By: Andrew de Sam Lazaro
Have you ever bought a piece of clothing to fit in? You probably have, but I’m sure soon enough that was too “outdated”, so you had to fit in by buying another piece of clothing. Those are fashion trends, and this article will explain why they happen.
Let’s start with defining a fashion trend. A fashion trend is when a piece of clothing with a certain silhouette, material, color or style becomes more popular in a short amount of time.
The earliest evidence of fashion trends is when in the 14th century, richer individuals like royals would show off many different clothing styles since they were the only people at the time who could afford to.
A more recent example would be baggy jeans. Baggy jeans became popular because of nostalgia for the Y2K era of fashion and people wanting to replicate the looks from then. Fashion trends often cause more and more fashion trends and an example is; baggy jeans made more types of denim popular such as Raw and Selvedge denim.
Things like pop culture, social media, nostalgia and even war can cause fashion trends. The most common cause of fashion trends is nostalgia; people love replicating the popular looks from their childhoods or even times before they were born. We see in modern day that Y2K fashion is very popular, that’s because the people with the most influence online are people who grew up in the 2000s. In the 2010s we saw The Grunge aesthetic from the 1990s become popular because the people who grew up in the 90s had the most influence then. You can keep going back in the years and see the same pattern of people recreating the aesthetics from their childhoods.
Usually when a fashion trend starts big “Fast Fashion” companies hop on that trend and mass produce products. This causes the trend to die because everyone has easy cheap access to the clothing making people think it’s less and less cool.
If you don’t want to fall into a cycle of following trends or buying “Fast Fashion” I recommend buying durable clothing that will last you a lifetime. Usually these articles of clothing can cost upwards of $200, but if you find something that properly makes you feel good when you wear it, and won’t fall apart in under 2 years, you may have found a worthwhile investment.
For more information, please visit:
