“Fashion, I believe, is in your DNA; it implies originality and braveness.” – Iris Apfel
Howard represents a microcosm of how communities and people have utilized trend to precise particular person identification. Even Grace Wales Bonner, a designer of her personal label, drew inspiration from how Howard college students dressed throughout final 12 months’s Homecoming in her Fall/Winter 2024 assortment.
What does it imply to be trendy? What does it imply to be trendy? How does one even develop and talk a method identification?
The late Iris Apfel, inside designer and trend tastemaker, identified for her “vivacious, idiosyncratic private fashion,” made a press release that has arguably been on the heart of trend discourse.
“Being trendy and trendy are two solely various things. You should buy your self into being trendy. Fashion, I believe, is in your DNA, it implies originality and braveness,” she mentioned.
Apfel believes having fashion is synonymous with “originality.” Alternatively, being trendy is one thing anybody might be as long as they’ve the means, nevertheless it doesn’t essentially categorical an identification, quite it simply reveals that one can have a look at what’s well-liked and mirror it.
Historical past reveals growing distinct types contributes to speaking identification and values.
The New Romantics have been a outstanding subculture of the late Seventies and the early Nineteen Eighties that utilized clothes as a channel of identification. The tradition was characterised by theatrical hair and make-up and trend parts centered on dandyism and glamour.
With their androgynous look, they represented a shift away from youth tradition within the 70s. They did this by way of engagement with New Wave, synth-pop music and by defying gender norms.
On the time of the emergence of the New Romantics, basic attitudes and values shifted. There was a shift in attitudes towards gender norms, a surge in “radical sexual politics,” and a booming membership scene dominating younger individuals’s lives.
The New Romantics used fashion to speak their need to interrupt away from societal norms and introduce a extra progressive tradition. They represented what it meant to have a method as an extension of themselves and what they desired, exemplifying the distinction between being trendy and having fashion.
An article by Masterclass titled “Style vs. Fashion: Key Variations Between Style and Fashion” makes the excellence clearer. Fashion “refers to an individual’s explicit method of expressing themselves.” Within the trend group, fashion refers back to the “aesthetic decisions” round hair, clothes, and equipment.
They continued, “Style has to do with traits,” because it considerations itself with reflecting what the favored types of the time are.
Yomi Adegoke, a British journalist and creator, wrote, “If movies killed the radio star, then it was the web that killed subcultures.” She defined as everybody goals to be totally different and distinctive, we’re more and more turning into extra alike. Social media, as she calls it, “homogenizes” individuals.
She went on to precise how what was once markers of particular person expression and cultural touchstones has turned issues into “traits over tribes.” She famous that even in language, with phrases like “yas” or “fam,” each of which originated in Black areas, have entered mainstream tradition. With trend traits circulating by way of social media, authenticity has been misplaced, particularly since it may be accessed and co-opted at any level.
The very fact of the matter is traits have at all times been a factor. People and subcultures have at all times appeared to traits as inspiration. A preferred instance of that is Goth subculture, which emerged out of the rising recognition, or quite trending, of other music. The music impressed well-liked aesthetics corresponding to black nail polish, fishnet leggings, and Victorian-era clothes.
Whereas these aesthetics progressed into well-liked social traits, it could possibly be argued that these statements by way of trend progressed by way of music and literature versus social media.
The distinction between these channels is that publicity by way of social media shortens development cycles.
Vice reported that within the age of social media, traits can rise in recognition however final only some weeks to a month earlier than one other aesthetic takes its place. That is solely totally different from the previous when traits would resurface on a mean of 20 years.
This begs the query, does social media’s affect on traits actually take away the authenticity that some have argued?
TJ Sidhu, present model editor for Burberry and former fashion and tradition editor for “The Face,” wrote that social media’s affect with traits has allowed individuals to create themselves at any time limit, furthering their mission to develop their fashion. It additionally permits them to seek out their group extra simply than individuals did previously.
So, if one is dressed head to toe in trending trend gadgets, does that imply that they don’t have any signature identification? Properly, the reply is, who is aware of? Some view viral web traits on account of inauthenticity, whereas others see it as a strategy to faucet right into a development that will’ve in any other case been unknown.
Can one categorical individuality whereas nonetheless experimenting with trending trend? Are you able to be trendy and trendy?
The reply, based mostly on experiences and understanding of the encompassing discourse discovered inside fashion, is sure to each. As it’s much like identification, fashion needs to be seen as evolutionary. Who somebody is now’s probably not going to be who they’re 5 or 10 years from now.
Studying the best way to discover and talk identification by way of fashion begins with an introspective have a look at particular person values. Historical past has proven us that subcultures, just like the New Romantics and Goths, centered their fashion on the tradition wherein they participated–a bodily manifestation of their pursuits in literature, books, actions, notable figures, practices, habits, and so forth.
The best strategy to domesticate your distinctive fashion identification is to attract inspiration from traits whereas understanding who you might be and what you determine with, permitting these insights to naturally form your wardrobe.
The journey will look totally different for everybody however that’s a part of the enjoyable. That’s the intention of trend–to proceed evolving as a person and letting your garments converse to that evolution.
Copy edited by Anijah Franklin
