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The Rise of Instagrammable Fashion

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  • Ahimsa
    Vegan Police
    • Sep 2011
    • 1879

    The Rise of Instagrammable Fashion

    THE RISE OF INSTAGRAMMABLE FASHION
    by Eugene Rabkin

    "It’s no longer news that Instagram has become fashion’s most embraced Internet tool. It has created a myriad of self-made, self-promoting starlets, turbo-boosted the rise of street style photography, and has fashion executives biting their elbows trying to come up with ways to market and sell products on the app. But, perhaps most importantly, it has influenced fashion design itself.

    The most direct influence of Instagram can be traced to how graphic-centered fashion has become. Graphics – whether prints or logos – have been a part of fashion for a while now, but historically speaking they have been a fairly new phenomenon.

    Graphics (embroidery aside) had little place in fashion until the late 70s. It is hard to pinpoint an iconic moment when that changed. One would probably be when Malcom McLaren and Vivienne Westwood printed a pair of breasts on a t-shirt. Then came another British designer moment, when Katherine Hamnett wore a t-shirt of her own making to meet Margaret Thatcher. The t-shirt bore an anti-war message that read “58% Don’t Want Pershing.”

    Westwood and Hamnett were iconoclasts, but they have unwittingly created new icons. Today, you can buy knockoffs of Westwood’s “tits” tee from a number of shops on the Internet. The main feature of an icon, of course, is that it’s instantly recognizable. Clothing is inherently semiotic – it telegraphs various things about the wearer, such as social status and cultural taste. It did not take long for fashion to latch on to this notion. The lowest common denominator of this phenomenon was the logo.

    Not so long ago a logo was a signal passed along solely between the maker and the wearer, usually in order to signify the article’s provenance. Actually, up until mid-19th century clothes used to bear no tags at all, since a gentleman would know his tailor, and a lady would know her dressmaker personally.

    Supposedly, it was Charles Frederick Worth, the first bona-fide fashion star, who began the practice of putting tags on his dresses in the second half of the 19th Century, in order to imitate artists who signed their paintings, and to let his clients know that he was an artist, too.

    During that time, as department stores rose in prominence, muscling in on the direct client-tailor relationship, tags and logos became more important. Fast-forward to the end of the 20th Century and you begin to see branding triumph over design and garment quality, and logos creeping from the inside of the garment onto its front in a graphic form. Everyone seemed to like the arrangement – the clients were able to instantly telegraph their taste, such as it was, and brands received a form of advertising not for which they paid, but for which they were paid.

    In the age of Instagram telegraphing has turned into broadcasting, and logos gave way to graphics that are a subtler form of communication. This partly has to do with a new generation of fashion consumers who are very comfortable with exhibitionism on social media and are very well informed.

    Many of them are too sophisticated to wear logos outright – too easy and too cheesy. But, since their narcissism is aided and abetted by Instagram, they still want something easily recognizable. And because they have instant access to information and inexhaustible sources for gathering and sharing it, they no longer need something as obvious as a logo. They need something just a tad more complicated. Enter the graphics.

    One of the first designers who, perhaps unwittingly, latched onto this phenomenon was Ricardo Tisci at Givenchy. He was doing fine as a designer, but Givenchy did not really take off until Tisci began to put instantly recognizable graphics such as a Rottweiler’s face on tees and sweatshirts. These were an overnight success, becoming first street-style photographer, and therefore Instagram bait. In essence, the Rottweiler became the unofficial Givenchy logo. The floodgates of graphic design were thrown open."

    Continue reading on sz-mag: http://www.sz-mag.com/news/2016/03/t...mable-fashion/
    StyleZeitgeist Magazine | Store
  • gregor
    Senior Member
    • Oct 2014
    • 603

    #2
    i think what's funny to me is that there is some sort of perceived sophistication in something as often crass and abject as being a walking billboard. regardless of the nuances of a graphic versus a logo, it serves much the same purpose and has to be very well done to be genuinely sophisticated.

    either way, it all comes from the same base desire; to brag and show off. that's what fashion is to the "instagram generation", a way of buying coolness and status that is measured in posting pictures of how many raf simons tags you have and how aggressive the dog on your shirt looks. it's all so contrived and consumeristic, which i suppose is what brands like gosha (very awarely, might i add) pander to, because they are businesses not interested in nuance or detail so much as playing a role in the quasi-fashion movement that seems to be growing so exponentially.

