Why Is It Bad To Follow Fashion Trends When Designing Clothes

These days, we live in a society where following the latest fashion trends is becoming less important than they have in days past. Most individuals are placing more importance on wearing what feels right, is comfortable, or looks good on them rather than chasing the latest trend in fashion. There is more of an emphasis on being yourself and following your path as opposed to trying to fit in with the crowd. And believe me, if you are a fashion designer, you should take note of this. I’m here to tell you why it is a bad idea to follow fashion trends when designing clothes.

It is a bad idea to follow fashion trends when designing clothes because:

Following trends encourages rapid cycles that cannot realistically be sustained.

The way that trends are created and developed is undergoing a drastic evolution through social media.
More people are choosing self-expression through their clothing rather than chasing trends.
Fashion trends are much less celebrity-driven than they were in past years.

People have become less concerned with trends and are more concerned with fit and comfort.

In this article, we will take a deep dive into trend culture to determine why it is a bad idea for fashion designers to chase trends. We will break down each of the five reasons I have given to determine what have been some of the major influences on trends becoming a thing of the past. Finally, we will look further into how social media and other forms of media have had a lasting impact on why trends are no longer considered important in many parts of the fashion industry. Let’s read along together and discover why fashion designers should not follow trends when they are designing clothing.

Table of Contents

Trends Promote Unsustainable Cycles

Why It is Bad to Follow Fashion Trends When Designing Clothes.

Quite possibly, the biggest problem with following trends has been created by trends. I want you to read that one more time. Once a trend is created or developed, it becomes completely oversaturated due to the sheer volume of people who adopt the style almost immediately. Of course, this is what the fashion industry wants because it creates a sense of immediacy when it comes to buying clothing and accessories. However, most trends will disappear almost as soon as they appear.

This is a cycle that has plagued the fashion industry for what seems like an eternity. So, I guess that the majority of you are wondering how we break this cycle. In layman’s terms, how do we stop the madness? My guess is that the first step in stopping these cycles is to discourage fashion designers from following the latest trends when they are designing clothing. Promoting an idea to the point of oversaturation needs to become something that is considered out of style in fashion.

Perhaps the most important reason that fashion designers and the fashion industry need to stop promoting trends is because of the impact that they have on society. How harmful have following trends become in society? Per The Zoe Report, the phrase “trend culture” has become equivalent to the phrase “throwaway culture.” That speaks volumes about the wasteful nature of following trends. It is also believed that following trends have impacted people’s insecurities through social comparisons.

Social Media Has Changed the Way We Follow Trends

I can remember seeing my mother’s fashion magazines when I was young. There was always a glamorous photo of the “celebrity of the moment’ on the cover promoting the latest fashion trend. While you may still see fashion magazines on the racks near the checkout at your local grocery store, celebrities promoting the latest brands are now practically unheard of. Have you ever stopped to wonder why this is? The answer is probably right in front of your eyes. Social media has all but wiped-out glamour and fashion promoted through magazines.

I’ll bet you are wondering how social media has managed to accomplish this feat in such a short time. First and foremost, social media has made access to the latest trends easier than ever. You no longer need to see your favorite celebrity promoting their favorite brands. Now, influencers are all over social media and they are paid to promote clothing. Secondly, social media such as Facebook and Instagram place more of an emphasis on visuals. This creates a sense of immediacy in the consumer. They know what they like, and they have to have it right away.

Finally, social media has the unique capability of creating trends in fashion faster than anything we have ever seen in our respective lifetimes. By the time it takes a fashion designer to create a line that follows the latest trends, social media has ensured that two or three new trends have popped up before then. The recent rise of social media’s newest darling TikTok has managed to exacerbate this problem even faster than most of us could have imagined. The outfits that you see people wearing in these dances have been as carefully planned out as their dance steps.

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Self-Expression Has Become More Important

The decade of the 1980s was perhaps the height of fashion trends, especially in the United States. It was the decade of excess, and the outfits were quite indicative of that. Comfort took a back seat to how the outfit looked, and designers were placing more of an emphasis on style than on fit and comfort. Thankfully, we no longer live in a time where that is considered to be important. Now, people are placing more of an emphasis on self-expression than they have in any decade we have seen before. Someone’s personality can be easily determined by their outfit.

