The fashion trend cycle used to be something that progressively changed over the course time. Sharp silhouettes of the 80’s, grunge of the 90’s, and the glitter of the 2000’s. All of these traits have become synonymous with their decades, but in our own era we find our trend cycles move too fast to keep up with.
Take for instance the trend of pink bows scattering everything, deemed as coquette. But now, many girls feel sick of this trend while girls who have been coquette for years feel misrepresented by it. The coquette aesthetic as I remember it, circa tumblr 2014, was a vintage style that took heavy influences from romantic Americana films of the 1950’s and 60’s. With how quickly trends are picked up and dropped, the vintage part of this aesthetic has been dropped in favor of cheap fast fashion.
And now, it’s out of trend, everybody is sick of the pink bows that they’ll never wear again. Now, influencers are obsessed with an office siren aesthetic. Which is a complete 180 from coquette. Where coquette is soft and feminine, the office siren is meant to be more sultry and dark.
How is it possible for girls to keep up with these trends when they change so drastically from month to month?
When rich influencers have the ability to change up their aesthetic whenever they want, it sets a standard that says we should be able to as well. It’s expected of us to follow these microtrends that are expensive to start and then oversaturate markets after the fact. Resulting in clothes that end up unworn and rot in landfills for decades. An estimated 11 million tons of textiles are tossed into landfills yearly, that is around 85 percent of all apparel that is produced in the United States.
It’s worrying to see that no one seems to have their own personal style anymore, alternative subcultures in this decade are almost non-existent because nobody dresses the same for long enough to form them.
The “Tabi” shoes from Maison Margiela, a reimagined form of Japanese footwear done up in the form of pumps and boots, was a trend on TikTok for about a year. Its main defining feature is the split toe on the shoes, a detail that I have come to love. The only issue? The average price for a pair of boots is almost $1,000. They were everywhere, and it seemed that everyone owned a pair of these high-end statement pieces. Of course, until they fell out of trend and people began to call them camel toe shoes. So what do you do with a pair of $1,000 off trend shoes that you don’t even really like? In the case of the Tabis, second hand markets became oversaturated with the shoes. Because they were off trend, nobody bought them. And now many of these pumps sit unworn and developing dry rot.
So what can be done? When selecting clothing, really take into consideration if you will continue to wear it a year, two, or even a decade from now. Slowing trend cycles is crucial for the development of your own style, you shouldn’t feel pressured to try out every trend that you see on your for you page.
If there is a trend you like, see if you can try it out using what’s already in your closet, there’s really no need to buy a $60 Urban Outfitters shirt that you won’t wear in a month, and will spend decades trying to decompose in a landfill.
Dress how you want, and don’t worry about being on trend all the time. As long as you like how you dress, that’s all that matters.
