Toward a unified theory of TikTok couture.
The Tuesday edition of the Goods newsletter is all about internet culture, brought to you by senior reporter Rebecca Jennings. ð Toward a unified theory of "TikTok couture" 𧥠Here is a list of fashion trends that, according to TikTok, are predicted to become a thing in 2022: [Balletcore](, [royalcore](, [regencycore](, [indie sleaze](, [2014 soft grunge](, [twee](, [Russian bimbocore](, â[avant apocalypse](â and its cousin [dystopiacore](, [new Space Age](, [circa-2006 Diesel](, [balaclavas](, [clowncore](, [hyper Gen Z](, [bellhopcore](, [skirts over trousers](, [Missoni-Pucci resurgence](, [mod revival](, [âjoycraft](,â [opera gloves](, and [feathers (just, like, in general)](. This is a lot of trend for just one year. But I would argue that these are not all trends of their own accord: Theyâre all one trend, and that trend is TikTok couture. What is TikTok couture? It is a (sort of rude) way to describe the coalescence of trends that materialize on TikTok, whether from teenagers experimenting with clothes theyâve thrifted from their local charity shop, from older folks revisiting the subcultural styles of their youth, or from professional and amateur trend-watchers combining aesthetic clues into a single theory of whatâs coming next. Together, with the help of the supercharged TikTok algorithm that blasts viral content to millions of users within hours or days, these videos shape what mainstream culture considers stylish, which therefore can affect what we choose to wear ourselves. Consider TikTok couture the logical next phase of how social media has always influenced clothing. Throughout the 2010s, Instagram became the de facto mode of sharing oneâs personal style and daily outfits, so much so that the platform itself affected [shopping trends](, [what makeup we wore](, and what [kinds of plastic surgery procedures were in vogue](. While Tumblr and Pinterest were tools for curating inspiration to define and explore oneâs personal aesthetic, Instagram was meant for performing it. TikTok, however, combines both in a single app: The personalized For You page is at once a gateway to exploring other peopleâs styles based on what the algorithm thinks you might like, and a way to remix those styles using tools like the duet, stitch, or comment reply features to add your own take. If TikTok has sensed youâre at all interested in fashion, it becomes the internetâs most up-to-date source of inspiration and analysis â far more relevant than Pinterest, which tends to suffer from repetition and monotony, and Instagram, which is too often determined by people you already know. âAny time enough people on my TikTok feed are wearing one thing I'm like, âWell, thatâs about to make a serious comeback,ââ says Tessa, the 25-year-old Hawaii-based creator behind one of YouTubeâs best fashion criticism channels, [ModernGurlz](. Sheâs made several videos analyzing TikTok fashion, from the [Y2K resurgence]( to more micro trends like â[Twilightcore](â and the [âcoconut girl.â]( When we spoke in October, sheâd been seeing tons of outfits reminiscent of the [2003 film Thirteen](, about two rebellious teenagers played by Nikki Reed and Evan Rachel Wood who wore low-rise flares, midriff-baring camis, and hoop earrings. âA lot of people, especially my age or older, freak out when they see these trends from middle school come back, but this is the natural progression. Itâs how things work,â she explains. No age group has ever had as much historical fashion knowledge and primary sources to draw from as young people do today, with the entirety of the last 20 years documented online. While the general rule in fashion is that trends and items begin to reappear after two decades, at this point teenagers â who were too young to participate the first time around and who are some of TikTokâs most ardent users â are already remixing styles that were popular just five or 10 years ago, as is the case with the [2014 Tumblr aesthetic](. The ability to search beyond oneâs own immediate surroundings for stylistic inspiration has, Tessa argues, made fashion far more accessible to teens. âIf you like somebody's style on TikTok, you can look up âgrunge fairycoreâ or whatever on Pinterest and find everything you need,â she says. âYou can go into someone's comment section on TikTok and ask them where they bought everything, and so TikTok aesthetics make their way to the general public because we have the ability to source all these pieces. Back in 2006, you wouldnât have been able to go on Instagram and find every single item tagged in someoneâs outfit â youâd have to look through a magazine or go to Macyâs and try your best.