Before the turn of the decade, there were periods in recent history which were dominated by a few dominant styles. Take for example the mid 2010s in which streetwear, influenced heavily by Hypebeast and sneaker culture, was the dominant style of the zeitgeist. At the time, this dominant trend was undisputed and flooded every crevice of social media.

Fast forward to just a few years later in 2022, with the advent of short-form media and the rise of niche culture, it’s pretty safe to say that it’s very hard to determine that there is no singular dominant style currently.

Amongst the ones with more traction are things such as vintage, post-minimalism and an evolved, preppy streetwear variant. However, other subsets of style hold enough ground that niche communities eventually form around them, allowing anyone to pursue style based on personal interest, rather than trend-following.

Since everything is therefore “in-style”, this allows the individual to be more expressive with their fashion choice as they aren’t limited by the desire to remain trendy. Along with promoting individuality, this also empowers authentic brands as community building allows a solid customer base to form.

The criteria of being stylish has then broadened, and opportunities to do so have increased in frequency, hence democratising fashion for the average person. In almost all cases, this is a good thing, however this new frontier of fashion poses a question of overconsumption.

While we can be more stylish easily, the breadth of styles available means that the amount of clothes being produced are going to increase rapidly. In addition to that, fast fashion labels that constantly try and capitalise on the zeitgeist will increase their production in order to capture the wide range of trendy styles, feeding upon the overconsumption. The common rhetoric that appears is that consumers have to buy less, and this can be supported by buying higher quality clothes from small business. However, while this helps, the core issue of conglomerates shifting consumer behaviour towards trend chasing is not addressed. If people truly only bought what they required for a number of years, this circumvents the issue of overconsumption whilst promoting choosing based on quality as individuals are forced to look at clothes in the long term view.

On one hand, people have an unquenchable thirst to remain trendy, whilst on the other, we also want to be more considerate of our consumption in an era of climate crisis, so what is the path forward?

A good starting point to have is an attitude change towards fashion consumption. Since many styles are trendy at the moment, this allows the individual shopper to consider which subset they gravitate towards with respect to their lifestyle and personal interests. Aligning with someone’s personal life allows the garments to have more longevity. If we purchased with regard to our personal interests, we subconsciously desire higher quality items and therefore more are considerate in where we buy our clothes, and how often we do so. A societal shift in attitude is nigh impossible, but gradual shift in consumer behaviour through education and critical thinking makes it possible.