I see 4 major motives behind following trends:
- Guidance: Applies to people who don't pay much attention to their personal style and therefore don't know what suits them. They want an instant solution in the era of instant everything because they're either not interested in fashion and style (but they need to dress well, e.g. because of their social position) or they don't have time to think about it. "If it's trendy, surely it'll look good on me." This is often misleading and, in most extreme cases, makes you look like a fashion victim.
- Smoke and mirrors: People who want to impress others they deem cool, hip and "above" them. They believe they can reach their level by looking (and acting) the same as their "idols", as if clothes are going to work like a lucky charm. The world is very superficial, fake-it-till-you-make-it-y (that's not always a bad thing though), so they often do work like a lucky charm. Too often.
- Fitting in: This one mentally transports me back to elementary school years when you had to be the same as everybody else or you were scorned (I know for a lot of people the height of this sad phenomenon is high school, but thankfully it wasn't for me). In elementary school there was exactly one right model of sneakers, you had to have a discman to listen to during field trips, a Dakine backpack ... You'd have more fashion freedom if you worked as Anna Wintour's assistant!
- Playing with trends: You don't adopt a trend because it's a trend, you try it to see if it enriches your personal style. If it doesn't work for you, you just let it go.
I'm always excited about trends because they tell me a lot about the world and people. There are many trends I like on others, but I'm not interested to try them myself (prime example: jumpsuits). There are also trends I dislike, but what other people choose to wear is none of my business, so while I might express my disdain for a certain piece, I in no way mean to criticize those who wear it.
Do you follow trends? If yes, why?
14 comments
I only adopt a trend if it fits my personal style. For example I love this spring/summer technicolor trend because I feel good in bright colors so I'll buy something in these. I used to follow trends more when I was younger- I remember I bought a jacket in beige in the end of primary school just because it was trendy and it looked soo good. Now I'd rather die than wear beige (or any nude color) because I know I would look like a ghost:)
:D I was the opposite, I never paid attention to trends when I was younger, although I was already interested in fashion then. And I think we all had to learn the hard way that what looks good on someone else won't necessarily look so great on us too!
I don't have anything against trends. Actually I enjoy seeing how trends are interpreted throughout different runways and the shops. Like noticing rattan/straw popping up in the spring/summer runways at Hermes, Gucci, Alexander McQueen, Dior to name a few... and then to see "the trickle down" effect of it coming into the shops. It is instilled in me to "connect the dots." When something I like becomes trendy, I tried to get over the annoyance of "everybody wearing it" (but then for me there is a huge difference of what's popular on the WWW to my actual environment), and think of it as a positive since the "trickle down" effect often makes it more attainable for me. The people that are just following trends will discard it after a few months, and I will continue to wear mine for years to come.
I've also noticed that what's hugely popular online often isn't what people actually wear the most. Jeffrey Campbell Lita boots spring to mind (again and again ...)
I know that annoyance when something we like explodes and becomes popular very well :) I wish I didn't, but I guess that's just the way we humans are!
I only follow trends if I really like them, I find it interesting to be aware of what's "hip" at the moment, but buying stuff that I don't particularly like and that I will like even less when it's outdated does really bring me back to high school :)
Sometimes I really like a trend and continue wearing it next season when it's not a trend any more. I always have a feeling it just screams "out of fashion!" because it was so enormously popular the last season, but I've learned not to care. This season I'll be wearing Chanel's Nouvelle Vague nail polish again although it was the "it" nail polish one year ago!
I totally agree, and love to follow trends for the same reason as you. I love fashion and artistry of it, but depending on a year, I'll fit into a trend by 10% or by 50% depending. I have my own preferences in clothes and I seem to wear them for many years now, just there are many so depending on how I feel I might go this way or that.
I was lucky in as much that I was a bit of a misanthropic rebel in school and what had to be worn was what I was wearing :D Not because I enforced it in any way, but other kids always copied what I was wearing for some reason, I think because I didn't care and I had an inborn eye for fashion so to my astonishment, I was the first, from a very young age, to bring something trendy to school (I remember kids much older than me often asking me where did I get some piece of clothing and then everyone wearing it within days and such) so completely unwittingly I've become a fashion icon, lol. In the 80's so it might not have been a good thing... But no, actually one of those was a dress-jumper which is to this day one of my favourite concepts, and I wore it first in 4th grade, I just picked it off the rack to complete disdain of my mum who thought it looked "stupid" but by that time she gave up on trying to dress me, I always had my own ideas on what to wear. And then it just continued into the 90's, in the early 90's I remember wearing pretty much a spitting image of some outfits from recent Pucci and Chanel collections (that nice cut leather pants and vintage Chanel jacket with those high heel clogs or see through knits on top and such, I had a chuckle when I saw It,. but for a long time I can not fit into those pants, lol), then it was really a big deal. And most stuff I had was vintage, just vintage then didn't cost anything, I fished out that Chanel jacket in a Salvation Army store for $20... Ah, the good old days :D
It's so nice to have this flashback, thank you Eva! and I am so sorry to hear how restricted your school was, I suppose mine was too, I just was so stubborn and didn't care that perhaps that's what it takes to influence such "sheep".