â That accessibility has introduced a fervent new audience to fashion and, specifically, fashion criticism. Mandy Lee, one of the most popular trend forecasters on TikTok who goes by [@oldloserinbrooklyn](, told me in December that âin the last couple of months, what I've noticed the most is that thereâs way, way, way, way, way more fashion discourse created. Now itâs like everyoneâs a critic.â At this monthâs Paris Fashion Week, Vogue reporter [Steff Yotka noted]( how even as attendance to shows has seemed to decrease, the crowds outside have done the opposite. âAs fashionâs influence grows, a new generation of fans is taking fashion-watching into their own hands,â she writes. âPowered by thriving fashion discourse on TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter, Millennial and Gen Z commentators are making the street scene the story.â Young people have, to some degree, always set the tone for whatâs considered cool, at least in the last [70 or so years since âteenagersâ]( became an important spending category for marketers. But the rise of TikTok couture isnât as simple as saying âyoung people are on TikTok, therefore TikTok decides whatâs in vogue.â Thereâs a reason, for instance, that TikTok has declared not just a handful of but 20-something aesthetics to be the next big thing in 2022: Itâs because TikTokâs bread and butter is creating microtrends that flare up fast and die out faster. Whether or not they actually last (or exist in any meaningful way at all) is beside the point; as [Kelsey Weekman notes in In the Know](, âOn TikTok, all it takes is one or two viral posts flaunting a certain aesthetic for the style to become a âmicrotrend.ââ When I wrote about these kinds of [âgarbage trendsâ]( in December, I was referring to niche content cycles like [âCouch Guyâ]( and the fleeting fascination with [sea shanties](, but the same goes for fashion. One of the first examples of how TikTok drove a quick-passing aesthetic trend was the coinage of the [âVSCO girlâ]( in 2019, which targeted teen girls who wore oversized T-shirts and carried around Hydro Flasks. What wasnât clear at the time, though, before the pandemic and before TikTok had calcified into the cultural powerhouse it is now, was that the VSCO girl aesthetic, along with [its counterpart, the e-girl](, were simply two branches of the same tree. Itâs not necessarily that TikTok âinventedâ them, per se â many styles popular on TikTok got [their names from Tumblr]( â but the TikTok machine packaged them into legible aesthetics, then elevated them to mainstream consciousness. The pace of these microtrends now matches that of fast fashion, or whatâs now known as [âultra-fast fashion](,â where digital shopping platforms like Shein can design and produce new styles in a matter of days to reflect whatâs trending online. When a certain style or product goes viral on TikTok, that item [will often be sold out]( by the time the video is seen by most people, fueling in users a greater desire to discover TikTok trends as early as possible in an effort to get ahead of the cycle. You can see how all of this might have some downsides for, you know, the economy-slash-environment-slash-general tenor of the culture. But while the immediate effect of the ephemerality of TikTok couture is the dizzying pace at which it moves online discourse, its real-life consequences are, if anything, sort of quaint. Last fall, I visited a vast, 500-acre sculpture garden in a quiet part of upstate New York, which involved hours of walking through hot, sun-drenched fields and damp dirt forest paths. Most people there were wearing what might be considered sensible attire for such an occasion, but three teenagers at the park stood out. One wore a ruffled collared shirt topped with a lace-up corset, a pleated plaid skirt, and chunky heels, a look that was dominating my For You page at the time; another had dark hair framed by the bleached and pink-dyed tendrils stereotypical of e-girls. The third layered his shirts in the exact same way Iâd seen fledgling fashion boys test out online. Seeing TikTok couture in the flesh, particularly in a space where it was least encouraged, I felt a warm affinity for the kids, who were experimenting with styles theyâd undoubtedly seen countless times online, figuring out what fit with their own personalities and what didnât. There is something sort of beautiful about everything being in fashion at once, of the delicate wrap skirts of balletcore juxtaposed with the deconstructed surrealism of âavant apocalypse,â and the idea that no matter what a person puts on their body, they are weaving themselves within a tradition that extends far beyond the clothing itself. TikTok couture dregs up the surprising and fascinating and sometimes horrible history of fashion and all its complex context and lays it out for us to revisit at will. The trend cycle has never been faster, but perhaps style is only becoming more familiar.
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