039. Is This The Year We Stop Dressing Like Clones Of Each Other?
I Vow To Wear More 'Ugly' Clothes.
There’s something in the air. Can you feel it too?
Last week, a podcast episode from The Ezra Klein Show, ‘How To Discover Your Own Taste’, went viral. It’s an interview with
, New Yorker staff writer and author of 'Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture’. Klein and Chayka discuss ‘why the internet isn’t fun anymore’, something they attribute to the shift from an internet of curation to an internet of algorithms.This shift towards sameness that’s affected every aspect of our culture also affects fashion. Something you can attest to with a quick scroll through your social media feeds. Klein calls it the lowest common denominator of aggregated taste. It helped me explain the feeling of fatigue I have been experiencing towards the collective aesthetic and the pressure there is to partake in it. And I feel like I may not be alone. For the finale of his show at Paris Fashion Week on Friday, Korean designer Juun J sent thirty models down the runway dressed in the exact same look. I interpreted it as an ominous message. Are we all craving more individuality? It might explain the recent multiplication of content being created around the topic of Finding One’s Personal Style, which I have written about extensively myself. The younger generations seem keen to say enough already to our devotion to the latest ‘-girlie/-core/-era’, as Instagram’s 2024 Trend Talk reports that one third of Gen Z want this to be the year they find their own aesthetic.
But, how does this feeling of fatigue add up to the fact that my wishlist for this year is made up of half a dozen Totême pieces and nothing else?