Trend - Subversive Basics

“Think: interesting cutouts, sheer fabrics, unconventional straps, and artful layering. It’s a futuristic approach to the basics we all know and love” (Cigliano, 2021)

Trend forecaster, Augustina Panzoni, coined the term on TikTok, defining it as “basics that rebel up to the point of losing their utility”, (Cigliano, 2021).

Subversive basics are a “rapidly growing microtrend”, which may have birthed from the “deconstructed” runway trends, and 1990s “grungechic fabric details” (Cigliano, 2021).

It’s been used in high-end brands, e.g. Didu, Rick Owens and Mugler and also low end market brands such as PrettyLittleThing, Asos and even Shein. This isn’t exactly a new trend, but its been given a new name (Block, 2021).

The image above (GoogleTrends, 2022) shows the interest in the term ‘subversive basics’ has appeared from seemingly nowhere in the past year. This trend sees ‘basic’ pieces of clothing such as a tank top have a subversive twist- extra layers, cut outs, sleeves, texture etc.

The term has also become very popular on TikTok as well, with ‘#SubversiveBasics’ harvesting over 108.0M views on the social media platform (via: TikTok, 2022). Users show a range of different ways to style, find brands for and DIY ‘subversive basics’, as presented on next slide. According to Forbes, “over 60% of TikTok users are comprised of Generation Z”, (Muliadi, 2020). This is important as the shoot aims to “tap into youth culture trends” such as subversive basics, whilst showing “keen interest in the behaviours of Gen Z cultural, consumption and media behaviours”.