While there are certainly a few anomalies out there, you can usually tell what kind of music a person listens to by the outfit they are wearing. People are wearing a shirt emblazoned with the logo of their favorite band now more than ever. They are choosing to express who they are and what they listen to buy the shirt they are wearing. These people are not concerned with what the latest fashion trend is currently. They just want to be themselves, and they want to wear what they like. That’s not necessarily something that fashion designers can portray in an outfit.

However, this is not something that is solely reserved for streetwear. You can see this reflected in boardrooms in corporate companies across the United States, and around the world. Once upon a time, when you walk into a meeting filled with other businessmen, you would see the same generic suit worn by practically everybody in the room. The only thing that would change was the color of the suit if you were lucky. If somebody was especially brave, they might wear pinstripes. Now, you may see many different suit designs, and a few people who aren’t even wearing a suit.

Trends Are Much Less Celebrity-Driven

This section goes hand-in-hand with something that I mentioned previously when I was referring to celebrities gracing the cover of fashion magazines in previous years. This is no longer the case, although there may still be an exception from time to time. Fashion trends are far much less celebrity-driven than they have previously been. Why is this? It seems like our culture is still as obsessed with celebrities as they have always been. However, the obsession we have with celebrities is more about what they are doing, and who they are with, not what they are wearing.

The rise of social media has also played a significant role in this. Many fashion designers are no longer paying celebrities high salaries to promote their brands when they can get as much exposure through social media for a far less asking price. Most of the time, fashion brands can get away with only giving someone free clothing to promote their brand. Why should fashion designers devote the majority of their time to chasing the latest trends when they can design something that looks and feels great? They can also ensure that it will be promoted on social media almost instantly without having to pay someone the big bucks to promote it.

The one exception to this new way of promoting fashion trends can be seen through cologne. I still see billboards and television commercials with celebrities advertising the latest scents. Fortunately, while cologne can still be seen as a fashion trend, fashion designers do not spend their time developing different smells for different moods. Whether you are an aspiring fashion designer, or you have been in the game for several years now, it is a better idea to create and design clothing that can be interpreted as timeless. Certain things never go out of style.

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People Are Choosing Fit and Comfort Over Trends

Whereas most people used to place style and trends as priories over comfort and fit, things have certainly changed. Most individuals now realize that what looks good on somebody else may not look good on them. The entire foundation of a trend relies on someone choosing their outfit based on how it looks on someone else. This outfit may not look good on that person, nor may it fit nearly as well as it does on someone with a different body type. People are now more concerned with being themselves, and they choose to be themselves while being comfortable.

Comfort has everything to do with how a person feels in their clothing. Today’s lifestyles are far more conducive to comfortable clothing than in previous years. With the evolution of fitness and the convenience of 24-hour gyms, people have a more active lifestyle than they used to have. This has had a twofold impact on fashion because people now warrant clothing that fits them well and it’s comfortable while they are wearing it. Again, this is not a trend that fashion designers can copy or create. Well, maybe the people that work for Nike or other athletic apparel brands…

Most people used to be more concerned with how they look when they were hanging out with a group of friends than how they felt. This is yet another aspect of society that has undergone a drastic change. I don’t know about most of you, but when I am hanging around a group of friends, I would rather feel good than look good. Now, if you can manage to do both simultaneously, then more power to you. The point is that the priorities of society have changed quite a bit, and fashion designers should be much more concerned with keeping up with that than trends.

Conclusion

So, do I think that fashion designers should be concerned with trying to follow trends when they are designing a clothing line? In a word, no. Society has evolved to the point where people are no longer concerned with who is promoting the latest trend. Most people are now taking their fashion cues from social media outlets like Facebook, Instagram, and Tik-Tok. They are also making self-expression a priority over fitting in, and would rather choose fit and comfort over style. Fashion designers should be more concerned with making people feel comfortable instead of chasing a trend that will be phased out in a matter of weeks.

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