Walking through London, you would expect to see all the latest trends, people wearing the latest dresses shown in Vogue and layering patterns but to be completely frank, you don’t. When you strip everything away, there really are only two demographics, the Urban Outfitters- Brandy Melville group, and the group who just shop at Mango, Zara and &other stories. so why is London one of the ‘fashion capitals of the world’, if no one is actually up to date with the fashion? 


The haute couture industry was built on envy, after all, only about a hundred people can actually afford to keep in trend, and so the industry relies on the ultra rich buying their garments and everyone else being jealous of them. But as of recent, people just wear what they like, not what the fashion industry is manipulating them to. The amount of shows in fashion week is on a continuous decrease and with people spending less money on high fashion and more money on sustainable fashion, but how long can the fashion industry keep struggling on?


I think the problem starts with the prices, really, the shows and pieces are only aimed at the ultra rich, who can afford to splash 5K on a coat? Understandably, the whole purpose of high fashion is to be larger than life and hopelessly unaffordable but with England’s economy crumbling and people willing to dish out less and less money each year, do fashion houses need to get with the times and target their clothes to the larger demographic too? It is likely that if this idea was pitched to the directors of famous fashion maisons, they’d most definitely say no, but a thought worth considering is, if designer clothes were more reasonably priced, how many millions more people would be willing to spend their money there?


Anyway, back to the underlying question, is fashion dying? Technically, no. In fact the industry is growing at 3.5-4.5% per year, and is worth almost $300 billion. What’s worth noting is that, the majority of the revenue is coming from high street retailers, 40 years ago, this would not have been the case. Even if you don’t believe that the industry itself is dying, undoubtedly, fashion month is. Fashion month is basically 4 weeks of consecutive fashion shows, one in September and one in February, and its sole purpose is to show all the new autumn/winter and spring/summer collections of the year; but now, how necessary is it? Everything nowadays is digital, we can see all the latest collections, read all the latest articles online, so really what is fashion week, besides from a gathering of models, influencers and designers?  A marketing stunt? A way to increase public speculation? One of the biggest events of the world, as been left to nothing. As the industry is striving to be more inclusive, there are a few factors holding it back, many of which, stemming from the youth. If I come to school with the latest Valentino bag, nobody would care, whereas if I came to school with the signature Gucci, people would. I think the next generation care less about design and more about designer. A lot of teens wear clothes from Nike or Fila, but do they actually like the clothes, or do they just like the fact it shows off the name brand; this all links back to how shallow and insecure our generation is. would people like Dior if it didn’t say Dior on it? would people like Chanel No.5 if it didn’t say Chanel on it? Is fashion just a trend to flaunt how rich a person is? I think there are only a select few outside of the fashion industry who actually like clothes for clothes and not for how much they cost. 


When you think about it, fashion originated as a way to show personal identity, to show our personalities in what we wear, and now look where we are. we wear Louis Vuitton, but do we even like Louis Vuitton or do we only do it because we think other people do? Is the way we present ourselves nowadays based off how we want other people to think of us? Have we completely destroyed the meaning of fashion, and replaced it with a new social pressure? Has fashion become less what we want to wear and more what we feel safe wearing? Very few non-famous people use fashion to express themselves; the natural urge of humans to stand out has diminished and been replaced with the need to fit in. 


Fashion can be tricky, the current generation are maybe the most judgy and so to actually wear what we like, requires much courage, which is probably another reason as to why we are scared to flaunt clothing we like, i personally know that i have been. wearing trends fresh off the runway, or that vogue suggests like capes, leather blazers or ren-faire would make us the victim of controversy. so, one issue is that the clothing is too ‘out there’, how do we combat this? tell everyone to be less judging? make designers create more wearable clothing? muster enough confidence to wear outfits outside of the house until someone gives you a judging look? really there is no solution, or if there is, it probably comes from ‘self-love’ or something. 

Circling back to the beginning, why do people wear clothes from Brandy Melville, Zara and Mango? My best guess is that they provide a sense of security. Almost everything from Brandy Melville is ‘pretty’ and considering the fact that it is such a popular store- due to influencers such as Lily Chee and Emma Chamberlain- wearing the clothes would make you ‘cool’ or ‘popular’. Of course, due to the sheer number of young girls who wear the exact same tops from there, personal style is almost lost when wearing clothes from there and so there is no reason to ‘stand out’, which I earlier discussed as something that people don’t want to do. With Mango and Zara, their clothes are chic and look ‘adult-like’ which meets the needs of many women, and squashes their need for high fashion. To be fair, Zara does try to keep up to date with the trends, and succeeds, which creates a cheaper version of runway looks, lessening the need for designer. 


Unlike these high street retailers, haute couture hasn’t created any sweeping trends or any products that consumers feel obligated to buy, and after all the entire industry is built on being influenced. Fast fashion retailers are appealing to the public, creating clothes which aren’t outlandish and that people actually want to spend their hard earned money on. Fashion magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar just don’t supply the content that people find interesting anymore, the name ‘Anna Wintour’ is foreign to some people. The public don’t need magazines to tell them what to wear, they have influencers, celebrities and society overall. The last Vogue issue which actually made the headlines was Kim and Kanye in 2014, and since then, they’ve just been filled with nameless supermodels; even ex- British Vogue fashion director, Lucina Chambers said that “It’s a shame that magazines have lost the authority they once had,”.  It is a shame that the fashion industry is slowly decomposing but as they say, all good things come to an end.

hiya! thank you for reading that mammoth of an essay which probably didnt even make sense. i tried to add some gifs to breakdown the paragraphs but im unsure whether they fulfilled their purpose, but ill hope for the best. this essay has been on my computer for a good month or so, and i finally completed it yesterday and honestly, it felt so good to complete something unfinished like that, maybe im just strange or have an OCD which i was unaware of. anyway, thank u for reading and ill see u next time!

k x