White ribbed sports socks
Nothing captured the divide between millennials and gen Z better than whether your socks hit your calf.
Hot rodent men
Did we fancy Jeremy Allen White as a rejection of conventional masculinity and AI perfection, or is he just fit?
Bic lighter
Add a pack of cigs and a strappy white top with no bra, and you have yourself the perfect brat uniform.
Ninja’s 15-in-1 cooker
Should your culinary needs extend beyond air frying.
Moo-Deng, the baby hippo
2024’s Harambe, but with a happier ending.
Chicken wine
The Whispering Angel of 2024.
All Fours by Miranda July
Or how publishing won the perimenopausal pound.
Dune popcorn buckets
Fun franchise marketing scheme or sex toy? You decide.
Massive collars
Trad wife or Handmaiden, choose your fighter.
Lime bike clusters
What’s green, dangerous and prefers to convene with its pals on pavements?
Slogan caps
2024 headgear came either political – the Harris-Walz camo hat – or with a side of irony: no-context slogans such as Idea Books’ “Sorry I don’t work here”.
Skims nipple bra
Kim Kardashian’s gift to 2024 was a bra that gave its wearer erect nipples, contributing to Skims’ current valuation of $4bn and giving feminism a much-needed “boost”.
Messi the dog
If 2024 was the strongest year in cinema, then Anatomy of a Fall’s Messi, was its breakout star.
I Told Ya T-shirt
The cult slogan of 2024, a riff on JFK’s presidential victory, came from Challengers of course.
Mesh ballet flats
The Row’s £670 nylon version walked so the high street dupes could run.
Souvenir keyrings
Because quiet luxury was out, “chaotic customisation” was in.
A mini-mullet
Who knew Austin Butler’s hair tendrils could be so alluring?
A bar of soap
Haeckels was the new Aesop until we found a bar of Dove soap in Nicky Haslam’s bathroom.
Knitted hoods
The Scandi effect came for heads and necks.
Hello Klean shower head
In a year in which the water utility sector was rattled after years of underinvestment – and Brixham in Devon became more famous for parasites than pollack – many of us grew scared of our own tap water. Cue this Brita-style filter for your shower head, which aims to cut out the nasties. Anything for better hair.
Coquette cakes
If your birthday cake wasn’t ornately piped, rainbow-bright and loaded with cherries, did the party even happen?
Lovevery toys
As we cut screen time – the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign launched this year – an incredibly tasteful toy company had the answer.
Mouth tape
It should come as no surprise that the queen of wellness™, Gwyneth Paltrow, was behind a boom in the practice of taping your mouth shut to (supposedly) improve sleep and oral health.
Horseshoe jeans
Baggy jeans for people who didn’t want baggy jeans.
The airport tray
The flat lay came to airport security. Bonus points if yours included 90s sunglasses, a Coach bag and a pair of Adidas Sambas.
Barn jackets
Like chore jackets, except your dad probably has one stored under the bed that is a lot cheaper than Prada, Fendi or The Row.
Wired white earphones
Suddenly gen Z decided airpods were cheugy.
The cat carrier backpack
The crazy cat lady crew leaned into the stereotype while their four-legged friends looked on alarmed through a transparent window.
Post-rave wellness
A year in which sober curious was replaced by the nuclear hangover cure. See Rebound Recovery or Happy Tuesdays.
That Vampire’s Wife dress
It was called the dress of the decade, worn by Kate, Princess of Wales, Kylie and multiple brides. Then, this summer, the label owned by Susie Cave (wife of Nick) suddenly closed. Victim of dupes, the dress rental market or the general softening of luxury fashion, three-figure dresses did not have a good year.
Handheld fans
Record-breaking heatwaves and the menopause market caused John Lewis’s £12 fan to sell out.
950 wheels of Westcombe Dairy cheddar
Which was, to quote Jamie Oliver, “a really weird thing to nick”.
Glorbs
Fidget spinners for the TikTok generation.
Moflin mania
Can’t keep your monstera alive? Try one of these guys! Finally an example of AI we can get behind.
Cucumbers
Somehow one of the most ordered items on Deliveroo in the UK. Surely down to the viral “whole cucumber” salad.
Golden Wonka ticket
In which Glasgow had its own Fyre festival moment.
Ear bandage
The Maga hat of 2024.
Stanley cup
If you weren’t drinking out of one of these enormous, expensive flasks – dubbed “the quencher” or simply “the cup” by its legions of loyal fans – were you even drinking?
Friendship bracelets
The school playground staple became a hot commodity between Swifties and police officers.
Aarke water
The sparkling water renaissance went far beyond SodaStream.
The £500 ticket
Three-figure tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour shows sold out in minutes, and a concert selfie was the not-so-humblebrag this summer, as she played dates across the UK and Ireland. Expect the same for Oasis.
