A (Very) Brief History of 2021's Top Viral Trends

Fashion is a fickle thing - constantly chopping and changing. What was the in thing last week is charity shop fodder this week. Everyone knows that fashion moves in cycles - that fashions return after a period of time - however, whereas it once took a good 30 years for major fashions to make a return (flared jeans of the 60s and 70s didn't come back til the 90s), it now seems that those circles are getting smaller. Aren't we already in a mid Y2K fashion resurgence? 

Fashions move fast - and social media is a likely cause. Whereas once we looked to the latest runway or fashion magazines for style inspiration, current trends are now emerging from our phones, with Tiktok and Instagram acting as the new harbingers for what is in.

From the shoe everyone loves to hate - crocs, to tie-dying all the white t-shirts in your household; here's a look at the top viral style trends of the year so far, examining what may have made each trend come pinging back onto our fashion radar.

Balenciaga Crocs

Crocs

Never has a shoe been more controversial than the humble croc. Surely were it not for their comfort level (high) this shoe would never have seen the light of day beyond the creator's sketch pad. Perhaps the fact that they are quite so fugly may have had something to do with it also. There's a certain type of hipster who judges cool on a scale of how uncool it appears, thus swinging the very uncool back to cool again with a sort of two negatives make a positive type logic.

The ultimate ugly shoe saw it's resurgence in 2021 with a hail of celebrity endorsement, from Justin Bieber and Jaden Smith kickstarting the revival after being seen repping the iconic sandals across social media. When they were papped wearing the shoes on the streets, a trend was reborn. 

It wasn't until early May however, that the trend really exploded when Nicki Minaj sent fans loopy with her custom pink crocs. The brand has now collabed with big hitters like Balenciaga on a bespoke collection, which makes it look like they could be around for a little while longer.

Loungewear

It doesn't take a fashion guru to tell you why loungewear has been on the rise the last couple of years. When lockdown hit the world in 2020, office wear went out the window and comfy casual pieces came in through the door. (Remember when we were given a national scolding for causing delivery men to do their backs in from having to carry all the extra parcels containing comfy loungewear and bread makers that a new work-from home-workforce was ordering?).

Google data shows searches for loungewear sets increasing by a huge 223% in March last year, and this continued throughout the year, with popularity peaks coinciding with the various national lockdowns.

Bella Hadid dons skinny shades

Y2K

The Y2K trend has dominated spring/summer 2021 collections bolstered by its huge popularity among Gen Z and their Tiktok-ing. Fashions come and fashions go, but what appears to be a full circle moment, Gen Z appear to be tapping into styles that were big when they were growing up in the early 2000s.

The whole Y2K thing really soared last summer with bright, bold colours, mini bags, micro sunglasses and clumpy shoes. The popularity of Depop and Vinted within university culture may also have have had its influence on the trend.

Vintage

Sustainability has been one of the biggest buzzwords in the fashion industry for the past few years. The amount of waste the fashion industry is responsible for is shocking to even the least environmentally friendly in the world. Great Britons send 700,000 tonnes of clothing to recycling centres, textile banks, clothes collections and to charity each year. That's enough to fill 459 Olympic-size swimming pools.

With younger generations seemingly more conscious and mindful of waste and the environmental impact of fast fashion, than those before them, it's no real surprise that upcyclcling, recycling and reusing fashion has really taken off.

Again, social media appears to have played its part - vintage clothing has been tagged over 325 million tines on Tiktok alone.

Tie-dying your clothes proved a popular pastime

Tie Dye

When the world seemed to shut down in March 2020 and we were nationally mandated not to leave our homes, the country looked for ways to keep itself entertained. 27 million Brits turned to baking  - researchers analysed that in the 6 months of lockdown from March to September 2020, 960 million loaves of bread were baked! Others turned to slightly more idiosyncratic projects, rediscovering hidden talents and long lost hobbies. One of these happened to be the long forgotten old hippy craze of tie-dying. First popularised in the 60s, and briefly popular again during the 90s 'Second Summer of Love'. A fun way to spend an afternoon, tie dying during lockdown also offered the opportunity to double up as a way to refresh your wardrobe, with tie dye t-shirts, joggers and other loungewear items proving popular. Others went so far as to open full on businesses, selling their dye-dipped wares to other Gen Z folk who wanted the look, but couldn't be bothered with the unavoidable mess. 

Again, this was a trend accelerated by social media as Tiktokers documented their creations on the site. The term saw over 4.7 billion hashtags on the platform, showcasing yet again just how dominant Tiktok has become in propelling fashion trends forward. 

