TikTok Trends Get a Slow Fashion Makeover
Creative styling solutions for the era of hyperspeed trends
By Elise Nye
Instagram | TikTok
Something about the outfit videos on TikTok make me feel alive, even if I’m just living vicariously through a girl with a shag dancing in an immaculate ’70s-inspired apartment. I have spent an obscene amount of time flicking through them, watching trends pass by in a hyperspeed cycle that leaves little time to participate before each style begins to feel tired. By “trends,” I mean popular aesthetics that can either define an entire era (like flapper dresses) or define a few weeks (like Julia Fox’s dissected denim look that inspired many DIY projects with questionable utility).
Some people dress exclusively in trendy clothing, buying whatever is in vogue and swapping it out for whatever comes around the next season, while others have an enduring personal style all their own — think Steve Jobs’s black turtleneck and jeans, the Green Lady’s monochromatic looks, and Iris Apfel’s fanciful layering. Most people fall somewhere in the middle. With the rise of fast fashion, however, it’s easier than ever to spend a day looking entirely like someone else at the expense of developing your own personal style.
Take the knockoff looks Fashion Nova dropped just days after Kylie Jenner’s 21st birthday. They were everywhere for a few weeks, but no one is wearing their sparkly, strapless, bike-short romper four years later. That trend was designed to be tossed. We treat an outfit like a meme sent to a friend and forgotten seconds later.
We tend to think of “sustainable” as equivalent to “green” or “eco-friendly,” but there’s a parallel meaning that is just as important: What can we humans keep up with, physically and emotionally? Creators are forced to overproduce to stay relevant while consumers are lured in so many directions. We are all spread thin and fast approaching a breaking point. If this keeps going, will we be left with anything of substance? Or will our cultural moment be reduced to smears on glass — a blurry, transparent time between the past and whatever the future has in store for us? How can we become inspired by what people wear today, yet stay true to our personal style and avoid succumbing to fast fashion?
I can’t address all our woes, but as a vintage reseller with nearly four years of experience, I can offer advice on resisting the temptation to binge on cheaply made, throwaway garments to keep up with microtrend cycles. We can participate in the fashion trends that excite us by learning how to creatively style the clothes already in our closets. Of course, creative styling with available resources is a choice for some and a necessity for others. Regardless, transforming what you already own into new and diverse looks is an effective behavior for resisting the toxic, exploitative, capitalist, fast-fashion machine.
The Slow Notion Styling Challenge
To test this trend-approximating approach, I sat down with Haley Burson, Slow Notion’s design director, to create three microtrend looks using pieces already in Haley’s wardrobe: twee, dark academia, and clowncore. As an added challenge, we decided in advance to reuse one piece — a white, button-up blouse with a bow collar — across all three looks. As I write this article, all of these trends feel current; by the time it’s published, they may have fallen to the wayside. This is precisely why we need to be resourceful stylers: What use is it to invest money and materials in a look that might feel irrelevant in just a few months?
Dark Academia
A collection of dark academia inspiration. Left: Caitlin Pellizzi in her Outfit Repeater-worthy antique blouse, Center: a naturalist still-life from From Fast Fashion To Foraging, Right: an Irish plaid and cardigan ensemble from Faking Vintage.
This trend is achievable with a couple of sweaters, professional basics like trousers and button-downs — closet staples that are easy to find secondhand — and a quiet afternoon sipping tea surrounded by stacks of your favorite novels. I love that dark academia encourages using props like books, coffee mugs, or quills; wearing this trend makes you look as if you’re about to run to your next class or start work on an essay at the library.
While the romanticization of this “on campus” look took off when students were obligated to take online classes due to the pandemic, I hope dark academia sticks around. If you have a professional wardrobe you haven’t touched since going remote, or a blazer you thought you’d wear for job interviews, the dark academia trend is a great excuse to take those pieces for a spin!
Haley’s dark academia ensemble includes a gray blazer, a teal and plum plaid skirt, black lace-up boots, and black backpack.
For Haley’s dark academia look, we layered the white blouse with a light-gray wool blazer and a muted plaid skirt. While plaid isn’t a prerequisite for an academic look, it immediately conjures up school uniforms and collegiate spaces. The blazer is a fairly neutral choice; Haley has other options in bolder colors and more retro silhouettes, but the classic slate gray reads more “academic.”
Dark academia outfits are often more than the sum of their parts, combining basic pieces that don’t say much on their own but together evoke nostalgia for studying in cozy spaces and exploring philosophical ideas. This outfit’s color palette is more like “light academia,” but I’m not here to split hairs. Trend rules aren’t set in stone and we can interact with them playfully by swapping in the colors and shapes we like best.
If I were working with my wardrobe, I would have styled this blazer and skirt pairing with caramel loafers and a leather messenger bag, but practical Haley opted for a sturdy black boot and backpack. You don’t have to trash your pieces in favor of new ones that fit precisely into a viral aesthetic, especially if the ones you already have can capture its spirit. Breaking the rules to suit your taste and using your favorite colors isn’t cheating; it’s key to developing a personal style.
