Fashion is more democratic now than ever
Not long ago, few had the power of making a house or a designer famous or not. Since the fashion industry has had relevance, trends, collections, and concepts have been carefully curated by buyers from major retailers and writers of fashion magazines, leaving the great majority unnoticed. Before the internet revolution and with the boom of social media, people that were interested in fashion would get their insights by reading major fashion publications or going to big retailers like Barney’s or Collette to see what they were carrying season after season, but now the customer has more power than ever by having all of the information they want in their cellphones.
Maybe 30 years ago it would be strange for a teenager in Ukraine to know exactly who was the creative director for Dior, what his concept for the next spring-summer collection is or even which models were walking for him, but now, it is probable that kids all around the world watch the same fashion shows on an Instagram live stream. The internet, and tools like Instagram, have given customers a new kind of power, and that is the power of information. Customers are not obliged anymore to buy whatever they are given, but to look for what they want. Today, it is more probable that young people interested in fashion take their inspiration from mood boards and aesthetic Instagram accounts probably run by people like them, than big-time fashion publications. This phenomenon has also led consumers to buy according to their style, rather than what is on-style. Of course, the Internet has been a platform that makes communication between people easier, which makes buying clothes from different places a piece of cake. If a kid growing up in Italy loves wearing 90’s vintage NFL hoodies, he can easily go to Grailed or any other platform and buy exactly what he wants from an American vendor. Fashion houses have seen this switch in attitude from customers and now are challenged by a much more interested average consumer. Before, you would see a Gucci store occasionally in the biggest cities in America or Europe, but now more than ever, the average consumer knows what Gucci is, even in the most random places. Fashion houses had to lower the pedestal, and profit from the average consumer that may never visit Paris or Milan, but wants to buy a Gucci belt. Big luxury houses are slowly moving from Paris and Milan and New York, cities in which they are already known, to smaller places in which they have never been present to give the customers a retail opportunity that they might’ve never had.
The power of information in fashion and luxury has been shifted from big corporations to any individual with an active internet connection, which is positive for upcoming designers and brands that just need a couple of thousand followers on Instagram to start selling their stuff, but at the same time negative for the big houses that have always depended on a high-end retail experience and fashion publications that every time have less importance due to this challenge to the status quo.
