2024: A Year in Fashion Memes
As 2024 comes to a close, what better way to look back on the biggest fashion events of the year than with some good old memes? In this post, we’re taking you month by month through the news, collaborations and events that were turned into fashion memes that made us laugh, think or sometimes cringe. And 2024 gave plenty of meme-able moments: the creative director ‘musical chairs’, highly anticipated runway debuts, the Paris Olympics, not to mention the usual annual events that always get memed like the Met Gala (shown in the cover image) and the Eurovision.
Also, just as a little disclaimer: please remember that the opinions in these fashion memes are not necessarily the opinions of The Fashion Fold, and posting these memes is all for the sake of entertainment so please don’t take these too seriously!
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January
Chanel’s couture show drew criticism for playing it safe, as Virginie Viard’s position as creative director became increasingly under threat.
Not all fashion memes thought Viard should go though.
February
A big story in February 2024 was the Willy Wonka experience that took place in Glasgow where what was supposed to be an immersive family experience ended up being a barely-decorated warehouse and the debut (ahem) of a silver-masked character called ‘The Unknown’ who doesn’t actually appear in Willy Wonka but was a result of the AI used to create the experience.
In the same month, Alexander McQueen (now rebranded as solely ‘McQueen’) released a few teaser images with models in a forest wearing silver skull masks – the images didn’t go down very well, and The Unknown soon crossed over to the campaign with Willy Wonka memes merging with fashion memes.
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March
Alexander McQueen again – Seán McGirr’s runway debut took place at Paris Fashion Week and the audience appeared to run out of the venue as fast as they could as soon as the show ended.
April
Pierpaolo Piccioli was pictured in April with Gucci shopping bags. Piccioli left Valentino in late March and this picture caused speculation that he may be going to Gucci to replace Sabato de Sarno.
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May
This is a bit of a personal one I suppose (and these are perhaps not strictly fashion memes – I apologise!) as the Eurovision is one of the highlights of my year and I’ve combined two memes into one.
The Eurovision is known for performers’ outfits as well as for the music, with hundreds of memes every year. One of my favourite songs was that by Bambie Thug for Ireland who had an incredible outfit which raised a few concerns, hence the second part of the meme. Click here to learn about the outfits and stylists at Eurovion 2024.
June
Justin Timberlake was arrested on June 18th and created the “This Will Ruin the Tour” meme – June also saw lots of bad news for fashion in terms of slowing sales as Q2 reports came in.
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July
The Paris Olympics took place and created so many memes not just for the opening ceremony – most notably for the Feast of Dionysus being confused for The Last Supper – but also for participants including Raygun and Yusuf Dikec (Turkey’s nonchalant silver medalist).
One fashion moment I didn’t see memed very much were these socks worn by Uganda’s Tarsis Orogot.
August
I have to admit I have no idea where this came from, but this visual merchandising critique was saved in my phone in August.
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September
Another anticipated collection by a new creative director: Alessandro Michele for Valentino. As soon as Michele had been announced as the new creative director of Valentino back in March, social media was full of comments basically saying, “It will be Gucci 2.0.”
This meme appears to be a reflection of that.
October
2024 saw plenty of fashion collaborations, but Liam Gallagher x Berghaus in particular won praise for its colour choice…
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November
The US election was of course the topic of the month so why not adapt it to fashion?
December
Speculation about who was to be the new creative director of Chanel finally came to an end as Matthieu Blazy moved from Bottega Veneta to Chanel. Louise Trotter left Carven to replace him at Bottega Veneta. Click here for a recap of all the creative director changes of 2024.
Fashion Memes in 2025?
Whether or not 2025 turns out to be as eventful as 2024 remains to be seen, but there are definitely big events on the horizon: creative director debuts (David Koma at Blumarine, Julian Klausner at Dries Van Noten, to name a few), announcements of new appointments (Hedi Slimane, John Galliano and Pierpaolo Piccioli are still yet to join a new brand), more fashion collaborations (Glenn Martens x H&M is one to watch!), and of course the Met Gala 2025 with the theme of Black Dandyism.
No matter what happens, the internet will definitely be giving us plenty of memes.
London College of Fashion alumna (PGCert Fashion Buying & Merchandising). 15 years in fashion across styling, buying & merchandising, trend forecasting, e-commerce, and marketing. Includes roles at Vivienne Westwood and multi-brand retail stocking 50+ brands including Adidas, Nike, and Puma.
