When deciding what to wear to a recent event at her law school, 20-year-old Fiza Faheem weighed her wardrobe options.
Many of her recent purchases were already outdated, at least by TikTok’s shaky standards.
Should I wear glasses with the thin frames characteristic of “office sirens”? Or can she go for the “dark academia” look with a gothic blazer and black sheer tights? Should she add layers of jewelry and ribbons on her sleeves? Or should you go for a more “pretty girl” look, like slicking your hair back and wearing neutral colors?
She felt like her closet was mocking her.
Faheem, a student at the University of York, said: ‘You may have liked something before, but suddenly you don’t have it in your wardrobe, even after three or four months. “It was,” he said. UK: “If we do that, some new trend will emerge.”
With TikTok and fast fashion factories creating new trends and microtrends every day, real-world consumers are screaming that shopping isn’t fun anymore and personal style feels impossible. It seems so.
From the resurgence of so-called indie trends like Charli It has become something. Shoppers say they feel disoriented, unable to find clothes that are age-appropriate or on-trend.
They say they have never owned more clothes, but they often stop before they start wearing them out of fear that the items that went viral last month are “cheap”.
Experts say marketing on apps like TikTok and Instagram has changed the fashion landscape, making clothing more instantly available and making trends huge but temporary.
“People are confused,” says Washington, D.C.-based personal stylist Dejeune Harris. Anything you can wear. ”
Ordinary people don’t have the time to keep up with fashion influencers, but social media is constantly trying to create that.
“If you’re a normal person and you work a texting job during the day, every time you get that dopamine hit and take a break on your phone, you’re going to be told, ‘You’re not fashionable enough.’ You don’t have cool girl clothes. This is what the cool girls wear.’ It takes a huge toll on you,” and content focused on sustainability and thrift. Creator Alana Martinson (24) said.
Everyone is overdosing to keep up.
When shopping for clothing, Martinson is almost entirely thrifty. If there’s a new item she really wants, she takes a year to look for it at local second-hand stores before deciding whether to buy it new.
She feels that intentionality in shopping has all but disappeared in her generation. As a result, people don’t like their clothes as much, she said.
“Items in your closet that you spent a lot of time buying. You were just looking for jeans that fit you well and you found them for a long time. That’s the outfit you’re wearing. “I’m going to wear it over and over again,” she said. “If you’re only looking for instant gratification, it’s easy to lose your love for the item.”
But Apple Pay-enabled consumers can’t easily shake off the temptation and ease of payment.
“It preys on our desire for dopamine surges,” says Dana Thomas, author of “Fashion Police: Fast Fashion Prices and the Future of Clothing.” “I used to have to stand in line at the checkout line, and I would get to the checkout line and think, ‘Do I really want that?’ I would just click on it and it would be delivered to me. “Oh, did I really want that?”
Developing your fashion sense no longer means finding unique items in stores or spending hours sniffing around online. If there’s something that’s trending right now, you can buy one of each color right away, and everyone can become a seller in the TikTok shop.
Chances are, within a month or two, that purchase will be outdated or ridiculed and disgusted by the same influencers who sold it to you. Getting back into style means washing something, repeating it, and buying something new.
“Every week, people update their finds on Zara and TikTok shops. Instagram ads also encourage this continued shopping,” says the viral fashion commentator with 926,000 followers on the YouTube channel HauteLeMode. Luke Meagher said. “We also understand very little about clothing outside of fast fashion.”
Post-pandemic changes and age differences
People outside of their teens and 20s struggle with similar confusion, but deep down they feel that many of the trending styles just don’t work for them.
After the pandemic quarantine, everyone suddenly found themselves getting older in the reopened world. Many in their 30s and 40s don’t want to be the office siren, gangster wife, or cool girl, the trending style personas on TikTok.
“There are people my age who are still trying to find themselves,” said Tamika Smith, 39. “I’m like, ‘Show me some of the fashion they’re wearing.’ , I started watching TikTok.” It was difficult for me because I was like, ‘I don’t know how I’m supposed to look at it.’ ”
Harris said this is a question he often gets asked by customers.