Part 3, My fashion inspriation - Iris Apfel

 

So far, I've noticed my style inspiration has abeen women who we would consider clsssically beautiful. - Marilyn Monroe and Kate Moss are considered some of the most beautiful women of their time. However,  style and classic beauty don't necessarily go hand in hand. You can be the most stylish person in the room and not be classically beautiful. Beauty isn't always about the golden ratio and the 'perfect face'. Beauty comes from knowing yourself, being comfortable in your skin. However, great style is certainly about aesthetics. While 'ugly fashion' is certainly a thing, (think crocs, socks and sandals, geek chic, mum jeans and dad trainers), fashion in general, is about the beautiful and looking good. And style is no different.

Part 3 of my style inspo series is going to look at one woman who might not have Kate Moss's bone structure, or Marilyn Monroe's sexy vulnerability and classic beauty, But Iris Apfel has more style than all the women on my list put together. For me, Iris Apfel's style radiates it's own perfection. One of the main reasons I love Iris's style, is that she loves a good accessory as much as I do. Sure, her clothes are bold and she puts things together in a way I could never imagine doing - she's one of those people who can clash prints perfectly, in that Miu Miu way that I seem to struggle with = but Iris clearly loves her jewellery and her glasses - and as such, is a woman after my own heart. If I could spend a day poking around Iris's jewellery collection, I would be one happy, shiny magpie.  Just don't ask her what her favourite accessory is. When one fashion journalist dared raise the subject, she was rebuffed immediately, "Why do you fashion people always ask that question? I have several accessories, I couldn’t pick just one! It’s like asking me ‘Who is your favourite child?’

In a paean to Iris on her 99th birthday, journalist Kettj Talon wrote: "Mrs Apfel's style is unconventional, eccentric, excessive, bold, layered, coloruful, baroque. Dressing for Iris is a process of jazz improvisation. Following only her rhythm and attitude, Iris is a master at mixing pieces found in flea markets with others of haute couture. Her outfits are a free combination of eras, cultures, made of everything she loves: bracelets, bright colours, bold prints, Balenciaga, Dries Van Noten, Oscar de la Renta, marabou feathers, furs, plastic jewellery, ethnic garments, denim,  Her motto? "Forget the rules, if you like it wear it.""

Iris celebrating her 99th birthday. She is due to celebrate her 100th this month

Iris Apfel turns 100 next month and is considered one of the most stylish women in the world. Unconventional, eccentric, excessive, Iris has subverted every rule, destroying stereotypes and taboos about age, showing that to become an 'It girl' you don't need to be in your twenties, but, above all, that getting old doesn't necessarily mean mortifying yourself and dressing frumpily. Quite the opposite. The only important thing is to stay true to yourself - a mantra Iris repeats over and over.

Whereas most 'It' girls have faded into obscurity well before their first wrinkle (largely because, sadly, the media has little interest in women of a certain age),. but Iris has her own view on the subject, commenting, “If you can’t be pretty, you have to learn to make yourself attractive. I found that all the pretty girls I went to high school with came to middle age as frumps, because they just got by with their pretty faces, so they never developed anything. They never learned how to be interesting. But if you are bereft of certain things, you have to make up for them in certain ways. Don’t you think?”

Iris's style is immediately recognisable. Although a fashion icon, she is no fashion victim. Iris has always dressed in her own style and to her own taste. With her shock of white hair, ginormous black round rimmed glasses and bold lipstick and nails her beauty regime appears as the only constant, because  her outfits take in everything from the baroque to renaissance art, bright bold clashing colours are common and then there's the jewellery I already mentioned. With her more is more attitude, Jewish New Yorker Iris style manages to look perfectly styled even though her outfits are usually utterly extravagant and completely mad. Iris looks like she's rolled naked around every floor in MoMA, clothing herself in every great genre of art from contemporary to ethnic to classical , and then dived headfirst into Aladdins Cave and come up trumps. Her outfits are truly inspirational.

Iris and her hustand, Carl, in 1947

But from the beginning, who is she, and how did the fame start?

