If warmer temps have you cleaning out your closets and contemplating a wardrobe overhaul, you’re in good company. For an update on this season’s most coveted looks, we consulted three professional stylists. Here’s what each had to say.
Personalize Your Style
Jenn Mapp Bressan, a luxury manager at upscale online consignor The RealReal, is a proponent of the capsule closet: 35-40 seasonal pieces that can be mixed and matched to create multiple outfits. For the spring, she’s seeing several trends, starting with primary colors such as cobalt blue, kelly green, bright red and yellow. “They’re the type of colors you see in uniforms, particularly collegiate,” says the former Falls Church resident who now lives in Virginia Beach. “There’s something very confident and optimistic and energetic about these colors.”
Stripes of all sizes are also making a comeback, she says—especially “anything that feels athletic, collegiate or team-inspired.” Mix and match thin and wide stripes or even vertical and horizontal patterns to make the look your own.
Personalization is also huge right now, says Mapp Bressan, who jazzed up a pair of sneakers by swapping the plain white shoelaces for cobalt blue ones. “I think the move towards personalization is a reaction to not wanting to look the same as everybody else,” she says. “[It’s a way to] feel relevant and fresh.”
Wabi-sabi, the Japanese philosophy of finding beauty in simplicity and imperfection, is also having a moment. “This is a reflection of our economy right now,” says the stylist. “People are thrifting. People are buying things that are old and things that look old. They’re borrowing from their mothers and their grandmothers. They want items that have a story to them.”
In this vein, retro elements like brooches are making a comeback. “Men are wearing brooches on their tuxedos,” she says. “Cluster some brooches and pins on your old denim jacket.”
Find Your Flow
Angela Tandy, owner of Sassanova boutique in McLean’s Chesterbrook Shopping Center, sees flowing fabrics and fringe taking center stage as the weather turns warmer. And if there’s one must-have separate this season, it’s a fun skirt.
“You can dress it up, you can dress it down,” Tandy says. “You can put a nice asymmetrical skirt on with a T-shirt and jean jacket and sneakers, and it looks just as cool and polished as it does when you’re wearing it with a silk blouse and heels.”
For men, Tandy is seeing fresh takes on the standard polo shirt—namely Johnny collars, which split in the front and fit close to the neck.
“We try to introduce color for men, too,” she says, mindful that so much of men’s clothing is some variation of blue. “Pastels for spring are not only for women. We have some great five-pocket trousers for men in a pale pink, or a nice ecru or even a sorbet-colored orange for [special occasions] or horse racing.”
One wardrobe staple that is perennially on trend is a good blazer. Tandy is partial to pieces by designer Veronica Beard, whose blazers she pairs with jeans and dresses. “It can totally transform any outfit and is something that you’re going to reach for time and time again,” she says.
A versatile blazer is also a workhorse item for men, who wear suits less frequently than they used to. “They can wear it in the office, they can throw it over a golf shirt or they could also wear it to a wedding and throw a tie on.”
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A Nod to Neutrals
Nasim Kaheh, founder of D.C.-based WBB Personal Styling and a fellow devotee of the capsule closet approach, cautions clients against blowing their budget on fad items that don’t pair well with others. The WBB acronym in her company name stands for “why before buy.” Her mantra: Know why you’re buying something and how you’ll wear it.
To get the most mileage out of your closet, she advocates neutrals that can be artfully mixed and matched, such as a sleek pair of silver metallic shoes, or trousers in Pantone’s 2026 Color of the Year, Cloud Dancer, a “lofty white” with hints of gray. “This is the first year that Pantone released a neutral color,” she says. “It’s about refinement.”
Feel like your look could use some tweaking? Accessories are a great way to embrace trends without overhauling your entire wardrobe, she says. When the urge to splurge hits, a good quality belt is a good investment.
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Pearls offer another way to incorporate the 2026 color of the year into any look, Kaheh says. They’re subtle, elegant and timeless. “Pearls will never go out of fashion.”
When shopping for clothes and accessories, Kaheh advises her clients to consider all the ways an item can be worn. “That’s an easy way determine if you are following a fad or something that will live for a very long time,” she says. “Think of three different ways that you can wear it. If you can’t come up with an answer, you shouldn’t get it.”