Here’s Why 2017’s Fashion Word of the Year Was Power

Politics seeped into every facet of culture in 2017, from film to TV to music. So, perhaps it’s no surprise that politics also influenced the way in which we talk about fashion. Often times, that included the word “power,” as that noun has just been revealed to be the most-used word of the year in fashion.

According to Lyst, which analyzed over 30,000 articles on fashion published throughout 2017 across 100 publications, “power” is the word that appeared the most frequently. Outside of fashion’s own examination of power, whether it be indirectly with suiting like Virgil Abloh did through the lens of Princess Diana’s own wardrobe in his recent collection, or more overtly like the political slogans that graced the runways of Public School, Prabal Gurung, Jonathan Simkhai, and Christian Siriano, “power” also played into the formality of this year’s clothing. That’s because designers from Céline’s Phoebe Philo to Louis Vuitton’s Nicolas Ghesquière and Balenciaga’s Demna Gvasalia brought back the era of 1980s power dressing that was once a staple for many women in the workplace. Albeit, this year’s power dressing was notably stiff and more eccentric. “Personally, I like my ‘power looks’ to be a combination of drama, nonconformity, restraint, surprise, modesty, and playfulness,” Linda Fargo, senior vice president of Bergdorf Goodman, told W earlier this year. “That’s when I feel strongest and the least vincible.”

Female strength was definitely a theme of 2017, perhaps peaking with Time‘s recent Person of the Year cover: the Silence Breakers. The #MeToo movement originally started in 2006 on Twitter by activist Tarana Burke (who was notably absent on the cover) but gained momentum this year as everyone from Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Lawrence, Uma Therman, Lupita Nyong’o and many others came forward with their stories of sexual abuse. It’s fitting then that the second most-used word of the year in fashion was woke.

Trailing behind those two words were, in order, statement, floral (a word that seemingly never disappears from fashion’s vocabulary), millennial, extra, masculine, cult, ugly, and vegan. Considering how in tune with culture fashion was this year, take that as an argument for your back pocket, the next time you hear it dismissed as frivolous.