The Macro-Effect of Microtrends

BY JILLIAN CRAIG PHOTOS BY PROVIDED

THE MACRO-EFFECT OF MICROTRENDS

During the transition from summer to fall in 2021, videos of what to wear that is not “cheugy” or outdated peppered users’ “For You” pages on TikTok. Traditional riding boots were to be swapped with small booties, preferably leather; teddy bear jackets were out but oversized shackets were in; bright colors were traded for neutrals. On top of those transitions in which articles of clothing were “in,” according to creators on the platform, many videos were titled “trends we’re leaving behind” and “this not that.”

According to a MasterClass staff article, fashion cycles occur in five stages. In the first stage, introduction, a style is introduced into the fashion world. In this stage, a product is debuted by celebrities, in fashion weeks, or in a strategic marketing effort. The product is made in small quantities, sold in a few places, and sold at a high price.

In the second stage, increase (also known as the fashion acceptance stage), a style gains further popularity in the fashion world and is eventually given the “trend” label. Trendsetters and influencers buy and wear the style, contributing to increased consumer demand, which results in more stores and fashion labels selling the style. In the peak stage, which immediately follows, the public is saturated in the nowtrending style. Now available through mass production, the style becomes less expensive and more widely available as retailers figure out how to replicate the style.

At some point after its peak, naturally, the style faces a decline. It becomes oversaturated and mainstream, so consumers looking to be fashion-forward drop the trend and move on to new and “unique” styles. After a style’s decline, it becomes obsolete, the final stage of the cycle. The style is unstylish in the eyes of mainstream fashion consumers who are now chasing the next trend after the influencers.

As the name indicates, though, fashion trends are cyclical and come back around again at some point. On a larger scale, the MasterClass article cites jean waistlines as an example, noting how “high-waisted jeans saw peaks in popularity during the 1940s, the late 1970s and early 1980s, and the 2010s, while low-waisted jeans saw peaks in between these years, in the 1960s and late 1990s through the early 2000s.” Other examples that are more accessory-based include claw clips and barrettes, which made their mark in the ’90s and were revived in the late 2010s and early 2020s.

Given the critiques of what’s hot and what’s not at the change of a season, the large amount of waste produced comes as no surprise. For Levi’s “Buy Better, Wear Longer” campaign, its website cited, “Between 2000 and 2020, global clothing consumption doubled. And while we have more items in our wardrobes, we’re wearing what we have less often and throwing out our clothes too quickly, keeping clothing for almost half as long as we did 15 years ago.”

Geoff Buckley, a professor at Ohio University whose expertise lies in the areas of urban sustainability, environmental history and justice, national resource conservation, and more, said the lack of sustainability in fashion is part of a larger trend in mass consumerism and throwaway society.

“It's not just fashion. It's really so many of the things that we buy,” Buckley said. “Automobiles are a great example of this where we don't discard things because they don't work anymore. We do it because basically planned obsolescence. You want to have the latest and greatest, the newest item, and the repercussions of this from a sustainability perspective are kind of interesting.”

“...WE’RE WEARING WHAT WE HAVE LESS OFTEN AND THROWING OUT OUR In his example for fashion, Buckley talked about jeans. People buy jeans in a particular style that is popular at the time, like slim fit. When that style falls out of the definition of “fashionable,” despite more than likely fitting well and remaining in perfectly good condition, people CLOTHES TOO QUICKLY, discard them in some way. “They're still good. We don't KEEPING CLOTHING FOR continue to wear them. So we give them away and we feel ALMOST HALF AS LONG AS good about that. We donate them,” Buckley said. And even in donation, Buckley pointed out, there are massive effects on other ”WE DID 15 YEARS AGO.

parts of the world.

“It's extraordinary in some countries in Africa how there's been just an incredible clothing dump and the impact there has been on the textile industry,” Buckley said. “They are so overwhelmed with our discards, our fashion discards, our clothing discards that it undercuts — and bear in mind the kind of really low labor costs for manufacturing textiles in Africa — it undercuts even that industry there. So, … what we think of as a good thing, maybe donating something, has a deleterious effect economically elsewhere.”

Buckley pointed out that society has changed to one that shops for recreation, has planned obsolescence for many products, and does not upcycle clothes.

“It's a huge, huge topic [and] it's hard to narrow it down to simply fast fashion during the pandemic. It's part of a much longer trend in mass consumerism and throwaway society,” Buckley said. “From a sustainability perspective, this is just part and parcel of being a throwaway society.”

Considering the cyclical nature of fashion trends, there is a solution to promoting sustainable fashion and consumerism: thrifting.

While talking about thrifting, Buckley recalled his son’s use of the Patagonia Worn Wear program. According to its website, Worn Wear is a program that allows Patagonia customers to trade in their used Patagonia

clothing in exchange for credit toward their next Patagonia or Worn Wear purchase. Because the brand’s clothing is designed to last, Patagonia will resell the clothing on its Worn Wear website.

In terms of other solutions, though, Buckley said he is not sure what can be done when considering the supply chain and how production and manufacturing changes affect other parts of the world.

“I mean, if you just look at a computer, for example, or even just a bicycle, it might say ‘Made in America,’ but you know, the raw materials come from all over the place,” Buckley said. “And so it's very complicated. So our purchases [and] our consumption has a ripple effect that's felt really all over.”

In terms of consumption, Buckley advises being thoughtful when making new purchases.

“We certainly do have a big problem, and I think simply purchasing goods because this

back of the closet is what's fashionable is not part of the answer,” Buckley said. “But rather, being more frugal and practical about and careful about the purchases we make, because, you know, we have to think about the resources that go into making something and then what happens to that item when we decide we don't want it anymore. And even though those things seem l ike very simple sort of questions, they're actually much more complicated.”