Cowboy hats
Beloved by Beyoncé, Olympians and Republicans alike.
Mushrooms
From shroom supplements to Lion’s Mane lattes, fungi spored into the mainstream.
Rhode ‘labia’ phone case
In February, Hailey Bieber launched the Lip Case from her brand, Rhode, a phone case with a slot that fits a lip tint on its back. The seven-hour queue for a Rhode pop-up in London suggests it spoke to a generation for whom lip balm and a smartphone are leaving-the-house non-negotiables, while also marking a big year for celebrity beauty brands.
A Jellycat plushie
Because who didn’t want a cuddly wedge of brie?
Lost Mary
These cult vapes were everywhere, from festivals to memes trolling the modern age. As symbolic of the era as Marlboro Lights were of the 90s.
Paul Mescal’s short shorts
The Shy King’s preferred uniform went from catwalk to mainstream.
Vintage football shirts
Scored big on the fashion influencer field.
Pickles
From banderillas to Dua Lipa (the pop star drinks pickle brine with Diet Coke), it was a good year for gherkins.
Oura sleep-tracking rings
Sleep scores became the new humblebrag.
The £5 coffee
Thank you inflation, Covid, Brexit, the climate crisis and the war in Ukraine.
The Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask
These Korean peppermint- and lemon-sorbet-flavoured balms trumped a glass of water as a bedside table essential.
Weird smells
Forget Jo Malone. The most on-brand homes of 2024 smelled of tomatoes (Loewe) or blueberry pie (Heretic).
GHD Rise hot brush
The “blow out” era met its (cheaper than a Dyson Airwrap) match.
A bottle of hot sauce
Brooklyn Beckham and YouTube’s Hot Ones set tastebuds alight.
Gareth Southgate’s quarter-zip top at the Euros
Because the nation expected (something affordable from M&S).
Air up
Tweens began drinking water through these scent pods, which tricked your brain into thinking it was actually pop. A parental reaction to the Prime-demic.
Moth repellers
From John Lewis’s cedar blocks to armies of parasitic wasps, 2024 was the year that moth repellers became a big market.
A phone lanyard
A colourful beaded phone strap became our only weapon against mobile-snatching thieves on bikes.
A pint of Guinness
JW Anderson made an £890 jumper in tribute to the black stuff. The Devonshire in London sold 20,000 pints of the stout a week. Splitting the G became a personality trait. And the Irish shrugged.
Nordic Nest knot cushion
What even are these?
Japanese novels with cats on the cover
Syou Ishida’s We’ll Prescribe You a Cat and Hiro Arikawa’s The Travelling Cat Chronicles ticked the #BookTok box.
Mayonnaise
The everyman of condiments had a glow-up in 2024. First in September, when London brand Chopova Lowena created a bag with a jar of Hellmann’s strapped to it. Then food influencer Molly Baz launched her own line, Ayoh!. Expect to see it in stylish fridges.
Temu croissant light
Someone bought a croissant-shaped lamp from the Chinese fast fashion app, only to discover it was a real, lacquered pastry with a bulb inside. Prank, cost-cutting exercise, or both? The real answer is more predictable: it appears to be a copy. Temu may have been inspired by the work of an artist who makes objets out of food waste. Fast fashion strikes again.
Overnight rollers
2024 belonged to Taylor Swift’s fringe and Chappell Roan’s makeup, but also to Sabrina Carpenter’s big curls.
M&S bum shorts
A Brazilian butt lift for £15.
Ligne Roset Togo sofa
Spotted in influencers’ sitting rooms, photographed behind the new Vogue editor, Chioma Nnadi, as she announced her appointment, and eventually copied on Amazon, the sofa-that-looks-like-an-elephant’s-knee was 2024’s interiors power move.
Rishi Sunak’s wet suit jacket
The one thing that made up for a month’s rain in a week was seeing most of it land on the departing PM.
Smashed food
Burgers were the big one, but no cucumber, jerusalem artichoke or chickpea was safe from the rolling pin this year.
Cow’s milk
The list of E-numbers in our oat flat whites, and the 2024 TikTok backlash against alternative milks saw the old-fashioned cow variety, which never stopped being called “normal milk” in many quarters, regain traction after years spent out in the cold.
Cole Palmer’s Euros haircut
Every football tournament needs its hair-o.
Posh vitamins
From Wild Nutrition’s Aesop-adjacent packaging to Nad’s self-injecting supplements, it’s a post-Centrum world.
A point-and-shoot camera
Because a trip to Snappy Snaps is more fun than a digital album.
Matcha
Ideally from Blank Street, and over ice, so you can rattle the cubes noisily on your TikTok.
