Back to business: the trend to wear in the office and beyond

Call corporate and file this one under wearable trends. For Autumn/Winter 2023, designers decided to celebrate the career woman by putting the focus firmly back onto workwear.

Classic styles such as pinstripe suits, shirts and ties have been re-imagined for this season's modern woman, and make no mistake, they are anything but boring.

At Paris Fashion Week earlier this year, Maria Grazia Chiuri sent models down the catwalk wearing crisp shirts with thin ties, paired with frilly skirts and Mary-Jane shoes. Meanwhile at Saint Laurent, models stood out in oversized pinstripe blazers teamed with short skirts, signalling the return of the skirt suit.

While suits were oversized at Saint Laurent, at Versace they were the opposite. They celebrated the female form thanks to a fit-and-flare cut mimicking an hourglass figure. 

At Valentino, men's shirts were teamed with ultra-short minis in bold red to toe the line between the masculine and the feminine. In London, TOVE designers Camille Perry & Holly Wright put the spotlight on fluid silk maxi dresses in butter tones, as well as blazers that were nipped-in at waist. 

Christopher Kane and Eudon Choi re-imagined the understated shirt dress by adding pops of colour, exaggerated shoulders and pleated details.

This is just to name a few. Workwear staples were to be seen at pretty much every designer show, from Prada and Alexander McQueen to Michael Kors and Christopher Kane, Gabriela Hearst and Max Mara.

What makes this trend hyper wearable is that it includes forever pieces that can be worn together for a more corporate look, or mixed and matched with more casual items for when you're off duty.

Shop the trend with the back-to-work pieces below.