And for you it worked to make you rebel to develop a unique sense of style as well, so in a way, it's all a good thing in the end :)
Great post, I really enjoyed it!
I did my own thing in school as well in the sense that I never had the right model of sneakers, the Dakine backpack and didn't take my discman with me to field trips. I always had nice clothes, but they were different than other people's and there were also some other factors like having good grades, a "career" outside school (I played violin for 11 years and was supposed to become a professional musician, but I decided not to study violin at uni because of health problems ... I still play every once in a while, but most of what I had - technically - is lost), so consequently I never fit in. But as I said, that was elementary school. In high school I was part of a really amazing class where everyone was quite individualist and we were too cool to bother with superficial things. :D
Upam, da je v redu, če komentiram v slovenščini? Sicer mi grejo komentarji veliko bolj tekoče v angleščini, ampak vseeno. :)
Super post, velikokrat razmišljam o tej temi (ne tako filozofsko, kot to zveni, sicer haha). Osebno mislim, da trendom sledim najbolj zaradi druge točke. Zdi se mi, da z izbiro oblačil pokažeš, da si urejen, uglajen, inteligenten... Ja, vem, da ni vse v zunanjem izgledu, ampak moda predstavlja velik del tistega, po čemer ljudje dobijo prvi vtis o človeku.
Sicer pa ne sledim kar vsem trendom, "posvojim" (ne spomnem se slovenskega izraza) samo tiste, ki so mi všeč in dobro izgledajo na meni in vse prilagodim svojemu osebnemu okusu, stilu. Nikoli ne nosim nečesa samo zato, ker je popularno.
Mimogrede, Dakine torba je še vedno predpis za osnovno šolo, in tudi srednjo.
-Eva
p.s: Čestitke za intervju v Donna Moderna!
Seveda je v redu, dobrodošli so komentarji v vseh jezikih, ki jih razumem. :)
To, kar si omenila, ima lahko tudi hecne posledice, če kdo ni oblečen v skladu s svojim položajem in se potem najde nekdo drug, ki spregleda, da obleka res ne naredi človeka. Se pa zelo strinjam s tabo, da je prvi vtis pomemben, toliko bolj, ker se ga ne da popraviti.
Ne morem verjeti, da so torbe Dakine še vedno a must. Očitno se trendi v šolah spreminjajo približno na 15 let :D
P.S. Hvala!
Hm, jaz sledim trendom, ki so mi že nasploh všeč, no v tem primeru ravno ne sledim najbolj, ker so mi nekatere stvari itak že nasploh všeč in jih nosim trend gor al pa dol. Še najbolj bi se verjetno s četrto točko strinjala, čeprav mnogo trendov sploh ne poskusim, morda niso slabi, pa vem, da bi mi pristajali, ampak jih pač zaradi finančnega stanja ne probam ali zaradi tega, ker stvari hitro postanejo preveč popularne.
Aja, pa res je zoprno, ko kakšno stvar nosiš že ful dolgo, ker ti je bila pač kul in udobna, potem pa naenkrat postane trend in si potem kot ena ovca izmed mnogih.
Jaz sem hodila v OŠ izven mesta, kjer nihče ni imel Dakine torbe, redko kdo denar za drage superge, discmana na izlet pa en ali dva, drugi smo namreč imeli walkmane ali pa nič :D
Mir in ljubezen!
I actually don't follow trends and tend to stick with the classic, tried and true. However, once in a while I might play with trends like the colour orange this season or over the knee boots last year. Honestly, it's just because I saw it and it looked good. That's all.
Moram priznati, da o tej temi razmišljam pogosto in za odgovor tebi Eva sem si vzela še malo časa :) .
Meni se trendi ne zdijo nič slabega, prav nasprotno, zdi se mi da popestrijo modno dogajanje in so potrebni. Bolj kot trend sam, ki kaj hitro preraste v mainstreem zaradi highstreet trgovin kot je zara recimo in s tem tudi zgubi na pravemu pomenu, bolj mi je zanimivo, kako sam trend nastane.
Ne nastajajo samo na modnih pistah. Trende nam narekujejo glasbeniki, znane osebnosti, manekenke same, revije in na vse zadnje zelo uspešni bloggerji. Pa tudi z njimi se svet spreminja in ne samo v modnem smislu.
Je pa res, kar je na modnih revijah je začetek in konec nečesa velikega.
Jaz o sebi menim, da ne strmim z vso silo k trendom, ampak enostavno ja... rada imam spremembe, rada sem overdressed na trenutke in rada nosim trendne kose, kot je recimo kosmata jakna, dolga krila... ampak, še vedno se ne vidim v vseh trendnih stvareh. Izberem si par ključnih kosov, ki mi na koncu tako prirastejo k srcu, da se jih ne morem ločiti, kot recimo leder hlače, ki sem jih že čisto poosebila in so del moje vsakdanje uniforme.
Mislim, da imam nekako zamegljeno predstavo o vseh teh stvareh in posledično, ker želim najti svojo pot ne namenoma ne spremljam modnih revij tako intenzivno kot sem jih včasih.