Fashion has always been a key part of self-expression. Your style carries your values and the values of what you want to be perceived as. Throughout the decades and centuries of the past, there have been certain trends that come in and out of popularity as the years go by. We’ve seen trends such as the flappers of the 1920s, the hippies of the 1970s, the VSCO girls of the late 2010s etc.
Trends used to take upwards of 10 to 20 years to go through their whole cycle, from introduction to obsolescence. But now, trends come and go in a matter of a few weeks. In the past century, each decade has been defined by just a few key trends or styles.
However, the fashion of the 2020s has been dominated by microtrends, almost all of which come and go within one to three months. This rise in micro trends and aesthetics has led to the “death” of personal style, where more and more people are dressing for the trend instead of dressing for themselves.Â
THE PROBLEM WITH MICRO TRENDS
With the rise of TikTok and social media influencers in the past decade, it’s become easier than ever to get information about what fashion trends and items are currently popular. While this helps us keep up with what is trending, it has also led people to become constantly bombarded with so many aesthetics and trends. This makes it hard to figure out your personal style and what fits you when you are constantly being bombarded with different trends and aesthetics at a very rapid pace.
As soon as you buy a bunch of clothes to fit into a certain trend, it goes out of style, and you have to buy a whole new set of clothes to fit in with the next trend. According to the Business of Fashion, it’s more likely for Gen Z to buy one piece from an aesthetic rather than overhauling their closet with a single aesthetic.
This leads to a closet looking like the microtrend final boss meme–a bunch of disconnected clothing pieces that have no harmony with anything else, making the outfit look more like an overconsumption fashion spree due to the correlation to so many microtrends, rather than an authentic attempt at dressing eclectically.
WHY DO WE PARTICIPATE IN MICRO TRENDS?
Why do we fall for these micro trends over and over again, continually buying into them instead of just taking the time to develop our style? We do this because we are looking for a sense of identity. Gen Z has an obsession with fast-tracking their way into self-discovery and self-actualization instead of taking the time to develop themselves and figure out what they like and don’t like.
Personal style isn’t something that happens overnight–it is a skill that takes years and is the result of a lifetime of development and experiences. Many people don’t want to take the time to develop their style, they want the results now without doing any of the work. This is not entirely because they are lazy either, rather it’s more so because that is how to get a following and make money on social media.
Additionally, fashion has always been tied to identity and community, so people will dress a certain way and follow certain trends, not because they are so obsessed with having a personal style and creating fashionable outfits, but more because they are looking for a community of people to belong with.
HOW YOU CAN CREATE YOUR OWN UNIQUE PERSONAL STYLE
As said above, creating a personal style is a long and hard endeavor and is a culmination of your values and experiences. It can be scary to approach trying to find your style, especially if you don’t know where to start. Here are some tips to get you started on finding your own personal style.
- Try dressing for your body type. We’ve all seen the apple/pear/hourglass charts on social media. Many people usually don’t pay much mind to these charts, including myself, but these charts can actually be a good way to start. I would recommend using the Kibbe System, as it gives more choices and more in-depth results. It also includes celebrities for each body type to give you more inspiration on how to dress.
- It is important to buy pieces that are not only compatible with your lifestyle but also your current wardrobe. Don’t buy something because it’s trendy if it doesn’t fit in with anything else you have in your closet. When contemplating buying an article of clothing, ask yourself, “Do I really like this, or do I just like it because it’s in style?”
- Choose clothes that tell the story of you, not clothes that tell the story of the times. Take Anna Wintour for example. If you look at any outfit she has worn in her career, you wouldn’t be able to tell what year the picture was taken from her clothes alone. This is because she knows what she likes and has cultivated a personal style that not only speaks to her but communicates her style and personality to the people around her.
- Create a Pinterest board with clothes that you actually like and would wear. Then, instead of recreating an outfit from that board, come up with a consensus of the board. List patterns or fabrics or types of garments that recur throughout the board. Then find pieces similar to them and create a wardrobe with similar pieces to those on your board. For example, if you find that a lot of your pictures include oversized sweaters paired with patterned maxi skirts, instead of recreating the pictures, go out and buy oversized sweaters and patterned maxi skirts for a similar look.
While personal style may be a long and hard process, it’s much more fulfilling to create your style over a long time than to jump from trend to trend every couple of months, molding yourself and your style into a trend after trend.