Iris worked her life as an Interior Designer with her husband, Carl, the love of her life and partner for over 70 years til the day he died. They set up their own successful textile company and designing for the Kennedy's as well as a contract with the White House that spanned 9 presidencies. She did not become famous til her mid 80s, when when the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art showed her wardrobe in an exhibit called Rara Avid (Rare Bird): The Irreverent Iris Apfel.  Self deprecatingly, she calls herself a "geriatric starlet". But really she is also a world-famous fashion icon, a regular front-row guest at fashion shows. She has over a million followers on Instagram where she shows off her different outfits in her extravagantly styled apartment. - an apartment that's chock-full of European antiques she's collected on her travels, clashing fabrics, eclectic artwork and racks and racks of her extensive clothing and accessory collections. Architectural Digest's peek inside her home is nothing short of fascinating.

In a recent interview, Iris gave her own take on beauty and style, commenting they were all about individuality and confidence:

“Nothing exists in a vacuum, so of course style and beauty are connected. There's all kinds of beauty – savage beauty, sweet beauty, artificial beauty, even sexy beauty. But it’s all about point of view. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder – every culture has its standards of beauty, and those standards change with time. What some tribes consider beautiful we would consider hideous, and vice versa. And when we look back on styles from the past, sometimes we think “ugh, awful,” and at other times we think “how beautiful.” If everybody thought the same thing was beautiful all the time, it would be pretty awful!

“Beauty is largely in your head. When you’re somebody who’s not a natural beauty, but you're attractive, it’s about smoke and mirrors in a way. There are certain things I know look more attractive on me than others, and certain ways that my hair looks better. If you spend a little time on yourself, you usually get results. And confidence is very important. No matter how pretty you are, if you look ill at ease in your own skin, then you're not going to look so beautiful. I think serenity can be a large part of someone’s beauty.

When it comes to clothes, Iris stauncly beleives style has nothing to do with money:

When asked if it is possible to buy style, Iris responded "Style has nothing to do with money. It's a matter of attitude. The most stylish people I ever saw were in Naples right after the Second World War. They were really threadbare but put themselves together with so much dash, like placing a flower in the buttonhole of a tattered suit."

"I like simple, architectural clothes. With accessories, you can make 50 outfits. I learned that from my mother because I was a child of the Depression."

Most importantly Style is not about what you wear, but how you wear it:

“Style is not about wearing expensive clothes. You can have all kinds of money and have no style at all. You can be dressed in the latest couture, shod in ten-thousand-dollar shoes and be baubled to the nines, and look like a Christmas tree. It’s not what you wear but how you wear it.

Iris Apfel immortalised at 96 with her own image Barbie weraing a copy of her green Gucci suit and oversized glasses

“I’m just as happy to wear bangles that cost me three dollars as I am to wear valuable pieces — and I like to mix high and low, putting things together to wear as the spirit moves me. When you try to hard to have style, you look uncomfortable, like you’re wearing a costume, like the clothes are entering the room before you do. If you’re uptight, you won’t be able to carry off even a seemingly perfect outfit. If that’s happening, I say abandon the whole thing. It’s better to be happy than well dressed.”

While I admire Iris' ability to clash patterns and colours, she would be a pretty difficult style inspiration for someone who lives in black - you would think. But Iris does do black. we have witnessed many occasions where the style star chooses black instead. She, of course, has a range of jet-black jewellery to throw on, but when it comes to wearing darker clothes, her outlook revolves around texture, texture and more texture. Think embroidery, Mongolian lambswool, beading, fur, leather and silks.

Similarly, one might consider such a conoisseur of fashion, too high-brow to wear jeans. Not Iris. In fact, Iris counts herself as one of the first women to interpret the humble worker's trouser into her wardrobe.Iris had a lot to say about the garment when talking to Architectural Digest in 2011: "Have you seen the prices? Scandalous. I mean, yes, if they are embroidered or beaded or made special in some divine way, but honestly, jeans are jeans. I live in them most of the time, but I had a helluva time getting a pair of jeans around 1940, when I was at the University of Wisconsin. I thought I'd wear jeans, a turban, and some old earrings. So I went to an Army-Navy store, but you have to remember, back in those days, all the men in Wisconsin were the size of Paul Bunyan. Then the salesman told me, 'young ladies don't wear jeans.' He wouldn't sell me any or have them cut down. So I kept going back to the store, and they kept throwing me out, so to get rid of me, they finally ordered me some boys' jeans. I love men's jeans; they fit me better."

On style today Apfel had this to say. “In New York you can almost tell a person’s zip code by the way they dress. People say they want to look different but they all want to be in a pack… God put you on the earth as an individual, not as a pack-member.”

