How Does Social Media Influence the Way We Dress?
Before social media, people encountered fashion through everyday life — work, school, even the grocery store — plus magazines with dramatic headlines and television shows. Now fashion is everywhere we look: TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest and every other platform. Traditional media still influences fashion too, but it almost feels like there's too much.
Social media has completely changed the way we consume fashion and the way we dress. So how much of fashion is actually controlled by what we scroll past?
Fashion before social media
A lot of people who grew up with constant technology seem to long for a time when inspiration came from a physical magazine or the latest TV show. For fashion lovers like me, social media can be a great source of easy inspiration and knowledge. On the other hand, fashion is now so prevalent that it can be overwhelming, promote unrealistic standards, encourage overconsumption and take away from the art of fashion itself.
Increased societal pressure
Like a lot of Gen Z, I can scroll for hours — funny videos, runway analysis, my favorite influencers' outfit-of-the-day posts. It's easy to see the latest trends any time, but that creates pressure: never feeling like what I'm wearing is trendy or stylish enough, or truly me. Even with the freedom to wear anything, it can be overwhelming to weigh everyone else's outfit choices.
I might put on an outfit I love, open Instagram to post a mirror selfie, and immediately see someone else in something better and trendier. Suddenly my perfect outfit makes me insecure, and I wonder whether it represents me or is just a way to get views. It becomes an endless cycle of who's wearing the best outfit — because fashion stops being about the garment and becomes about fitting an aesthetic and how it'll look on your feed.
Social media affects more than trends; it affects our sense of identity. That feeling of an identity crisis feeds which trends we lean into and why. As a society, we're jumping from one trend to the next at a rapid pace — and that cycle fuels microtrends.
Why microtrends?
Microtrends are niche trends that blow up on social media so fast they quickly become "uncool." They can last weeks to months and heavily drive fast fashion — think "old money aesthetic" or "European summer." They always have some wild name, which only adds to how unhinged the concept is.
When a microtrend takes off, people immediately buy pieces that match it, usually from somewhere cheap because they just spent their money on the last one. By the time the package arrives, you wear it once and realize there's already a new trend to shop for.
Social media lets brands understand and talk to their customers better, but it also pushes marketing directly into our faces. It raises the question: are we dressing to express ourselves, or to keep up a public image?
What does this do to fashion today?
Even high-fashion designers are affected. Where we once saw two seasons a year, designers now produce multiple collections to keep up with social media demand. Quality is decreasing, and the craft of designing and constructing a garment is slowly disappearing.
As someone who loves to sew and study construction, it's disappointing to see poor stitching and low-quality fabric when I shop or receive PR packages. Overproduction and speed make clothing blend together — nothing stands out while scrolling because it all starts to look the same, which makes me wonder whether trends are on their way out. That's what I'll dig into next.