2023 Fall-Winter Season Women's Fashion Trends

The women's fashion for the 2023 fall-winter season will showcase styles based on a minimalist spirit focused on essentials, catering to various tastes. A blend of strength and femininity in tailoring, along with minimalist and natural preppy looks, will significantly influence everything from everyday wear to work attire. Key colors will be classic black and modern gray, elevating an elegant mood.

Jiyeon Lim, director of Samsung Fashion Institute, says, “For this fall-winter season, various trends based on personal tastes will coexist, with minimalism emerging as the overall mood. We will see a strong showing of chic, professional tailoring looks and simplified preppy styles, with outfits featuring classic colors like black and gray from head to toe standing out.”

#Trend is ‘Minimal’

While the flashy Y2K fashion has been a major trend since last year, accompanied by a love for various styles like Gorpcore, Blockcore, and Balletcore, this year's fall-winter season will continue these trends but with a notable focus on ‘minimalism’, which will significantly influence the overall scene.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers who had returned to normal life showed a tendency for revenge spending, but as they faced an economic crisis, they shifted to a more 'conscious and careful' spending pattern. The era of over-owning is ending, and now there is a trend towards owning fewer but more valuable items, using them for longer, or buying sustainable products.

This conscious consumption trend in fashion has led consumers to show interest in simple, restrained styles of long-lasting clothing over trendy and flashy styles. The recently emerging 'quiet luxury' and 'old money look' also are based on minimalist design. They pursue simple designs without logos, restrained colors, and well-made items using good materials.

Lemaire, under Samsung C&T's fashion division, is a brand based on the philosophy of 'making clothes for everyday life', focusing on restrained and subtle designs. Rather than being tied to temporary trends, it develops items that will shine in everyday life over a long time. For the '23 fall-winter season, it presented a collection completed with flowing silhouettes, rich draping, mysterious colors, and fine materials. It featured products such as a classic duffle coat reinterpreted in Lemaire's sensibility, minimalist designs with long & lean silhouettes, and robe coats with unique colors.

Theory, also a brand that comes to mind when thinking of 'minimalism', focuses on simple designs, clean silhouettes, and superior materials and wearability as its core values. This season, it proposed sensory designs and the essence of materials Theory pursues, focusing on luxurious fabrics with a soft, subtle sheen like cashmere, wool, crepe, simple silhouettes, minimal details, and basic monochrome tones.

It showcased main products like a round short jacket and pants set-up in a wool/cashmere blend, a crop double-button jacket and pants set-up in signature wool material, and a black dress combining a crepe turtleneck knit top and H-line midi skirt.

#Confident ‘Tailoring’

With the return of the power dressing trend, a symbol of women's entry into society in the 1980s, tailoring looks are gaining attention.

They emphasize architectural silhouettes and a comfortable fit, harmonizing strength and femininity. Power shoulder blazers/coats, pencil skirts, vests, and other classic items create a chic and professional feel.

KUHO revealed tailoring looks with architectural aesthetics through its suit collection 'Edit Line'. It featured classic and modern suit styling with a restrained design of a black double jacket and H-line skirt outfit, a double jacket/wide pants set-up with a relaxed fit and beige color, and a grey single jacket/pants set-up emphasizing a slim and clean silhouette.

[Photo provided by AMI]

AMI also composed the '23 fall-winter season collection with more modern and refined looks. Based on neutral and pastel colors, it proposed tailoring looks unique to AMI, featuring tailored jackets/coats with emphasized fit and shoulder lines, and relaxed silhouette pants.

#Simplified ‘Preppy’

This fall-winter season, the preppy look is updated with a minimalist sensibility. Moving away from the traditional preppy look, it emphasizes a natural mood. The style extends to urban and office wear by harmonizing basic colors with delicate details.

The Aperture set the theme of this fall's collection as 'Vintage School Club', reinterpreting the 1950s to 70s preppy style with a contemporary perspective. The collection, consisting of basic silhouettes and restrained colors in school wear, expressed a classic atmosphere.

It released items like tailored jackets with a solid silhouette inspired by 1950s school blazers, A-line pleated skirts reminiscent of school uniforms, relaxed fit V-neck sweaters, and simple design Bermuda shorts.

Meanwhile, KUHO Plus also introduced preppy sensibility outfits that can be stylishly worn in everyday life this season. They suggested preppy looks using minimal silhouettes and colors, such as matching a gray short jacket and pleated mini skirt setup with a tie blouse, or combining a gray cable knit and white shirt with a black pleated long skirt.

#Elegant ‘Black’ and ‘Gray’

In the '23 fall-winter season, classic black emerges as a key color applied to various moods and styles. Styling in black from head to toe creates a dark charm and elegance at the same time.

Modern gray is also actively used to emphasize elegance. To avoid monotony, tonal coordination with various tones and different materials layered together also appears.

Lebeige expressed classic aesthetics using black color this season. It proposed all-black looks such as a turtleneck knit and semi-wide pants, a mini tote bag in a lucky bag shape, and an elegant black fluid silk dress that looks graceful on its own.

8 Seconds presented styling with black and gray colors through its 'Edition 8' line, consisting of timeless essential items. It introduced items emphasizing a minimalist sensibility and luxurious atmosphere, such as a gray jacket/skirt setup, a black mini dress and slacks, and cardigans.