Analysis Example: The Trend of the Next Two Minutes
The Trend of the Next Two Minutes
Rotem Landesman
I’ve never been much of a fashion person. I’ve gone through my usual phases - big hoodies and AllStars in High School, a bit of an emo phase way back when. Currently, I think I’m at the phase where I would very much like to feel like I’m going to a job rather than to school, since school is my job; other than that, my boundaries are pretty boundless.
My perception of fashion and trends changed dramatically when I became an adult with a social media account, especially TikTok. I lived out my childhood looking at trends like tights under skirts and Vans in magazines, and I distinctly remember that each year my mom would let me spend my allowance on one “cool but unnecessary thing” (that’s the only way I, a Californian kid, got extra warm Uggs). These trendy items usually lasted the year - all of my 7th grade photos are me and my Uggs, all of my 8th grade photos are me and my oversized sweatshirts, and so on. Nowadays, however, I constantly have the feeling that I can’t keep up. Maybe I’m old, maybe I’m more aware of the stupidity of some trends - but the data coming from the fashion industry, which has come to rely on influencers and a relatively new term called “microtrends” that sometimes last less than a month seem to be backing me up. Some influencers are more apt at creating “haul” videos, receiving a large amount of clothes from a specific company and rating the product. Others yet may do “get ready with me” videos, “OOTD” videos, while others may opt for a more subtle “Thanksgiving fit” and showing off the latest must have sweater dress of the season. The combination of trends showing up on our screens and the ability to order almost anything I see and have it show up at my door morphed fashion trends to become quicker, sharper, and more “viral” than ever.
What’s the problem with that? Nothing, per say. The fact that fashion companies are now looking into integrating marketing models that predict spikes and heavily rely on quantifiable identifiers of emerging trends is not something unheard of, and not necessarily something that I feel like, no matter how many articles we read and analyze, we can give our moral judgment on.
What I can comment on is my personal experience of fashion, influenced by the immense automation the world and therefore the field has experienced specifically in the last few years. This automation of content delivery and trend manufacturing on platforms like TikTok has taken away what I remember as one of the most satisfying parts of the self expression that is fashion; the grasping of a trend at the right time and the right moment. At the speed at which trends are moving today, it is hard to fully appreciate a good outfit, a spectacular buy, a garment that fully complements me and my current ideals - because inevitably, they’ll change the very next day.
Micro-trends, or trends that are so short lived they go anywhere from a few months to a few hours, exist because of the automation and the acceleration of the trend cycle. The trend cycle begins with an introduction of a trend, then the rise, acceptance, decline, and finally obsolescence, remains the same. Without the automation of social connection and exploration the web offers, common knowledge in the fashion industry was that trends last somewhere around the 20 years. Nowadays the duration of the cycle has declined to an almost unrecognizable state.
Why? In addition to the fact that we all see items through an incredibly segmented algorithm over and over again until we buy them, companies have also caught on to the fact that influencer marketing, a profession that didn’t exist just a few years ago, might be where the big money lies. Fashion blogger Eliza Rudalevige explains that: “Essentially, brands use the trend-setting status of influencers to their advantage. And, because brands send out PR packages in one big push, the items often become microtrends, appearing everywhere all at once and then disappearing once content creators have a few solid pics.”. Well that’s a bummer to hear.
It’s interesting to note that this problem is not unique to the fashion industry, though it probably is one of the most impacted. Other industries, like the book publishing industry, have also been impacted by the social web and its accelerated abilities to connect us to each other and the world. You may have heard of #booktook - a subchannel in TikTok that recommends books to its subscribers. Generally, a wonderful and welcome thing. But book publishers are voicing other opinions, saying that the traditional ways of promoting and predicting the popularity of books to come has been completely shifted, all of a sudden prone to these types of micro-trends that make sustainable planning for such a huge industry really hard. Other industries that thought they were immune to influencers, like pharmaceutical companies, are slowly proven wrong by influencers unboxing medications and comparing prescriptions, promoting their viewers to ask their doctors for a certain concoction of meds. The way in which these social webs influence us as consumers of information about our society, including its trends and fluctuations is terrifyingly glorious and certainly new to many of these old fashioned companies.
Is it any wonder, then, that I am constantly feeling left behind by the fashion world? Who could possibly keep up with the information coming at me from automated algorithms that claim to know me and what would make my peers like me better than myself? Perhaps, in a different life, I would like to go back to slower trends; ones that would take my entire allowance to acquire and make the purchase feel worth it.
Sources:
https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/human-interest/2021/08/12/booktok-boon-is-changing-the-publishing-world
Hammond, E. J. (2023). Viral Shopping Trends of Generation Z on TikTok (Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University).
Pangalila, M. C., & Aprilianty, F. (2022). The Impact of TikTok Fashion Haul Videos Towards Generation Z's Purchase Decision in Indonesia. International Journal of Business and Technology Management, 4(3), 391-401.