Social Media's Effect on Rapid Fashion Trends

It wasn't up until instagram and Tik Tok that people started more rapidly consuming clothing and accessories. It seems like every other video on my timeline is a clothing haul where someone is ordering clothes they either aren't going to wear or are such poor quality they won't last more than a few wears anyways. These social media influencers consumption has viewers believing that having the new trendy item makes you "it" and having last weeks item makes you lame.

In an article called How TikTok Makes Fashion Faster, it discusses that while many clothing brands choose to produce their garments sustainably, that doesn't mean that other brands won't knock off the designs, driving traffic away from the potentially more expensive and sustainable brand.

Since the beginning of college I have seen the trend go from "SHEIN" brand popularity to brands that are more sustainable. The quality of clothes is better, making them last longer and in turn stay in peoples closets longer.

"The reason that microtrends are so short-lived is due to the acceleration of something called the trend cycle. Lee, who works as a forecast analyst, says that the typical trend cycle consists of five stages: introduction, rise, acceptance, decline, and obsolescence. According to conventional fashion industry knowledge, this cycle used to last twenty years; however, with the rise of social media, its algorithmic segmentation of taste, and its uncanny ability to saturate every nook of your internet niche with the newest essential item, the duration of the trend cycle has drastically diminished. Even microtrends used to last up to three to five years, but now enjoy mere months or even weeks of must-have status. “It’s the same cycle,” says Lee. “It’s the same bell curve, but it’s squished.” - Eliza Rudalevige, Lithium Magazine.

The rapid amount of new choices every consumer is now posed with makes it that much harder to control overconsumption. The term "micro trend" is talking about niche styles that quickly turn from trendy to trashy.

"For one, it would be classist to assume that everybody can afford to give up the accessibility, size inclusivity, and low prices that fast fashion brands offer. She also makes an effort to talk about trends in a positive, uplifting way, pointing toward burgeoning popularity of judgmental “Trends I Hate” videos as another accelerating factor. These videos influence consumption habits in the same way that microtrends do, creating a very narrow scope of what is cool or trendy and what is “over.” Most of these TikToks don’t offer alternatives for items they deem uncool, driving consumers back to influencers for guidance." - Eliza Rudelevige, Lithium Magazine.

Rudalevige has a point, in that if we allow social media to affect our likes and dislikes, we are going to end up buying into the trends that are popular one week, and "out" the next, leaving you stuck with an abundance of clothes you don't want nor need.

A recent trend on Tiktok is outlined as "fashionable" people who decide what is now "in vs out". What are consumers to do when they find themselves in possession of these now "not trendy" items? Stop the cycle from the root and try to stop yourself from buying things you don't see yourself wearing fro the foreseeable future.

Source:

Rudalevige, Eliza. “How TikTok Makes Fast Fashion Faster .” Lithium Magazine, 14 June 2021, https://lithiumagazine.com/2021/06/15/how-tiktok-makes-fast-fashion-faster/.