WGSN’s 2028 trend Joyful Audacity: What is it and how can retail leverage it?

In a landscape influenced by financial pressure, uncertainty, and fatigue, shoppers are naturally gravitating toward positivity. Rather than passively seeking it, however, consumers are actively claiming happiness in ways that extend beyond previous fashion industry trends. While dopamine dressing and vibrant campaigns signaled efforts to offset negative experiences, joy is evolving into something retailers must actively enable through greater consumer agency, creativity, connection, and control.

WGSN has dubbed this movement ‘Joyful Audacity’, a concept that the trend forecasting platform says will define 2028 through rebellious play, pleasure and spirited connections, responding to the weight of a heavy world. "Joyful Audacity is ultimately about a shift from selling consumers happiness to giving them more agency to create it for themselves. The important move is from creating experiences for customers to creating frameworks that customers can shape themselves,” Laura Saunter, head of retail forecasting for WGSN, told FashionUnited.

From selling consumers happiness to giving them the agency to create for themselves

Rather than treating joy as a seasonal campaign or fleeting visual trend, WGSN sees an opportunity to integrate the mood into the whole customer journey, meaning its presence starts well before a product reaches the checkout. Saunter notes: “Joy can be designed into the whole customer journey – from how people discover and try products, to how much control they have over personalisation, service and fulfilment, and how welcome they feel spending time in a physical or digital brand space.”

This doesn’t necessarily mean retailers must spend heavily on theatrical experiences. Saunter suggests that control itself can also be joyful, and is in fact an underrated part of this. “In an uncertain world, delight often comes from feeling more in charge – through clearer pricing, intuitive floor plans, visible support, flexible fulfilment and straightforward returns. It may sound unglamorous next to a sensorial store concept, but low-effort, low-doubt journeys are what make an experience feel worth repeating rather than simply worth photographing.”

Physical retail’s role is already changing in the present day, as online shopping becomes increasingly efficient and AI-led. The in-person experience needs to therefore offer things digital cannot, namely texture, sound, human interaction and discovery. An immersive flagship store isn’t a necessity in this context. Instead, locations are expected to have “more emphasis on sensorial, tactile and participatory retail”, Saunters notes.

Physical retail as sensorial and participatory experiences

She adds: “Small interventions – a customisation station, unexpected merchandising, collectible details, playful fitting-room experiences, repair or rework services, or simply somewhere customers want to linger – can make routine retail feel more memorable. Contrast matters too: a store that's loud everywhere is exhausting, so retailers should pair high-energy zones with quieter fitting rooms and softer places to sit.”

The latter point is imperative to ‘Joyful Audacity’, which Saunters reminds us is not simply a prescription for brighter colours or ‘dopamine dressing’. While those aspects can play a role, a bigger opportunity can be found in giving consumers the ability to shape, alter and personalise what they buy, addressing authorship. Consumers should instead be seen as creators, with retailers being enablers of their creativity by providing platforms, tools and venues where they can unleash their artistic expression and share inspiration, not only in the experience itself, but also in the output of product.

As examples, Saunters points to activations by brands like Swatch, which has allowed customers to create a one-of-a-kind watch in under two minutes using a prompt via its AI-Dada tool. Uniqlo’s in-store service and sustainability initiative Re.Uniqlo Studio, meanwhile, combines repair, upcycling and customisation “so the relationship continues beyond the point of purchase”. “This turns personalisation from a finishing touch into an ongoing relationship between the customer, the product and the brand,” Saunters adds.

Collective community built around niche interests

Beyond individual creativity, collective participation will be an integral part of how Joyful Audacity manifests itself. The shift will see consumers increasingly seek out connections based on shared interests, meaning retailers can create communities around running, crafts, music, collecting or other niches. Saunters states that, as consumers move away from shared consumption, brands that will prevail will be those thinking “less about building an audience and more about facilitating participation”.

Retailers like Knees Up in Hackney are early adopters of the trend. The London store simultaneously serves as a running clubhouse, cafe and shop, meaning that the space can adapt around the community’s needs. Saunters also highlights Damson Madder’s collaboration with media outlet The Face, with which the brand celebrated London’s clubs through activities such as birdwatching and rollerskating, extending brand storytelling to in person events. “Loyalty can reward participation as well as purchasing, while digital channels can give those communities somewhere to continue exchanging ideas and inspiration.”

GenAI can act as a ‘creative co-pilot’

While Joyful Audacity may appear as a response to the AI-driven acceleration of the online world, Saunters says to not disregard the tech when approaching Joyful Audacity in a wider context. In fact, for WGSN, GenAI specifically is central to its wider definition of the movement, serving as a creative tool instead of simply an efficiency or recommendation engine. Saunters explains that AI can act “as a creative co-pilot”, helping shoppers “articulate an idea, experiment with combinations, customise products or build looks, while keeping the customer firmly in the role of author”.

At its core, Saunters underlines that Joyful Audacity doesn’t require retailers to splash out, particularly as they operate under continued margin pressure. Instead, she suggests working with what already exists, whether that be adding customisation activations to stores, integrating mood-based merchandising, introducing playful packaging, connecting stores with digital tools or rewarding community participation through loyalty programmes. “The commercial opportunity is to make joy repeatable rather than spectacular,” Saunters notes.

In summary, she states: “The brands that get this right will understand that Joyful Audacity isn't about relentless positivity. Consumers are living with financial pressure, uncertainty and fatigue, so joy needs to feel credible. It can acknowledge that reality while giving people moments of control, creativity, connection and release. In that sense, joy becomes less of an aesthetic and more of a retail service - something a brand enables rather than simply communicates."