    Comment

    • SafetyKat
      Senior Member
      • Aug 2014
      • 169

      #3
      Instant communication? Infinite ways to show off your dope rags? OF COARSE we need more subtle branding. Wouldn't want to come off as shallow do we?

      I followed up Faust's piece with this, please refer to the video below for optimal atmosphere.

      http://www.businessoffashion.com/art...ade-a-comeback

      Comment

      • Faust
        kitsch killer
        • Sep 2006
        • 37852

        #4
        Actually, closer to what I wrote back in October

        Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

        StyleZeitgeist Magazine

        Comment

        • nathaliew817
          Senior Member
          • Sep 2014
          • 137

          #5
          I think there has been another level up from the graphic print: People buying very recognizable pieces from designers.

          No logo or print, just garments that have a very on the nose design. Miroslava Duma is a good example of this. She just buys what's on the runway that season.

          So now, like the it-bags we have the it-garments. You also see this when bloggers get gifted garments to wear at fashion week a day after the collection was shown. It's always a very full-on look.
          V A N II T A S

          Comment

          • SafetyKat
            Senior Member
            • Aug 2014
            • 169

            #6
            Originally posted by Faust View Post
            Actually, closer to what I wrote back in October
            True. I enjoyed that article. lol A thousand dollar sweatshirt my god.


            I think there has been another level up from the graphic print: People buying very recognizable pieces from designers.

            No logo or print, just garments that have a very on the nose design. Miroslava Duma is a good example of this. She just buys what's on the runway that season.

            So now, like the it-bags we have the it-garments. You also see this when bloggers get gifted garments to wear at fashion week a day after the collection was shown. It's always a very full-on look.
            Looks like we've reached hyper-fraction consumerista tribalism (tm ). Where the commodity is the membership of the tribe itself, whose substance barely goes deeper than an Instagram hashtag. And lots of it bby

            Comment

            • nathaliew817
              Senior Member
              • Sep 2014
              • 137

              #7
              You see this also in Rick Owens. Especially the facebook groups where people dress head to toe in very recognizable pieces and wear very 'rick' fits. No imagination or individuality whatsoever. Or instagram posts where people are showing of their Rick Owens shoes.

              First: you don't need so many shoes.
              Second: they buy the same shoes from different seasons. And tbh the silhouette is not SO different that it warrants a new shoe to complete an outfit.

              Like this or this for example.

              (I've seen worse, 8 similar pairs)
              V A N II T A S

              Comment

              • Faust
                kitsch killer
                • Sep 2006
                • 37852

                #8
                Originally posted by nathaliew817 View Post
                You see this also in Rick Owens. Especially the facebook groups where people dress head to toe in very recognizable pieces and wear very 'rick' fits. No imagination or individuality whatsoever. Or instagram posts where people are showing of their Rick Owens shoes.

                First: you don't need so many shoes.
                Second: they buy the same shoes from different seasons. And tbh the silhouette is not SO different that it warrants a new shoe to complete an outfit.

                Like this or this for example.

                (I've seen worse, 8 similar pairs)
                Those people are the worst. They are no different from the ladies who lunch that attend Chanel's shows. Only they are wearing Rick, which is much worse.
                Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                Comment

                • d'avant-garde
                  Member
                  • Sep 2013
                  • 51

                  #9
                  Originally posted by nathaliew817 View Post
                  You see this also in Rick Owens. Especially the facebook groups where people dress head to toe in very recognizable pieces and wear very 'rick' fits. No imagination or individuality whatsoever. Or instagram posts where people are showing of their Rick Owens shoes.

                  First: you don't need so many shoes.
                  Second: they buy the same shoes from different seasons. And tbh the silhouette is not SO different that it warrants a new shoe to complete an outfit.

                  Like this or this for example.

                  (I've seen worse, 8 similar pairs)
                  I completely agree. Some people let the designer dress them, when they should be dressed by their own style

                  Comment

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