Some of these trends I really liked. I loved the Argyll designs, and I’ll definitely add one or two patterns to my works-in-progress line-up. I’ll also keep knitting slouchy hats for the young adults in my life, along with some big, chunky sweaters for the deep winter. I’m intrigued by the technique of embroidering on top of my finished knitting, and I’m eager to try it.
But the huge, bell-shaped sleeves? Not for me. I imagine such things picking up every scrap of dust and debris everywhere I go, struggling to get a coat on over them, and generally finding them more of a nuisance than a fashion statement. Ditto the fringe. I love the oversized sweaters in January, but by the middle of February, I need something much lighter here in Tennessee.
Once upon a time, fashion magazines set the trends and determined what we would wear in coming seasons. In this age of Ravelry and a plethora of media outlets online, how do we decide what we’ll knit in coming months? In my mind, “fashion” only matters if people actually like and wear these types of knitwear. Just because a fashion magazine tells us that oversized sleeves are “in style” doesn’t mean we all have to start knitting them.
I’ll be watching carefully to see which of these trends actually “take.” In the meantime, happy knitting of…whatever you want!!!!
Blessings, Cindy
Cynthia Coe is the author of The Prayer Shawl Chronicles, a collection of interrelated short stories about knitters and those they meet through knitting and sharing prayer shawls.
Copyright 2022 Cynthia Coe
Sycamore Cove Knitting 