Get ahead of the trends for spring and summer

Each new season brings with it a range of trends, and with them a choice: for fashion-lovers to fully adopt new trends, or to incorporate aspects of them into their existing wardrobes.

For savvy shoppers, the past few seasons have been particularly welcome – each autumn-winter brings a different take on military and revives the black dress, for example; and each spring- summer sees a form of floral and some seaside-inspired shades such as lemon sorbet and raspberry ice-cream.

This means, of course, that there is no need to overhaul your entire wardrobe, even if you are one to slavishly follow trends (which is not, incidentally, recommended). Instead, seasonal sartorial changes allow people to pick and choose from trends and use them as embellishments to an existing style and, more importantly from a financial sense, an existing wardrobe.

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SHEER DELIGHT: from left, broderie anglaise blouse (€29.99), broderie anglaise skirt (€29.99), at New Look; white blouse (€95), skirt with sheer panels (€95), blue collarless coat (€199), and tan handbag (€175), all Per Una Speziale at Marks & Spencer; shirt dress (€15), full briefs (€7) and bandeau bra (€3), all at Penneys

This spring-summer – yes, it’s that time already, at least if you take a look past the sale rails and ignore the fact that you will be wearing your coat well into early June – is no different.

Designers from Marc Jacobs to Valentino, Tom Ford to Vivienne Westwood, presented their spring-summer collections in September, granting the high street plenty of time to get distilling and "reinterpreting", producing their own versions of trends presented by the high kings and queens of haute couture.

FULL-ON FLORALS

So far, so predictable. Florals are a spring staple, and it's a rare new year that doesn't present some form of plant-inspired fabric to mix and match with, well, whatever takes your fancy.

This season, florals are big and bold – so you can forget about delicate pansy prints on tea dresses and take your cues from Carven’s OTT roses and House of Holland’s 3D thistle prints.

HEAVY METAL

High-shine fabrics are usually the remit of the Christmas market, but this season sees an array of metallic skirts, jackets and shirts – some in full-on, high-shine metallic, others merely nodding to the trend with high-shine satin two-pieces.

This isn't about high glam, however; while you're selecting your metals, think about the new skirt shape and make it a slightly robotic nod to Stepford, rather than going Mad Men by way of Studio 54.

THE NEW SILHOUETTE

It's been a while since we've seen an overtly androgynous season – although Saint Laurent Paris under Hedi Slimane did try – and this year's new skirt shape takes things further into the feminine zone.

Think full, midi-length skirts with pleats in a variety of fabrics and prints, from tartan checks at Vanessa Bruno (for the grunge-leaning among you) to floaty, barely-there skirts over supersized Bridget Jones-style pants at Fendi.

SHEER DELIGHT

It all looked like plain sailing, didn't it? Not a crop top or a pair of booty shorts in sight. Well here's the trend that will strike fear in to the hearts of plenty: sheer, floaty, transparent fabrics were all over the shop on catwalks in London, Paris, Milan and New York, from designers as varied as Stella McCartney, Giorgio Armani and Fendi.

Again, we’re talking ladylike: full skirts, floral appliqués and demure choices in oversized undies. But really, there’s no sugar-coating this: see-through is back. That January gym membership has never seemed more apt.

SORBET SHADES

It's another expected spring-summer trend, but this season's ice-cream-inspired colours are not the stuff of staid twin- pieces. Wear your chosen shade head to toe in a variety of fabrics and finishes for a quirky interpretation of a potentially overly girly trend – and think more Simone Rocha than Sandra Dee. Extra points for mixing your sorbets with your brogues.