Do Bloggers Make Trends or Kill Trends?
“If I see one more blogger wearing a jumper dress and over the knee boots I swear to god I’ll just unfollow them”
Erm…. awkward. Looks like I just lost a follower.
This tweet popped up on my feed last week and it had me thinking, well, I just shot a jumper dress and over the knee boots. I could not post it. Or, I risk losing a follower over my basic bae dress sense and post it anyway. But we’re here, right now, and I’ve posted the outfit because
a) It’s cold. It was -5 in London last night and that’s not okay.
b) It’s an amazing thing to wear when its cold because it’s warm and you can hide many many layers under it and nobody is ever really none-the-wiser and therefore
c) You can still look stylish in the damn freezing cold.
But instead of talking about how great jumper dresses are for a whole post, I’ve been a little more inspired to evaluate whether bloggers make trends or break them (plus I basically wrote that whole post in just three bullets above.)
Bloggers are supposed to be the go-to for style inspiration for many modern millennial women – myself included. Magazines cost money and aren’t always relatable, celebrities are aspirational but their style often unattainable on anything less than a superstar salary, which leaves us with bloggers, the girl’s next door who post their pictures online for all to see and easily be inspired by.
But bloggers can be more than a little bit guilty of recreating trends from each other a little too strongly across social media. You see huge ones span seasons, specifically the likes of It Bags (Chanel’s Boy, Chloe’s Faye, Gucci’s Dionysus *guilty!* and Marmont, and J.W.Anderson’s Pierce), and things such as Stan Smiths/ Gazelles styled with culottes. You get micro-trends per season (party season’s velvet suit was a big winner) and sell-out items from high street stores. There’s fishnet socks, extreme frayed-hem jeans, flared-cuff shirts and jumpers, wacky ways of wearing a standard button-up shirt, Charlotte Simone-inspired pom pom hats/ riding caps. General caps – the Yankee ones. So much more to list that I’ve barely scratched the surface.
Sometimes it feels as though there is an almost separate fashion industry running inside the social media sphere, with trends being constantly overdone. I’ve previously looked at before how Instagram is warping our sense of style, and us guys on the internet are turning into carbon copies of one another not because we LIKE a trend or look, but more because it looks good on the ‘gram. And I feel like this is how bloggers are starting to kill certain trends. When we’re all doing the same thing, it’s only a matter of time before people get bored. You start seeing it too much – or on a blogger who’s style you really don’t like – and that item is dead to you.
One of my new years’s style goals was to experiment and try out new things, but it seems like I’m already getting a big fat F on my sartorial assignment by sticking too safely to what I know best. But is this not a representation of my true personal style? I don’t know! I suppose half the fun in fashion should be about finding the balance between your personal style and trying something new.
It's definitely fun to experiment but I think it's nice to stay true to your personal style too! At the end of the day, people follow a blogger for their individual style, don't they? And, I think it's inevitable that the same trends pop up every now and again! I'm influenced sooo much by other bloggers but it can be really fun and interesting to see how different bloggers look with or style trends! xxx
Quite interesting topic to bring out! I think that it is both at this point… Bloggers and some influencers are equally deciding on what is trendy and they're also guilty of shutting so many trends down too.
https://lartoffashion.com/how-to-style-faux-fur-coat/
I agree with Holly, I think we all have our favourite fashion bloggers because of their own style, and so what if that style happens to be a 'big trend' that everyone else is wearing? Everyone puts their own style into it one way or another, and I love seeing how everyone puts their 'stamp' on these things.
This jumper dress & boots you're wearing in this post are actually gorgeous! That colour suits you so much, you look amazing! I also think this every time I visit your blog – can I have your hair, please? It always looks so beaut!
Soph x | http://www.sophierosie.com
Honestly I think bloggers contribute to trends and definitely may contribute to killing them!!
xx,
areli's april
http://arelisapril.blogspot.com/
Just so you know I'm not directing these comments at you, just bloggers in general: I think a lot of factors come into play with bloggers and trends. First of all, I have to remind myself that bloggers often get paid to photograph what they're wearing, so I recognise that they shoot things in a flattering light. One click and you're taken to the shop website and see that actually the item looks awful if you're not caught mid hair-flick running down the street. I used to sell clothes on eBay and knew how to make terrible clothes I wouldn’t be seen dead in any more look better with a pose, the addition of a belt or some careful material scrunching at the back. Then there is the idea that 'everyone' has or does something just because you see a handful of bloggers online with it. Trends can reach saturation point before they even reach everyday life. For example, you look great here but I can't say I've ever seen anyone in real life wearing a jumper dress and knee highs, nor have I seen anyone in real life with one of those Gucci bags you have here. Yet the fact that I've seen maybe three or four bloggers with it makes me think that everyone has it, when in reality I don’t know anyone who would spend more than about £200 on a bag, let alone over a grand. The problem with many bloggers is that a lot of them tend to get paid to wear clothes by internet brands no one has ever heard of, perhaps clothes that they don't even like, and then they spend their cash on items no one can afford to style-up their paid-for clothes to make their outfits look better, so they start to become victims of their own success. That said, I do still see interesting styling from bloggers, but I am more inspired by the unexpected combinations of styles, cuts, colours and shapes than actual specific items.