“I’m not 16, so I don’t have to dress like one,” she said. “I’m not young, I’m not old, but…these things don’t resonate with me.”
Harris said that everyone’s sense of fashion has been shaken since the coronavirus outbreak. The office aesthetic was changing to something more casual. TikTok has now become the judge, jury, and executioner of what’s cute to wear. Half my closet suddenly became meaningless.
“It goes back to people not knowing what to do,” Harris said. “They’re just grasping at straws, throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks.”
The new mall is a TikTok shop
Fast fashion was the first harbinger of the death of personal style, Thomas said.
Rather than designing and releasing collections, companies now quickly design and produce clothes based on what is already trending. When the trend passed, the batch was discarded. Thomas said it has taken fashion away from the community and personalization from shopping.
The world of fast fashion produces nearly 100 billion new items of clothing each year, double the amount produced in 2000.
“When I was a teenager, I used to go shopping at the mall a lot,” Thomas said. “We probably went home with one shirt and a skirt, and now as teenagers we go to H&M and ZARA… You come out with a big bag and you’re like me in 1980. I am using the amount.”
But why would someone buy just one thing or wait to buy something when they can get what’s trending at a cheaper price?
The new mall is a TikTok shop where you can watch your favorite influencers try something on and then instantly buy the outfits already linked in the video. Like other notorious fast fashion houses like Shein and Temu, TikTok Shop often boasts dollar store prices.
TikTok Shop only launched in September 2023, but it is now the fourth most popular social commerce platform in the US
Microtrends usually come from these brands trying to recreate one specific item rather than a genre of the item. For example, low-rise jeans are a trend, but the viral Skims dress camo is a micro-trend.
According to Thomas, social media changes so quickly that there are no longer any real, lasting trends. That’s why ephemeral aesthetics like Yakuza’s Wife and microtrends became mainstream. It should expire soon, she said. On TikTok, consumers decide what’s cool and brands race to catch up.
It makes it difficult to define personal style. If all brands are just designing for current online trends, how can it be personal?Even those that go against current trends, like turning to vintage and thrifting, will eventually adopted, leading fast fashion houses to release “worn-in” styles.
“It’s so easy to buy the same styles as your favorite influencers,” says Martinson. “Every aesthetic is out there, and every aesthetic is within reach at a very affordable price.”
Fashion is cannibalizing, Thomas said, with nowhere to go but going back decades. The 90s are back! The 60s are back! But the only direction these cheap ducks are headed is the mass waste of the Global South.
“The average garment today is worn seven times before being thrown away,” she said. “There are a lot of clothes that are never worn and thrown away.”
Expectations from the fashion-forward public who care about sustainability
For Thomas, the silver lining lies in a lifestyle like Martinson’s. That is, a lifestyle where you spend time at thrift stores, picking up each garment and thinking of it as part of a larger wardrobe rather than a temporary symbol of style.
“We’re running out of places to throw away these clothes,” she said. “The more we can extend the life of the garment, the better.”
For those looking to escape the TikTok shopping loop or find their own style, Harris says shopping should always start with stopping. When purchasing clothing, think of three different outfits you can wear it with.
When shopping, buy high-quality closet staples that will outlast any ephemerality or beauty.
“We will focus on basic items such as T-shirts, jeans, boots, coats and high-quality items. And natural materials: 100% cotton, 100% denim,” she said. “Then we slowly incorporate trends that make sense.”
If anything, Meagher agreed that there’s a place for trends and viral items that can expose people to new styles they hadn’t considered before.
“I think the vastness of the internet and its archives allows us to learn about different styles and sensibilities of subcultures,” he said. “And through that, you can break away from more mainstream trends.”
It’s happening, Thomas said. People are more aware of the harms of fast fashion than ever before. Pre-industrial habits of buying second-hand, mending old clothes, and storing things are returning.
“What’s so heartwarming is that people are showing compassion again,” she said.
