New Season, New Rules

This is the least exciting resolution and probably the one that makes the biggest difference.

Somewhere along the way, we got very good at researching what to buy and strangely bad at looking after it once it arrives. I’ll spend weeks deciding on a cashmere sweater, then fold it into a drawer with the enthusiasm of someone putting away a tea towel.

So this season I’m resolving to actually do the boring things: de-pill the knitwear, polish the shoes, repair the loose buttons before they become missing buttons, take coats to the dry cleaner before I need them and finally learn which things should never see the inside of a washing machine.

It feels particularly relevant as the autumn wardrobe comes back into rotation. Searches for ankle boots are already up 65% month-on-month and mid-calf boots 82%. Before buying another pair, it might be worth remembering what a cobbler can do with the ones at the back of the wardrobe.

The most sustainable piece of clothing is, conveniently, often the one you already paid for.

I have a wardrobe full of neutrals and absolutely no intention of giving them up. But this season I’d like to stop treating color as something that happens to other people.

Apparently, I’m not alone. Searches on Lyst are climbing for blue (+106% month-on-month) and, most dramatically, red (+138%). The interesting thing is that none of these requires dressing like a human color wheel.

A red knit under a brown coat, an aqua-blue shirt with gray trousers, or a bright bag against an otherwise completely sensible outfit is enough.

The older I get, the more I think good personal style is partly about allowing yourself to wear the thing you’re slightly nervous about. Not everything has to “go with everything.” Sometimes the reason you keep thinking about something is precisely because it doesn’t.

My resolution: when presented with the choice between the safe color and the slightly strange one, at least try on the strange one first.

For years, online shopping trained us to think like search engines. Black dress. Midi. Long sleeve. Useful, certainly, but not necessarily how we actually think about clothes.

Lyst’s new AI-powered search lets you search much more like you’d speak to a friend: describe an occasion, mood, material, fit, budget or even the general idea in your head, and it interprets the intent behind the request to surface relevant products.

That means instead of searching for brown suede jacket, I can look for the kind of suede jacket I’d find in a ’70s vintage shop but with a modern fit. Or something to wear to a September wedding when it might rain. Or the perennial problem: shoes that work with this dress but that I can actually walk home in.

It feels much closer to the way fashion discovery works now. We increasingly start with a reference, person, mood or cultural moment rather than knowing the exact product name we want — something Lyst has also been seeing in its wider search data.

My September resolution is therefore to stop scrolling through 600 vaguely similar things and get much more specific about what I actually want.

I’ve bought enough “good for the price” things to know that I rarely remember the second half of that sentence six months later.

This doesn’t necessarily mean buying luxury. It means becoming more interested in fabric, construction and cost-per-wear than the immediate dopamine hit of getting something new.

Fall is a particularly good time to practice. Knitwear, coats and boots are the things we ask the most of, and shoppers are already turning their attention towards them: alongside the surge in outerwear and boots, searches for V-neck knitwear are up 45% month-on-month and turtlenecks 64%.

I’d rather have the sweater I instinctively reach for three times a week than four that spend most of winter folded underneath it. And I’m trying to apply the same logic at every price point: fewer compromises, more things I genuinely want to keep.

The goal isn’t necessarily to spend more. It’s to become harder to convince.

I work in fashion. Obviously I’m going to follow trends. Pretending otherwise would be like a restaurant critic announcing they’re no longer interested in food.

But there’s a difference between noticing what’s happening and feeling obliged to participate in all of it. Fashion moves particularly quickly online now. A cultural moment can turn into measurable shopping demand almost immediately, and increasingly we’re discovering products through social feeds, cultural references and AI-led search rather than traditional fashion channels. That makes fashion more fun, but it also makes it very easy to mistake seeing something repeatedly for actually liking it.

So before buying the season’s inevitable It shoe, color or coat, I’m trying a very simple test: would I still want this if I hadn’t seen it 47 times this week?

Sometimes the answer will be yes. Great — trends are fun, and clothes don't have to qualify as future heirlooms to deserve a place in your wardrobe.