My Friends Wore the Bushwick Birkin Before Anyone—They Say These Items Are Next

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(Image credit: @devinemarieblacksher)

When editors try to gauge what’s trending for upcoming seasons, it's typical to look to the runways, but sometimes the most impactful and persistent trends stem from the people you know. Take the Telfar bag–or otherwise affectionately known as the "Bushwick Birkin”– It may have just exploded to cult-like status this year, (Oprah even placed it on her list of 2020 Favorite Things), but I noticed it within my Brooklyn neighborhood on the arms of my friends, colleagues, and acquaintances going back to 2018. When something is so good that it becomes ubiquitous among stylish people, the editorial world can't help but notice. It’s instances like this that cause me to weigh my friends' opinions of fashion just as heavily as the designers that make them. 

As we approach the new year, my mind is ever more conscious about what’s next for the changing fashion landscape. I consulted five of the coolest people I know (including those that were hip to Telfar way before it blew up) about the fashion buys and trends they see dominating 2021. Read on to see their full fashion forecast.

ROBYN MOWATT, WRITER

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(Image credit: @robynmowatt)

ANDREW NGUYEN, FASHION NEWS WRITER

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(Image credit: @reignofdynasty)

BECKY AKINYODE, STYLIST

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(Image credit: @thetrillestb)

"The SS21 collections from brands like Burberry, Miu Miu, Bottega, and Givenchy featured some heavily embellished garments. Post Vaccine I think people are gonna step out looking FLY as HELL in heavily armored looks."

LORENZO ATKINSON, EDITOR & MARKETING CONSULTANT

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(Image credit: @lzoatkinson)

DEVINE BLACKSHER, ASSOCIATE FASHION EDITOR

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(Image credit: @devinemarieblacksher)

Up Next, I Wear Sneakers Five Days a Week–Here Are The Pairs I Currently Have In My Cart.

Fashion Market Editor

Indya Brown is a fashion editor, stylist, and writer living in Los Angeles. While going to school at Columbia University in New York City, she got her feet wet in the fashion industry interning at Elle magazine, Harper's Bazaar, and New York magazine's The Cut. After graduating in 2016, she joined The Cut as a fashion assistant, eventually working her way up to fashion editor. There, she worked on a multitude of projects, including styling inbook feature stories for New York magazine's print issue, writing and pitching market stories for The Cut, and serving as fashion lead for The Cut's branded content. While New York has been her home for over 10 years, she moved to Los Angeles in the midst of the pandemic in 2020 for a new chapter. Now she is a fashion market editor for Who What Wear, focusing on emerging designers, rising trends on and off the internet, interior design, and BIPOC creatives and brands. Aside from her duties as a fashion market editor, Brown is also a freelance stylist and writer, working on national print and video commercial campaigns for Sephora, The Independent, and Cadillac. Her bylines also include Harper's Bazaar, Vox, and The New York Times. But once the computer goes down and the emails turn off, she's likely eating her way through Koreatown, hunting down vintage furniture, scoping out new outrageous nail designs to try, or taking a hot cycling class.