Away With the Rules: How is the Pandemic Breathing New Life Into our Style?
By Annaliese Terlesky
If this quiet, grievous pandemic world has any silver lining, it is a rise in creativity, in resourcefulness. In the world of fashion, this creativity — perhaps stemming from boredom with hour after hour spent at home — has slowly been shaping style since last March, giving rise to the unique, handmade, eccentric, and unpredictable. While classics like white tees and jeans are not going anywhere, center stage is currently claimed by the desire to have one-of-a-kind style and individualized pieces, whether that means handmade, colorful, or hastily assembled outfits. It seems like everyone wants to really own, even create, their own fashion.
We saw one of the first examples of this demand in the rise of the New York-based luxury menswear brand Bode, founded and directed by Emily Bode. This brand is arguably more unisex and androgynous than anything, incorporating historically female-centric traditions like quilting and appliqué to create modern, above-all unique and artistic workwear silhouettes that anyone can wear, and wear beautifully. Central to this brand’s garments is the art of storytelling: Bode says she wants her pieces to give the same feeling as a Bosch painting, really capturing a viewer’s attention with details that come to life the more and more one looks. The brand collects locally-sourced antique fabrics to create a limited number of pieces, making for a truly sustainable, low-waste piece, yet a lofty price tag. Bode is arguably best known for their workwear-style jackets made from recycled quilts. Worn by current trendsetters such as Harry Styles, they have helped to bring to the forefront of fashion a love for detail and the recognizably handmade.
Bode quilted jacket (image linked), Harry Styles in Bode leather appliqué jacket (imaged linked)
Though these beloved, sought-after pieces might be bringing a new thread of creativity and individuality to the world of sustainable fashion, only a small sphere of people are able to afford this look. Even shops on Instagram such as Psychic Outlaw, which makes similar jackets out of old quilts that customers send them, charge upwards of two hundred dollars. One might predict large fast fashion houses, with more accessible price tags, creating mass-produced jackets of a similar look, just so people can participate in the trend. If this were to happen, the irony would be two-fold: mass produced and mass consumed items in the name of the appearance of stand-out eccentricity and individualism, along with sustainability—where this “trend” originated.
In a similar demand for the antique and the handmade, more and more Instagram shops are selling one-of-a-kind, sometimes custom-made, pieces. Strung from pearl, glass, and patterned beads, and often made from recycled supplies like Bode’s jackets, beaded necklaces are growing in popularity. The small businesses that sell them are also frequently charging as much as two hundred dollars to give their customers a greater sense of creativity in their wardrobes. One of the most popular of these shops, Charlie Beads, even has a connected survey attached to orders for custom necklaces, where customers can fill in their favorite color, animal, or artist, among other personal questions. The founder, Charlotte Hurston, can then make a piece truly unique and personalized to the customer. Countless small shops are amassing thousands of followers, as more and more people sport these necklaces. In the realm of clothing, the artist Juliet Johnstone’s individually painted jeans are in such high demand, especially since Bella Hadid wore them in a single Instagram post, that not only are they hundreds of dollars, but sell out in seconds. As more and more people seek out this custom-made trend, arguably creating a demand too high for small business owners to fulfill on their own with limited materials, beaded necklaces and painted jeans could easily end up on sites like Shein at a more affordable cost. And again, this would be antithetical to the source, both undermining the intended uniqueness and sustainability of these items, yet allowing more people to participate.
Photo by Annaliese & necklace by @charlie.beads, Photo & pants by @julietjohnstone
Unpredictability is bringing more and more influencers to the forefront of the fashion world, particularly on social media. Lindsay Vrckovnik has become one of the faces of such eccentricity, not only creating her own unique knit pieces, but pulling off outfits from a handmade mohair knit over a blue striped Oxford shirt and tie, to a hot pink trench coat over baggy blue jeans and a bright teal knit. Her style is at once meticulously planned out but arbitrarily thrown together, accessorized by mismatching, chunky colorful rings and layered gold chain necklaces. Many others are gaining traction and influence by taking risks, also giving off the same carefree feel in what they choose to pair together. A surprising mismatch seems to be preferred to fluidity.
@linmick, @isthisfate
Popular fashion seems to be shifting out of safe minimalism and into a certain boldness. You can see this from the rise in craftiness as people make and purchase handmade, unique clothes and jewelry to an increased interest in things like upcycling. More and more people are choosing vintage and turning to sources like Depop to find the most one-of-a-kind, statement pieces in order to stand out in real life (when it is safe to be in public) and on social media, ie the safest space right now to have contact with and express oneself to the rest of the world. Perhaps what will make this 20s decade roar in the fashion world is a new demand to refine one’s style, take risks, and display our creative capacities. Where this is heading, we are soon to find out. Will there be a switch from the sustainable and truly one-of-a-kind, centered around small, often expensive businesses, to a mass produced and widely consumed and worn, affordable nonconformity? What is the answer to a growing market, but one that depends on a special, individual kind of creativity?