Why the Best Uniforms Are Rarely Trendy, But Always Stylish
A conversation between Tatiana and Veronika, both fashion lovers and trend seekers, one as a consumer and one as a corporate fashion designer, about reading fashion trends and how to create style that lasts in corporate fashion.
In our atelier, these two perspectives meet every day. We both watch trends closely. One of us feels their pull. The other has spent her career deciding which parts of a trend actually belong in a design concept that has to convince a client.
Tatiana:
I follow trends, and I love fashion and dressing well, but in this conversation I’m more of a consumer. My taste is shaped a lot by social media, and so is my shopping. I scroll, I see a new silhouette, a colour combination nobody saw coming, a cut that suddenly feels essential. Last season, purple wasn’t even on my radar. This season, I can’t get enough of it, especially paired with turquoise. I bought a croc-patterned bag a few weeks ago that I was completely sure about. And I already know how this goes. Next season, something else will catch my eye, and that bag will quietly move to the back of the closet. Not because it broke. Because the feeling moved on.
So, when I started working in a corporate fashion design atelier, I expected that same instinct to be useful. It wasn’t, not in the way I thought.
Veronika:
My relationship with fashion is slightly different. I am involved in creating fashionable garments in my work. I love fashion, fabrics, techniques. I do store checks, go to fabric fairs, watch fashion shows on YouTube, follow professional discussions, and observe people around Europe. The evolution of taste, colours, and silhouettes fascinates me just as much as it fascinates Tatiana.
Tatiana:
But in my own closet, “I need this now” is the whole point. The thrill is the trend.
Veronika:
On the contrary, my personal wardrobe revolves around staples: the white shirt, the jeans, the skirt, the jacket. The excitement comes every season when I go through my wardrobe to see what I’ll wear this time around: which proportions to choose, oversized, cropped, mini, and how to complete my vision of the new season with a few strategic buys. Most exciting of all are the garments I rediscover that have been with me for more than twenty years and are now “vintage.”
In my professional environment, designing corporate fashion, though, is a different exercise. I’m constantly searching for new, exciting silhouettes, colour combinations, or details I can bring into my concepts, but the questions I ask are different. Does it reflect the style of the environment it will be worn in? And will a whole team like it?
Tatiana:
That’s where it started to click for me. What we create here at Fashion Collective is still very much trend-aware, so the question I kept coming back to was: how could that work for corporate uniforms? I know how fast a piece in my own closet can go from “I can’t live without this” to the back of the wardrobe, and a uniform can’t do that. So I wanted to know where that restless “I need this” feeling goes in a concept for a client.
Veronika:
It does have a place, just a different one, and it is vital for a successful look. I go into each new concept with my fashion eye on the current trends and styles. In a design concept, there are elements where we can suggest a fashionable colour, but the larger part of a concept is its baseline: what endures and supports the feeling of the place. Items like an apron, a scarf, or a necktie are pieces that can be changed easily and at little cost once the excitement for that specific colour has moved on. Think of a perfume. The baseline is the base note, and the trend elements are the fleeting top notes you smell first.
That said, I won’t pretend the current mood has no influence on me at all. Last year’s craze for olive green has now given way to a lot of burgundy and brown tones in suits. I haven’t felt the urge to design in burgundy or brown for several years.
So, when I start a new concept, the current fashion mood does inform my first design ideas, pulling them toward certain shapes, fabrics, and colours. The work is knowing which of those instincts to keep, and which to let pass.
Tatiana:
In my two years in corporate fashion, this is one of the things I’ve come to understand: every time a uniform gets replaced because it looks dated. Trend-driven pieces have a shelf life measured in seasons. For a hotel, a palace, or a corporate team outfitting dozens or hundreds of people, that difference adds up fast: in budget, in consistency, in how coherent the brand looks over time.
Veronika:
Exactly, and that’s why we design for change from the start. We propose collections that can be renewed by altering a single part: adding a skirt or a dress, a new shirt, maybe with stripes for this year. The foundation stays. Only the detail moves.
Tatiana:
I personally still love the chase. I still screenshot the outfit, still add the piece to a cart I may never actually buy from. But my habits have changed more than I expected. I wait longer before buying now, sometimes weeks, just to see if the feeling is still there once the trend has moved on to something else. I ask myself: will I still reach for this in a year? More often than not, the honest answer is no, and that’s enough to stop me.
What I notice most is how different it feels to decide for a team than for myself. For myself, I can follow a feeling, and if I’m wrong, the cost is one bag in the back of the closet. For a team, we select something dozens of people will wear every day, in a space with its own character, for years. The question changes from “do I love it?” to “does it suit the people wearing it, the place, and the moment?” I haven’t lost my love for trends. I’ve just stopped letting them influence my opinions, in my closet and at work.
Veronika:
Put simply, what we’re making isn’t just meant to be noticed. It’s made to belong in the room for as long as the room exists in this mood and time, expressing the spirit of the service and the team delivering experiences for the guests. Fitting in so well that no one thinks to ask when it was designed. Some of our most successful concepts are ones where the client went quite far in terms of style, and they still don’t look outdated today. That’s where I’m most proud of the work, and where I still feel this dynamic walking into one of those hotels or restaurants.
-Veronika & Tatiana