Twee
A collection of twee inspiration. Left: "Vintage Fashion Show" by Luke Hayfield Photography (licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). Center: A woman in a gray dress with a tiny white collar, surrounded by retro inspired decor by Victoria_Art. Right: An extremely twee couple carrying vintage cameras (from Pexels.com).
This aesthetic was seared into my brain by hours of scrolling through 1950s and ’60s vintage-inspired dresses on ModCloth in my teens. If you’re not familiar with twee, think Peter Pan collars, quirky prints featuring flitting birds and hot air balloons, and Zooey Deschanel singing “Who’s That Girl?” The layering of collars and cardigans feels similar to dark academia, but this trend is infused with brighter colors and a playful youthfulness that make it unique.
Haley’s twee outfit consists of a bright striped pinafore dress worn over her white blouse and paired with loafer-style block heels.
Our twee outfit layered Haley’s white shirt under a bright pinafore with ample pleats and retro-toned stripes. Haley loves dresses and skirts, and layering any number of them with the white blouse might have yielded a perfect twee look, but the bold print, a-line skirt, and mustard tones — reminiscent of peak twee in the 2010s — sealed the deal. A low-heeled loafer adds a sweet-yet-sturdy feminine base to the outfit.
Clowncore
A selection of fun Clowncore looks by Kelley Heyer, featuring lots of bright colors, ruffled collars, pointed caps, and cheeky face paint.
As the name suggests, this trend calls for dressing like a clown. While I see very few people executing head-to-toe clowncore looks to the tune of Kelley Heyer for their everyday attire, I see it in oversized collars, “Unhinged Fashion Girlie”-inspired layering, and Euphoria-style makeup. I think what I love most about seeing this TikTok trend leak into everyday wear is that it’s relatively effortful in its obvious makeup and overstated accessories; a revolt against the deceptively laborious laid-back, “cool girl” aesthetic of years past.
Haley’s clowncore look revolves around her colorful oversized vintage cardigan and bright red paints (her multicolored hair also lends itself well to the clowncore vibe).
To create a clowncore-inspired ensemble, we paired Haley’s white blouse with a colorful cardigan and bold red pants. Haley has a ton of funky 80s sweaters, which we tapped into for their bold whimsy. This one’s oversized buttons remind me of the vintage clown costume one TikToker styled to wear to a Moschino fashion show, and the bright, bubbly pattern make it the perfect cornerstone of this look.
Haley is a bit of a footwear utilitarian. I might have suggested colorful boots or platform sandals. The black boots she chose disappear a bit in this outfit. But the boldness of the cardigan and pants carry the look without Haley’s having to go out and find wild shoes to complete it. Lastly, don’t forget to play with your hair and makeup. Haley’s colorful locks absolutely pop in this outfit and add to its playfulness without the need for extensive makeup. She could have added two small dots of eyeliner directly below her eyes for a more overtly clownish character, or gone even crazier with hair and makeup for an event.
Make These Styles Your Own
These outfits would have turned out differently had I styled them for myself or anyone else. Haley’s wardrobe is full of dresses and feminine pieces, whereas I often style things with blocky or flowy pants. I might have styled my dark academia outfit as a menswear look, but we both would have understood the dark academia assignment, and that’s what’s so fun about fashion.
No matter what trends have their moment in the sun this year, you’re likely to be able to approximate many of them with the items you already have. But what if you don’t feel like you have anything in your wardrobe that fits a trend you love? A few things might be happening.
First, maybe your taste is shifting or you want to start expressing a different side of yourself. If you’re dreaming about a specific piece for longer than a month and can think of multiple outfits you’d wear it with, try borrowing a similar item from a friend to see how it feels. Or see if you can find it secondhand.
Second, the trend may only feel exciting because of its novelty. If nothing in your closet comes close to an aesthetic you’re considering, it may not be something you’d feel comfortable actually wearing. How many times have you bought an item because it felt exhilaratingly different, but then had no idea what to do with it once it was hanging up in your closet? Some things can simply be admired from afar. Just because it's cool doesn’t mean it needs to be yours.
Fast fashion and microtrends create so many opportunities for us to abandon our personal styles. And while I hope we can all shift to shopping secondhand and watch the fast-fashion behemoth burn itself out, that monster is still projected to have massive growth in the coming years.
It’s tempting to soothe our stress with a small purchase and quell uncomfortable emotions by wearing clothes that make us feel like someone else. Speaking as someone who has tried both, those strategies never work. And if many of us decided that we actually have everything we need (and buy the rest secondhand), we could collectively diminish the power of fast fashion companies that are destroying the planet and exploiting workers.
The upside of these accelerating trend cycles is that you can pick and choose the ones you admire aesthetically and feel comfortable wearing. And it means that any pieces in your wardrobe that start to feel a bit dated will be back in no time. There’s no need to toss them! I’d love to see the trend-loving TikTok community evolve so that pressure to chase every aspirational aesthetic is replaced with content that inspires us to shop our own closets and feel more comfortable being ourselves.
Last Updated: June 16, 2022
Editor: kat baus | Designer: Emma Geddes | Photographer: Haley Burson | Copywriter: Elise Nye | Copy Editor: Kate Frankowicz
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