So who does the World's Greatest Style Icon consider stylish? No-one young today, according to one interview, but she did profess to admire several ladies once. Iris has never followed the rules of fashion and always dressed following only her instinct and personal taste, but, besides her mother, there are three muses that have influenced Apfel's style with their unique and unconventional attitude: Pauline de Rothschild, Millicent Rogers and Elsie de Wolfe aka Lady Mendl, socialite and the first woman interior designer in history.

Speaking on how to develope your own personal style, she says the key is to put in effort. “First of all it’s work. You have to know who you are. You have to know yourself,” she says. “You have to know what you can pull off, what you feel comfortable with, what you can afford; all of that and work accordingly,” adding that doing your research is crucial. “Look at a lot of magazines, shops, other people, hone your eye and decide what you like.”

Ultimately Iris's attitude is to keep your youthful wonder and not take yourself or fashion too seriously:

"When you get older, as I often paraphrase an old family friend, if you have two of anything, chances are one of them is going to hurt when you get up in the morning. But you have to get up and move beyond the pain. If you want to stay young, you have to think young. Having a sense of wonder, a sense of humour, and a sense of curiosity — these are my tonic.

They keep you young, childlike, open to new people and things, ready for another adventure. I never want to be an old fuddy-duddy; I hold the self-proclaimed record for being the World’s Oldest Living Teenager and I intend to keep it that way.”

Iris also maintains a healthy perspective, not one to starve herself into the latest fashions : “I think being happy is much more important. I mean, if you’re plump and you like willowy-looking clothes then…starving yourself is not pleasant. Just forget about those clothes. Clothes are not the most important thing in the world,” Apfel says. “Dressing up should be a joyful, fun experience for yourself… for some people it’s an easy job and for other people it’s a chore. And if you look up-tight and you’re unhappy with it then I think it’s better to look like everybody else than be unhappy.” 

When asked what style mantra she lived by, Iris answered, 

I don’t live by style, I have a lot of other things to live by. I don’t have any mantras, I don’t have any rules, I dress the way I please and I do what I please and I do everything for my good. I don’t intellectualise it or make up rules and regulations.

Spoken like a true style icon. Happy Birthday Iris!!!

What is the difference betwen fashion and style?

A friend of mine recently decided that she wanted to change her style now that she was in her 40s. She always had her own sense of what she liked and was never afraid to experiment, so I was surprised when she started searching online, speaking to stylists, buying books on how to dress - because for me, consulting others on how to dress was never something I would consider. Fashion has always seemed something organic to me, something that might be a mish-mash of different sources, but never something that I had to research as such. 

But then when I thought about it, maybe we are not all as original as we think. I've always been interested in fashion - read fashion magazines, books on fashion, gone to exhibitions and watched documentaries. I've followed fashion weeks across the globe to see what the latest trends are and kept up to date on what my favourite designers are putting out. But most of all - I've always been a people watcher. The best fashion, and if you really want to be ahead of the crowd - it to know what's going on on the street. I live in Camden, so I've always been surrounded by fashion on the street - going to Sainsbury's for a pint of milk and walking along the high street - particularly on a weekend - is like a melting pot of all the latest styles and influences. If it were an ice-cream, it would be every flavour in the shop with all the sprinkles and a flake.

I always thought that my style was my own - as original as it could be. I don't chase the latest trends. I never did the puffball, you'll never catch me in a pleated midi length skirt as they make me look colossal - as do empire line dresses. And I've always felt - odd - in baseball hats. Perhaps this is the difference between following fashion and having your own style? Or is it that now I've got older, I have a better idea of what suits me?

But is anyone truly an original? I see lots of people with great style - but is anyone really that unique? If you hang out in Shoreditch or the trendy parts of Hackney you'll come across a lot of people who dress cool. They know how to mix vintage with designer and hight street. They look hip for sure. But they also all look the same. 

Rather than being the trailblazers we think we are, maybe whether we like it or not, we take in what we see and form our own version of this - which would mean that no-one is really original, but some people might have a great sense of style. 

So who is deciding what is fashionable at any given time? There's an old adage that says fashion is just recycled every 10 years and reworked to fit in with modern tastes.  And we all gobble it up, afraid of being out of the loop or left behind.

This quote from the film "The Devil Wears Prada" pretty much sums up where fashion trends come from: "You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select, I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent, wasn't it, who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it, uh, filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs, and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff."

If you Google, 'who decides what is fashionable?', you are met with this creepy answer that sounds like something from a QAnon pamphlet:

"People in the fashion business say trends are rarely decided by individuals. Instead, they are decided by committee. One of the most influential committees is a group of 10 people whose names are a secret."

