A trickle down theory within fashion, is considered to be a movement of fashion trends from influencers or designers in the public. It generally will start with high exclusivity, meaning luxury design labels will stock the product and the product made, will generally go to celebrities first to endorse this product. Next is those who associate themselves with the brand, early adopters. Basically the target market for the specific product. Then magazine and newspaper readers, including independent shops will get the first copy. Then will be the middle market meaning the goods will be available on the high street, duplicates will be available and then it finally trickles down to the general public, the goods being widely available.

For example, jumping straight into it, a Louis Vuitton bag is a luxury item, it’s an expense that many of us aren’t able to afford and company’s know this. The designs are quite iconic and if you were to glance at them in the street, you would (most likely) immediately know the brand. A product released will be exclusive to the store itself and celebrities will be often gifted with items from the brand to promote the release. Then consumers that buy from the brand will be available to buy the product, eventually trickling down to magazine and newspaper readers consuming the product to then the high street stores creating duplicates for buyers.

Primark is a very well known high street brand. It is also known for it’s Motto, “Look good pay less”. Going into the store, I have seen multiple items that have been dupes for expensive items from lucky brands. Not all exact replicas, but you still get an expensive feel to it, being a similar, style, pattern and design.

The high street store have often done a replicated item that looks very similar to, Gucci bags and belts, Louis Vuitton bags and Vans shoes. The way it has trickled down from the high end luxury line to the high street is a process that happens quickly and it a great way for everyone to feel included no matter their budget. Although good for consumers, luxury brands may struggle as high street stores having these duplicated and similar products may encourage customers to buy the cheaper alternative rather than the original product. On the contrary to this, customers of these luxury brands, considering if they are buying from the expensive company already, will more than likely have the money to do so, so will continue to buy from the brand anyway. Therefor cheaper alternatives being produced, will more than likely not effects the brand due to their consumers continuing to buy the more expensive option regardless.

Previously, I have looked into trends in general, Cultural, Social and Historical all falling into the mix. Today, I will be looking into my favourite category, Fashion. Moving on a notch from just trends, I will be delving into the world of Trend Forecasting and all the elements that surround this.

My first topic will be fashion Mavens. This is essentially where people such as fashion editors or influencers- basically an expert in the fashion world, will have a strong influence on the style of their followers.

My first fashion Maven is arguably someone who over the last few years has taken the world my absolute storm with her style. Kim Kardashian. Love her or hate her, her style influence has become absolutely ICONIC. The majority of clothing stores, predominantly online, stock something that has a similar “look” to the reality star.

She made Cycling shorts an extremely ‘in’ look paired with, jumpers, tank tops and hoodies. She brought back in a body con style that has become massively popular amongst her followers boasting a whopping 158 MILLION on her instagram.

This has such an influence that in 2019, she launched her own brand SKIMS, an online shop that offers a range of sleepwear, lingerie, loungewear, a proved most popular, shape wear. She is renowned for her famous curvy shape, a look that many inspired fans wish to achieve, thus, body con becoming a popular choice amongst fans. When the range released, fans were ecstatic to get a hold of something made by Kim Kardashian, Worn by Kim Kardashian and quite possibly the most exciting prospect, to be able to try and achieve that “curved” look that she quite rightly owns.

Being in the public eye for so long and working with so many fashion designers and opening her own shop, proves that she has a lot of knowledge and love for the fashion industry, which is why so many love her style and her attitude towards it all. Fans trust her opinion and judgement on outfits, so if Kim’s wearing it, everyones wearing it.

The next fashion maven that has come to light a lot more in the past couple of years is Harry Styles. As early as 2015, he was seen sporting many shirts and suits that were seen as very eccentric, leading onto 2019/2020, where he has become iconic for the ‘Gucci suit look’.

On stage he is always seen wearing a Gucci suit and it has now become identifiable when looking at the famous singer, so much so that he is an ambassador for Gucci, being in their advertisements.

His fashion isn’t per say as wide spread as Kim Kardashians, but his fashion identity is eccentric and ‘different’ and I feel this encourages people to wear what they want and to be themselves. I feel this is a very inspiring type of fashion Maven, one that does not necessarily influence a particular item of clothing or style, but where they can use their fashion to inspire their followers to dress and feel confident, however that may be or with whatever they want to wear.

Following on from my previous post, I will be looking into the Political and Social trends from the 90s and off today.

Political

90s

Politics has and will always be a touchy subject for many people, everyone has many different views and opinions, each that they are fully entitled to. It is such a wide and broad topic, that I will be narrowing down a few of the political highlights throughout the 90s, that seemed to be off world interest. Would they be considered a trend? Politics is so broad and issues constantly grow and change, so arguably, yes.

To define politics in the 90’s, War, Scandal, Political reform, Terrorism, and civil rights marked it all. The Cold War, ended with the collapse of communism in the early 90s and President G. H Bush called for “new world order”. This meant global security would be based on diplomacy and international commerce. Unfortunately, after the Cold War, the world was a dangerous and unpredictable place where military and political institutions were required to quickly deal with new and unexpected threats to American and global security. This backlashed into the late 1990’s and it deemed to be a big issue for years. Especially like the Berlin Wall coming down and boarders opening, which was absolutely everywhere in the news. This was an issue that was constantly growing and changing into new and bigger problems but later settled down around 1991.

