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.