The truth is a little less elusive, but not by much. Whereas once upon a time, the King of Queen over the top wardrobe was seen as the pinnacle of taste and trends then filtered down to the masses (Louis XIV was the King of Couture, darling and Queen Elizabeth's ruffs were fire). More recently Fashion Houses might have called the shots, but since the birth of the Internet, social media and influences, sub-cultures and kids on the street are now the major influencers of fashion forecasters.

Fashion write Sneha Conda has listed exactly how trends make it to your wardrobe. She writes:

🛍 ️Trend forecasters use the above information to analyze and predict trends up to 10 years into the future. 

🛍️ Data from trend forecasters and in-house designers are combined and a collection of 30–120 pieces is designed by fashion houses. 

🛍️ A sample range and lookbook is rolled out for fashion buyers at stores like Saks, Nordstrom, Bergdorf Goodman etc. 

🛍️ Collections are released as Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter, twice a year during fashion shows that are held six months in advance of the season. 

🛍️ Based on what’s trending, fashion buyers decide what to stock and how much of it, in their stores. If you complain that everything in fast fashion chains like H&M and Zara look the same, it’s because they subscribe to the same trend forecasts. They then translate trends from the runway into much lower-priced versions. 

🛍️ Dependent on the demand, the fashion garment supply chain gets cracking and the trends are manufactured and shipped to stores across the world. 

🛍️ Early adopters and online influencers then wear $1,425 destroyed sneakers that look like they were definitely attacked by feral dogs and over-sized moth-chewed sweaters and make you hate yourself, but make you want it too.

And that folks, is science.

So if fashion is disposable (clothes waste, recycling, upcycling etc is a whole other story I will write about some day).

Which brings us to the age old question, what is the difference between fashion and style? Yves Saint Laurent once quipped, "fashions fade, style is eternal." He of course, is a man who would know, and this most certainly rings true. However, his clothes were certainly part of fashion - Le Smoking is still referenced today, half a century after it first hit the catwalk. So what is the difference between the two? Indeed is there a difference?

David and Victoria Beckham in thieir youth and in head to toe Gucci leather.

Fashion is defined as what is being presented and worn by the masses at any given period. It is a craze, a passing phenomenon. When you follow fashion, you are essentially in a comparison mode, desiring to appear and be viewed in the same way as everyone else. You purchase and wear the same clothing that are sold in stores, portrayed in the media, and demonstrated on the runway. It may be tiresome, not to mention a financial burden, to have to keep up with the seasonal trends of the day. 

On the other hand, style is distinct and highly personal. It is a distinctive manner of expressing oneself. Instead, it is a reflection of your persona. Fashion is transient, however style is eternal to paraphrase Yves. It is possible to have style without fashion, but not fashion without style. Style, it would appear, transcends fashion. You can be stylish without following all the latest trends. 

Your style is personal - it is about establishing your own distinct look. In cultivating your own style, you are instantly imbued with an inner confidence and charisma. Style can take time, and work. Think of David Beckham in his youth - all 90s curtains, head to toe designer looks, matching leather outfits with Victoria, and who can forget the sarong incident? So-wrong! But today, with his easy, laid back jeans and t-shirt style, earthy tones and baker boy hats, he is always topping mens 'most stylish' lists. His tattoo sleeves and immaculately groomed hair and beard are copied the world over. He is undoubtedly, whether you like his style or not, a male style icon.

David Beckham sports a more laid back style these days, that is copied the world over.

There is a school of thought that says it is more important to focus on an overall style, rather than aiming to be fashionable. Designer Marc Jacobs once said, “I’m a bit suspicious of men who follow fashion too closely.”

By developing your style, you create your own self-brand. Your style is all about how you present yourself to the world, and this is what I think my friend wanted to shake up. Fashion is fun and frivolous, and part of growing up involves experimenting with what you like and don't like. True style, on the other hand, commands attention. It requires a comfortability in ones own skin as it may require you to stray from what is deemed popular. It may occasionally mean you are accidentally in fashion, or it may mean you are accidentally out of it, but this is irrelevant. Style, in this sense, is always fresh and timeless. While trends come and go, if you have a sense of style that works for you - and that you feel confident wearing, you will always look good.

All this got me thinking about my own sense of style. Who inspired it? How did it evolve? So for the next couple of weeks, I will be examining who inspired my own stlyle, from my mother to Madonna, the list is quite eclectic!