Reflect on the concept of imitation and trend.
Until recently the collections were born as Miranda Priestley described them in the Devil wears Prada, the trend forecasters were looking for ideas and suggestions around the world, igniting the creativity of the stylists in charge of creating the fashion collections.
A process that remained very close to “personal taste”, which fueled the creation of substantially different collections, and which knew how to interpret and anticipate the spirit of the times.
Today, the rise of fast fashion and super fast fashion (think of companies like Shein capable of introducing over 7,000 new items on the website every day) have created a real short circuit in this process.
Interpreted by algorithms, and each collection ends up introducing only small variations in copies designed more for the online shopping experience, than for the actual wearability of the garment.
In all this, the very concept of trend changes, today replaced by the aesthetics of TikTok. Trend refers to a specific product category, to a way of wearing a certain garment or to a specific article; “Aesthetics” is instead “weird girl” “barbiecore” or “Y2K”, and has to do with a mood, or a set of codes and icons.
However, the new aesthetics seem far more fleeting and fluid than the old trends, and are therefore something that too often fashion cannot predict, and that goes too fast to remain connected with reality.
