The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to reflect upon last year’s fashion trends: time to put away the peplum, neon and sheer…those trends are so 2012, right? Actually, don’t put anything away yet. Hang onto your distressed army jacket, because last year more than ever exemplifies that fashion is more about what you like rather than a bunch of fleeting trends anyway.
“The biggest trend of 2012 is that nothing is particularly trendy,” said Samantha Critchell of the Associated Press in a Huffington Post article on Dec. 27. Wait – how is the even possible?
The real trend that repeats every year of the 21st century is the one where fashion recycles those trends of recent years previous. Take leggings, for example: they are a “trend” that refuses to die; every season they take on a new guise. Sometimes they emerge studded, then floral in spring and then they make their relentless return with bandage-like panels. Just like that, leggings are once again a must-have. How does this happen?
Critchell said the internet has made fashion more democratized. If there’s any year where this held true more, it was 2012. Fashion has more insiders now; a person doesn’t have to be a fashion editor or buyer to get in on the action. The advent of everything online has yielded millions of fashion bloggers, the popularity of street style and the “personal style” ideology (one can curate one’s own wardrobe, free of industry influence). This means you are literally calling the shots, buyers are taking note and everyone gets what they want.
That’s not to say that there were no major influences on fashion and style in 2012: the funky-quirk of Lena Dunham, the poise and classicism of Michele Obama and the sultry foxiness of Lana Del Rey, among others. The aforementioned alone encapsulate so many differing fashion points of view that it would be unimaginable to emulate each icon at once (although hats off to you if you can pull it off, you may become a 2013 fashion icon yourself). Is 2013 the year of the death of trends and the rise of different?
2103? Is that the year this paper will actually get some proofreaders?