Fashion Futures: Social Media

In this weird time that we are living through, I find myself thinking about how different the fashion world is going to be when we get back to some form of normality. Are there going to be massive sales so sales can rise again, are things going to be more expensive so that they can make more money, are staff going to be let go and stores shut down to make cuts?

It also had me thinking about how we have been using technology since we’ve been in lockdown. Having more time on our hands and being in the house a lot more means there isn’t as much to do so essentially, people are on their phones more. Screen times are increased from use of social media or watching Netflix or texting friends or doing more online shopping.

I thought about the effect this has personally had on me and bought it to the attention of my friends. Are they feeling the same way that I am? And they agreed.

At the start of lockdown, I found, that consuming so much news about COVID19; whether that was on Twitter or on the TV wasn’t good for me. Then going on Instagram became toxic for me because I found myself comparing myself to people. I’ve never done this before; social media has never felt toxic to me until now. I think it was that I was so paranoid about putting weight on during lockdown that I was so conscious of how mine, and other’s bodies looked.

So, I cut my screen time drastically. It went from 60 odd hours a week to then being 20/30 hours a week. By distracting myself with uni work and going out for exercise each day I managed to not consume so much toxicity; when I did use those apps, I was conscious as to what I was look at.

Knowing I wasn’t the only one that felt this way made it a lot more comforting, but I couldn’t help thinking about my own future and the future of the fashion world.

Over the past few years people having been finding that social media has proven to be toxic to their mental health, for reasons such as; how people can edit photos, people finding themselves envying other’s lives, and, how easy it is to troll on these platforms.

In fashion social media is a massive, huge part of the market. There is a lot of beauty to using social media for fashion. Finding inspiration for outfits, small businesses/ creatives can show off their work to their platform and grow easier or large brands can create an interactive, inclusive platform that, people who may not be able to afford the clothes, can still feel like their part of the brand.

If more people grow to feel that social media is toxic in some ways will this affect how we consume fashion? Will the physical magazine market start to rise again because people want the nostalgia back? Will people make more of an effort create real experiences with the people they are with, rather than capture everything on their phones? Will people start to dress for themselves and their own styles instead of feeling like they have standards to keep up with from seeing influencers on Instagram?