Other issues were also big within politics in the 90s. The case of O.J Simpson, which was considered to be the “trial of the century”. Simpson, the formal football player, was found not guilty of the murders of his former wife and her male friend. The world was

stunned that he he had not committed these murders.

2020

2020 has undeniably started off on a very political front. A scare monger of a “World War 3” had been all over social media and has been a a massively wide topic amongst everyone. President Donald Trump is someone that we all love to hate. He has been in the political spotlight (mostly not for the good of his country) since he was elected in 2016, and even before hand.

Alongside this, Brexit has also been an ongoing issue for years. In 2016 of course, the country voted for “Brexit”, a nickname given for Britain leaving the European Union and becoming an individual county. This has sparked a lot of tension throughout the country with Thresa may stepping down as Priminister and Brexit still a continuam. Both issues have become very widespread and many social media platforms have taken it upon themselves to create Memes (“an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.”) surrounding these topics; I’ll leave you to search that one…

Social

90s

Of the 90s, Internet chatrooms became a big thing. Websites like ICE (The first real online messaging service Brought out in 1996) were used widely, and teens were addicted to this new internet trend. Other chatrooms such as AOL instant messenger (AIM) was launched in 1997 and Yahoo instant messenger was later brought out in 1998. Other trends such as Beanie babies, Teen television, and hyper colour t-shirts, swept the nation and seemed to quite rightly define the teen years of the 90s.

2020

Throughout 2019 and leading into 2020, social media has been soaring like ever before. It has and will more than likely, always be trendy, and will always undeniably have different aspects to it that are considered to be “trendy”. I have decided to narrow down to what I have seen to be the most popular at the moment. One word for this one, TikTok. If you haven’t heard of the infamous app TikTok, again, I’ll leave you to search that one. It is predominantly an app where users are able to post and upload content, of all sorts. It has become such an insane trend, especially veering into 2020. The music used on the app, everyone appears to recognise and even as I sit here typing this, I can hear my friends chatting about the different dance trends on the app. It is a phenomenon that everyone is getting on. Also trends that are becoming extremely popular are shows such as Love Island, iPhones and Instagram. Trends seem to widespread more due to social media, allowing so many more trends to be followed.

That concludes my 90s to 2020 trends of the world. It was interesting to look into trends outside of Fashion and what an influence they all have, everyday, to so many people.

Whilst looking into the trends within the fashion world, it is important to consider the other aspects such as Cultural, Historical, Political, and Social, that are influenced by certain trends that take over. Trends happen within everything, always changing and growing into new and exciting prospects. My favourite time period is the 90s, so I will be looking into all the different types of trends from the 90s and comparing them to now, today, 2020.

Cultural

90s

Cultural trends in the 90s included things such as Coffee, cigars and gambling. With the economy rapidly growing and unemployment rates at its lowest level in more than two decades, there was more money to be spent. Everyone had money to spend and brought in this whole idea of what many would call “luxury fever”. Money was being spent on items that were more expensive such as cars, TV’s and houses. To put it loosely, everyone had too much money to know what do to with.

One thing in particular that everyone was sure on at this time period, was Coffee! Not too dissimilar to today’s Starbucks and Costa drinks being instagrammed left right and centre, Coffee was to, a popular “trendy” beverage of the 90s. Speciality coffees were bought to drink at home, coffee bars and coffee houses appeared everywhere, including strip malls, bookstores and airports. It was a luxury drink that consumers would essentially treat themselves too. Amongst this, cigars and gambling were all extremely popular, bringing us back to the element of everyone having money that they just had no idea what to do with.

2020

Seeing as we are only 13 days into January so far, we haven’t specifically been able to see every single trend that this new decade has to offer, but leading on from 2019, Sustainability and being Echo Friendly, has been a strong trend pradomonatly throughout 2019 and had lead us well on to 2020, with Australian bushfires becoming a highlight in the news.

Many shops promote sustanibility through swapping their use of plastic bags to paper, and instagram is full of influencers promoting echo friendly products. One particular brand Jeffree Star Cosmetics, now sells metal straws and had very strong values on being animal and environmentally friendly, as well as his makeup range being Animal friendly and cruelty free. As much as being echo friendly is something that many of us do, it has now seen to be ‘trendy’ to use these metal straws, metal bottles and everything in-between.

Similar to this, Veganism has seemed to become a very trendy way of life throughout the last year or so. Again, instagram is full of vegan accounts and influencers promoting and showing off their vegan lifestyle. Many restaurants and shops now cater to these needs and it has become a trend that many people have jumped on the bandwagon for throughout 2019-2020.

Historical

90’s

As I have decided to look into trends from the 1990s, this ties in perfectly when looking at historical trends from this time period. As the 90s were popular for their video games, I wanted to delve into the world of gaming trends from the 1990s. Gaming has always been a trend, especially in the 90s when graphics were getting better than ever before!

Master of Orion was considered to be the most influential game of the 1990s. First realised in 1993, it very quickly became an extremely trendy and popular game. Alongside this, games such as Sonic the hedgehog, Warcraft, Star Wars: Dark Forces and Need for Speed, all rank as top games of their time and games that many throughout the 90s loved and proved to be the most trendy of that time period.

2020

Throughout 2019 and carrying on into 2020, video games have still continued to deem very popular amongst many. Some of the most trendy games to have found their way onto the list are, Resident Evil 2, Call of Duty, Ace Combat and Kingdom Hearts 3.

I will follow up this post with a continued piece, looking into the Political and Social trends surrounding the 90s and of today.