WEEKLY TRENDS REPORT Friday 4 September 2026
Pictured: Envato/Gemini
Difficult to action
Micro trend
THIS WEEK’S FORECAST Macro trend
Life-fishing
The Celebrity Courtrobe
Easy to action
Boost your hotspan Daisy Chain Fields
Icon Glossary
Trending
News you should know
On the up
Cancelled
It’s gonna be big
That’s the tea
Sustainability
Consumer habit
TikTok trend
Be quick
Supersize me Back to school baddies
FOR YOUR INFO
This week’s dates & microtrends
On our radar Practical Magic 2 – 11 September Runner – 11 September The Paper S2 – 9 September Bloc Party: Anatomy of a brief romance – 11 September
Insights of the week The most curious cases of life-fishing. Daejon Love isn’t an NFL player, Victoria Murdock isn’t a student of Duke and Raygun’s Netflix doc. What parents are buying for Gen Alphas heading back to school, and teens are making wish lists for everything.
TikTok trends
Tea of the week
Weekly dose of cute
Dakota Fanning goes bar for bar to Lil Wayne. US Open Spider-man blind bags. Two out of three of our favourite things!
Stupid stunt or epic stunt? The two passenger jets flyby over a stadium.
The London Zoo weigh-in, tech and cats, marmots on the loose, HSM hibachi, Mamdani look-a-like and the style at Daisy Chain Fields.
ICYMI
This 27 minute ‘trailer’ for GTA VI has made us unbelievably hype. What’s our Christmas plans? We’ll just gonna say we went on a trip to Miami. The new pipeline of movie director to YouTuber? M.Night Shyamlan starts his content creating journey. What a twist!
Is the shaved head or the super long hair the hairdo of the moment? We’re partial to a cheeky buzz. New meaning of green thumb. The hot gardener is the internet’s newest fantasy.
Established trends
Stat of the week
We got major FOMO from the Daisy Chain fields music festival. See you at the next one! The 4,000 volunteers who literally pulled the Hirosaki castle a couple feet.
Phrase of the week “How chicken conquered the world”. They could probably run everything better than us. Let them run for president!
Digi updates The boundaries influencers create and what they owe their viewers. What listening to The Diary of a CEO does to you.
What we’re loving
Rats are out of control and are populating like mad. New genre of toddler books: STEM. If your 3-year-old can’t fully explain quantum field theory, it’s not too late to buy some law books instead.
The future Bill Gates has a 5,784-word warning about AI. Time to panic? Yeah! Too late? NEVER!
Rising trends
Image: @daiychainfields
Image: @Rockstar Games
One in eight young people in the UK are NEET. That’s a little less than 1 million 16–24-year-olds.
One to watch Is The Uprising a Robin Hood movie?, Nvidia DLSS 5 is scary, Top Gear will return, Adult Swim turns 25, a Pokémon TCG movie and Tupac can rest.
Image: @MNight
TREND TRACKING How some of the trends we’ve identified have evolved in recent months
Supersize me
Back to school baddies
Boost your hotspan
Image: @biancareino
Image: @mila.vlogs5
Image: @bloombergbusiness
Ozempic might be shrinking waistlines, but supersize accessories are expanding our wardrobes. The viral 80L ‘big-ass’ Lululemon tote brought new meaning to ludicrously capricious and looks like a shoulder injury waiting to happen. It was instantly memeable, with comments including ‘Air Canada hates to see me coming’ and ‘perfect cinema snack bag’. Just check out the review section if you need a lift. Other ginormous accessories being coveted include extremely oversized statement zips to XXL hair clip brooches and colourful iPod Shuffle bangles. They’re absurd, playful and a complete statement in a world of cut-paste fashion. As said by Dazed, “These brands are pushing aesthetics to the extreme in the age of the attention economy, where a giant hair clip is likely to get much more traction on the feed than, say, a tiny one.”
Back to school content has become a category in its own right. From college room tours to clothing hauls to stationery collections, it’s also incredibly lucrative for young creators. Teens take the ritual extremely seriously, with After School sharing that some of the most common videos include morning shed routines, 4.30am alarms, Alani Niu energy drinks and GRWM beauty tutorials featuring cult brands like e.l.f, Rhode and Charlotte Tilbury. One creator even compared back to school as ‘our Super Bowl’, and another flipped the negativity of going back to school into something positive by romanticizing it, and turning it into a shared experience instead of an obligation. As said in Yahoo; “The “get ready” format may be what gets millions of people watching. It’s the unguarded “with me” part that keeps them connected.”
We’ve optimised lifespans and healthspans, now we’re turning our attentions to our ‘hotspans’ – the amount of time spent in optimal attractiveness. Officially coined by Bloomberg, the phrase has become increasingly prevalent among aging men. According to one hotspanmaxxer writing for The Times, it’s “healthy to have a goal that’s more ambitious and exciting than simply being not ill or not dead”. Faced with longer lifespans, people aren’t “aging out” the way previous generations seemed to – we’re all familiar with the 90s sitcom representation of a 45-year-old compared to how someone the same age looks today. Instead, people are committing to getting in the best shape of their lives – with reasons including for health, for love or even for jobs – the job market becomes increasingly difficult to navigate as we age. With women facing the pressures of staying ‘hot’ forever, it seems male standards are catching up.
Trend: Permission to live out loud
Trend: Gen Alpha’s time
Trend: Evolving masculinity
This week’s long read
Image: r/preppy
Not guilty of crimes against fashion
Image: @arkangel
Image: @complex
Weber Forecast Insight Image: @theaffirmationjar
THE CELEBRITY COURTROBE
For consumers, this is a reminder that celebrity style is no longer confined to aspirational moments. Every possible moment has become a content or storytelling opportunity, even down to subtle nail art, and the brands cutting through are the ones willing to show up where they’re least expected.
Celebrity courtroom looks have long been tried and tested in the court of public opinion, supporting A-listers’ most dramatic performances yet. The topic recently returned to internet discourse following Marc Jacobs’ apparent willingness to style Luigi Mangione, making the comments during a Vanity Fair interview. It makes sense – when trendsetter Mangione wore sockless penny loafers, searches for his ankles spiked 500%. Jacobs has extensive courtroom lore. As The Cut put it; “There is a running joke in fashion that, if you’re famous and facing charges in a court of law, you turn to Marc Jacobs – not for legal guidance but for a great outfit.” Some of the most infamous celebrity trials of this century have effectively doubled as Mark Jacobs shows – Lil Kim, Courtney Love and of course the iconic Winona Ryder – who wore the very dress she’d reportedly shoplifted. She later appeared in numerous Jacobs campaigns.
Culture’s fascination with celebrity courtroom looks goes far beyond Jacobs. Celebs have been turning criminality into a chic spectacle for years – used as an “instrument of persuasion in any star offender’s armoury.” From Lindsay Lohan’s FU nails to Naomi Campbell serving community service and Anna Delvey’s courtrobe that inspired the Instagram account @annadelveycourtlooks, clothes are scrutinised as much as evidence, and courtroom styling has become a key part of celeb stylists’ skillsets. It’s strategic. When the media control the narrative, celebs can control the costume. A carefully constructed courtroom persona quickly becomes the headline.
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Pictured: Envato