The Great Shrinkage: The Barely There Trends That Dominated Fashion Month

Two weeks out from Spring 2022 Paris Fashion Week and one thought still remains at the forefront of my mind: Where have all the clothes gone? And no, that's not a dig at this

season's collections, which I've concluded were some of the finest the industry has seen in a long time. (Fendi and Versace's team-up and Balmain's supermodel army were proof of that.) Rather, it's a take on the overall sartorial shrinkage that's been creeping into fashion for a few seasons now, culminating in a spring lineup so small that there was barely any clothing at all. 

Following a summer full of Dua Lipa wearing tiny, crochet bikinis and low-rise jeans making a comeback on TikTok, it's evident that designers spent the warmer months taking note, with many introducing similarly shrunken styles into their spring collections. Starting at Copenhagen Fashion Week, Ganni and Baum und Pferdgarten styled panties as pants and debuted ab-baring tops that left little to the imagination. From there, the micro-clothing trend continued at New York Fashion Week, with Maryam Nassir Zadeh styling string bikinis with low-rise pants, Saint Sintra giving new meaning to the word miniskirt, and Theophilio reviving the tunic-as-a-dress look. But wait, it gets better (and much much smaller). 

By Paris—the final push in the marathon that is Fashion Month—any argument that oversize, swaddled clothing still reigned supreme had been debunked, in part due to Versace, Blumarine, Coperni, and Miu Miu's collections featuring smaller pieces than the next.

Now, with plenty of inspiration to pull from, all that's left to do is ask yourself whether or not you're ready for the Great Shrinkage. If so, shop the small-in-size, mighty-in-style pieces ahead. If not, let the six teeny-tiny trends below convince you otherwise.