I N F L U E N C E R S W I T H I N T H I S M A R K E T

Furthering the discussion of the typical consumer within this market, I wanted to further this by looking into influencers within this market and how they influence consumers to shop sustainably, through buying second hand.

For example, as mentioned previously, influencer @susiegarvie can be seen as a positive influence for her audience as she is in full support of sustainability and as someone who follows her, I can say that she definitely influences me to buy second hand vintage through how she puts her outfits together with styling tiktoks. She also uses her platform to make tiktoks and youtube videos of her new buys from Depop or Vinted, whilst also promoting small sustainable brands that her audience might not have heard of. She brings back the Y2K trend and makes it look cool and stylish, appealing to a generation of consumers that want to look different to others. Second hand fashion used to be associated with people who cant’t afford to buy new, but influencers like @susiegarvie have changed this narrative by influencing her audience into thinking it’s cool. Because of her influence, this generation are obsessed with vintage second hand and most think that fast fashion is trash.

Figure 13

The skimpy chic of 20 years ago has been co-opted today by a new generation of youths who are making no apologies for their propensity to show off skin. (Jalal, 2022).

It seems that brands are embracing the ideals of beauty from the 2000s. With the resurgence of the Y2K style, this brings about brands to recreate the clothing from this era. The return of the mini skirt also brings back the topic of these ideals of perfection, straight away excluding those that don’t fit into this category.

Brands romanticise this aspect of a womans beauty, they are designing clothing that encourages men, to this day to view women as sexual objects because of how they dress. It is apparent that the issue we have with body diversity and the sexualization of women lies in the perceptions of the previous generations.

Those of us who’ve lived through the OG micro-mini skirt days can recall the fatphobia and “thinspiration” that also dominated the fashion narrative back then. As a result, some are not too thrilled about the return of the 2000s trend and its body-shaming discourse. And unfortunately, Miu Miu’s recent runway show missed an opportunity to show off the revisited low-rise looks on larger bodies, consequently reverting to the untrue idea that only thin people can sport a skin-bearing wardrobe. (Michie, 2021).

Certainly, the micro mini is more appropriate to flaunt in some spaces than others. But in the end, isn’t it really about having the right to wear what you want? Sometimes you just want to wear something without over-analyzing its implications. You just wear it because it makes you feel cute! And although it might sound silly, in a drab, institutionalised setting, the length, and style of one’s skirt may be one of the very few ways to express individuality in a uniformed environment. Perhaps the fault isn’t in our skirts but in society itself. (2023).

Producing the label mini skirt ultimately makes people associate that item with an individual with a smaller frame, because that is how the mini skirt had been portrayed in the 2000s. The problem isn’t the clothing when it comes to body diversity and the sexualization of women, it is all a result of societys’ views and perceptions and that is something I aim to change, it is my intention to change the narrative surrounding everything I have discussed. Fashion from the 2000s may have made a return, but the 2000s as an era has not. We are in 2023, and yet as a society we are still holding onto pointless ideals of the past. If the Y2k style is to remain in the fashion industry, then we as a society need to reimagine it through a different lens, one in which looks at fashion without labels and stereotypes, one that does not over analyze and attach meaning to different types of clothes.

“What is propagated and supported is always in proximity to being able-bodied, to being thin, white, and cis. That shit is absolutely not lost on me. The idea for this story for i-D was based around what could live on after me and become a new point of reference. So we wanted to create images that could be new references, the next textbook, or could expand people’s minds about what beauty could be. And that is hard. How do you feel about whether there have been, or can be, genuine changes?”

“For me, it’s been about finding purpose and maintaining connection, and strangely my body has been the platform for it. What this story was about was reclaiming perceptions of what people think plus size bodies are capable of; how we’re supposed to look, or supposed to exist and occupy space in this world.” (Hart, 2022).

Going back to the discussion of the return of the mini skirt and how that flares up the topic of body diversity, looking at plus size model Paloma Elsesser. As I have mentioned before about the clothes not being the problem and that it is all in the perceptions, it seems that I am not the only one that thinks that way. In this interview that I have been looking at, Paloma tells the interviewer that she is not going to wear something that society tells her she should based on her size, she has instead, embraced the Y2k mini skirt trend, sporting the Miu Miu mini skirt on the front cover of a magazine. This is exactly what the fashion industry needs to be doing, for a brand to design clothes or feature a plus size model covered up or wearing clothes that have more coverage suggests that the fashion industry remains stuck in the ideals that mini skirts or clothes that are a bit more revealing belong on women with a slim and toned figure.

To influence my size inclusive campaign, I thought it would be relevant to research plus size model, Paloma Elsesser, following on from my research into the ‘out of body issue’ for i-D magazine.

With this research, I have found that Paloma partnered up with Miaou to create a size inclusive collection. This collection featured the classic vintage corset. This marks the first time Miaou – the fashion girl’s 00s-inspired label of choice – has dipped its toe into plus-sizes. “We wanted to create a collection that resonated with more body types and made each of our muses feel sexy, iconic, and empowered. (May, 2022).

I thought that this particular partnership would be relevant research for helping to form the bigger picture of my concept. For example, the idea of including corsets in the collection with a more inclusive size range is going to change perceptions. with my project, it is my intention to source the type of clothing that most people would say belong on a smaller body frame such as mini skirts.