“in”, “out”, shake it all about
why everyone needs to shut the f*ck up about trends
Get strapped in folks because today we’re talking about fashion! (She really can do it all, I hear you say. Right?) In all honesty I could only stay silent on this topic for so long, meaning that it’s finally time for me to give my unsolicited, unqualified opinion on some of the discourse happening around fast fashion and micro-trends on the internet.
So — what’s a micro-trend? While you might already be familiar with the term, it’s probably worth explaining. A micro-trend is, in all honesty, what it says on the packet; a “mini” trend — trends being (by my definition) fashion styles that circulate in and out of popularity depending on what’s considered “cool” right now. Micro-trends are pretty heavily associated with the rise of influencer culture, with the fast-paced nature of social media ensuring that everyone is aware of what’s trendy right this second— and crucially that we’re all informed the instant something isn’t trendy anymore. For me (and many others), the word “micro-trend” is evocative of online fashion sites such as Shein and the maximalist, colourful styles that have been especially popular in recent years.
For obvious reasons, any self-respecting member of internet fashion communities such as HF (High Fashion, darling) Twitter is against micro-trends. They’re ugly, unsustainable and an insult to real fashion. To set the record straight, I’m not a fan of the concept either; it doesn’t need to be said that we have a serious issue with overconsumption and given the state of the planet (I’m also an environmentalist baby!), introducing new must-have clothing items almost daily is the last thing brands need to be doing. However, recently I’ve been thinking about the language we use when talking about (and in particular criticising) fast fashion and micro-trends on the internet and how it has the potential to make us ‘haters’ part of the problem.
It all started with a tweet. Doesn’t it always?
The original post concerned the upcoming film ‘Not Okay’ which stars Zoey Deutch as a wannabe social media star. Fittingly, she is styled as an influencer; super on-trend — for 2020, as this retweet pointed out:
Things got a bit more brutal in the responses:
But back to @OCEANGIRL ’s tweet. The reaction it invoked was, for me, a kind of epiphany moment. First and foremost, they’re not entirely wrong in suggesting that this look is a bit passé; you can pretty definitively pin down the ‘time period’ (which is so weird to say considering that I’m literally referring to two years ago) in which this movie was styled and shot — who could forget everyone ruthlessly bleaching the front strips of their hair in lockdown? Needing something to take issue with, however, I found that I didn’t like the use of the word “outdated”. I then realised that for a community that claims to be so “pro-sustainability”, the fashion clique can be very quick to label a trend as past its prime. Don’t worry, I’ll elaborate later.
Along the same lines: in a recent episode of her podcast Anything Goes, Emma Chamberlain talks about the different types of clothes she’s currently into. (I have no direct critique of her, by the way — she is a true style icon of this generation.) Something that I found striking was the fact that for almost every item of clothing she was into, there was an implicit (or sometimes explicit), corresponding item that wasn’t “in” — according to her at least. For example, she said that she’s a fan of longer denim shorts — as opposed to those short shorts everyone was wearing five years ago (which had to be specified). On reflection, I realised how strange this was — surely you can express a preference for a certain style of clothing without affirming your hatred for another? You personally not wearing certain clothes doesn’t mean that they are universally “out” — there are still people in the world wearing short cut shorts. In reality, however, we all do it; baggier, loose fitting trousers are currently in, meaning that skinny jeans are the SCUM of the Earth and should all be BURNT. Tennis skirts are cute right now (although even as I’m writing this I’m wondering — are they still “in”? They definitely were last year…) so you shouldn’t be seen DEAD in those UGLY denim skirts we all wore in 2015.
Is anyone still following? I’m getting to the point…
Essentially, what I’m starting to process is the idea that we need to seriously rethink our perception of trends. New styles coming into circulation shouldn’t automatically mean that the ones that are currently trendy or were just trending five minutes ago are no longer wearable. And unfortunately, regardless of what their intention is behind doing so, fashion accounts on social media lamenting how unstylish recent micro-trends are only feeding into this vicious cycle by reinforcing the view that trends can go out of style.
Because in fashion, nothing is ever truly outdated.
We only have to look at the inspiration behind how people dress today; 90s fashion is in baby and we’re all dressing like Jennifer Aniston in Friends. On social media we see that more and more people are embracing their own, unique style icons and influences, whether they’re contemporary or decades old.
Even those bleached front strips of hair aren’t solely confined to that six-month period we so strongly associate them with; Gloria Steinem was doing it before all of you.
All of this is to say that while trends certainly come, they never really go. And so even if you hate micro-trends, calling them (or rather, the items of clothing themselves) unfashionable is actually counterintuitive because the chances of a certain look or style becoming “cool” again in a year’s time are pretty high — so right now, all this is serving to do is speed up fashion cycles by confirming the fast fashion crowd’s view that they can’t wear last month’s micro-trend anymore. Because let’s be honest: even if what Zoey Deutch is wearing in those pics doesn’t suit your personal style, she looks cute and someone else somewhere is going to be pulling those pieces off.
There is obviously a separate conversation to be had about the environmental impact of fast fashion and the constant introduction of trend after trend. For now however I think a good conclusion to draw is that at this stage we should realise that calling clothing styles unfashionable is in itself unfashionable. (My mum in particular is a champion of this mindset; whenever I go through her wardrobe she never fails to remind me that I was completely uninterested in the same clothes I’m currently after only three years ago.) So as we slowly progress towards more universal sustainable fashion I’m hoping that we stop thinking of trends as phases that, as soon as they’ve passed us by, go eternally redundant — because literally when do they ever.
Anyway, thankyouthankyouthankyou for reading this barrage of opinions if you’ve made it to the end! As always, it’s so interesting to hear what other people think about what I’m constantly thinking about so please do let me know in the comments or whatever!!! Until next time — although who knows when that will be xoxo
A final observation: interestingly, when I typed “micro-trend” into the Pinterest search bar, multiple images that came up were captioned with phrases such as ‘the micro-trend you NEED to know about’ and ‘micro-trends we’re LOVING at the minute’. Which is intriguing as for something that has so many negative connotations on the internet, brands seem to really be leaning into it. Why?
