How Social Media Has Changed Fashion

When I was a little girl, I pined over my only portal into the fashion world: the glossy pages of magazines. If you had told me that one day, I would have direct access to the crazy world of fashion from a tiny phone screen, I would have brushed it off as something from The Matrix. I grew up in what is now referred to as the “traditional” fashion era, and I was obsessed with all things fashion. Those magazines were my bible, and I acted on just about every word.
                                             

At the time, I had a sense that I was far removed from the glamorous world of fashion, but I did not understand the extent to which trends were decided for me. Industry gatekeepers—like buyers for major retailers and magazine editors—kept fashion exclusive. They had their kingdom of trend-happy consumers under tight control. Fashion Weeks consisted of runway shows where high-profile editors and endorsed celebrities sat in the front row, and the chosen pieces from designer collections would not be seen in stores for another four to six months.

Consumers are smarter than ever because of the variety of products to choose from, the constant evolution of technology and the all-access mindset of social media. As they say, knowledge is power. Today’s landscape of fashion is changing dramatically, and the average consumer is becoming more and more empowered.

If a new designer collection is on the runway, you can watch the fashion show from your couch with livestreaming platforms like Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. Designers recognize the purchasing power that consumers hold, and today, that buying power means more than that of the traditional industry gatekeepers.

In fact, what bloggers are wearing on Instagram and other social media outlets has created such an impact on the way that consumers shop that retailers have reached out to them for content collaborations.

For instance, blogger Jacie Duprey of Damsel in Dior is an ambassador for Old Navy, mixing its affordable options with her own designer style to create one-of-a-kind looks.

French dressing

The Royal Ontario Museum's Dr. Alexandra Palmer says its upcoming Christian Dior exhibition celebrates the legendary atelier and the women who wore its creations.

One of the most meaningful post-show bows ever taken at a fashion presentation was when the entire Christian Dior atelier came out on stage at the end of its 2011 fall/winter Haute Couture collection. Fifteen-year creative head John Galliano had just been infamously dismissed, and the full team's appearance was a gesture that highlighted the fact that a designer for a brand is only one cog in the creative execution wheel.
                                                       

               
We've seen unprecedented results from international fashion exhibitions; why do you think there's such an appetite for these kinds of shows?

Fashion is something that everyone can relate to in a very personal way, whether you love it or hate it. It's a daily, ongoing relationship or trial that we have. With fashion, you can try on things and discard them or take them on physically in a way that you can't with any other form of decorative arts. It's also a way of expressing ourselves in very complex social, psychological and artistic ways. But fashion is very much associated with women and frivolity and vanity, so we have these huge complexes about it. Museum fashion exhibitions valorize it, and make it all right to think about fashion in an intellectual way.

Was there the same kind of gravitas to wearing a Dior label as there is today?

It was always prestigious to wear Haute Couture dresses. They're beautifully made and from Paris, so there's this magic about that. But it was a different time. Women wore the dresses for their social functions, for their daily lives, and for a lot of the philanthropic work they did — The Art Gallery of Toronto, as it was called, the symphony, the ballet, the hospitals. A lot of these women wore their suits to the committee meetings to plan the events. But what's really different is the consumption. Wardrobes weren't as huge and over-the-top as they are today. People really valued their clothes and they wore them a lot. The clothes were expensive, but not outrageously expensive. They were "affordable". They were for the elite, the women with means, but then they would donate them. There was no real vintage market until the late nineties, so they were given to the Hadassah Bazaar or the Junior League. As a member of the Hadassah or a member of the Junior League, that's what you did. And then they were also given to the museum, because the ROM's Betty Brett, the curator, was consciously trying to build up an Haute Couture collection at the Museum as examples of good design for Canadian designers and the public to learn about, and to be able to study.

Meet The Next Gen Fashion Disruptors

Can the next generation change the way the fashion industry operates for the better? We’re thinking yes. The future looks bright. On Tuesday night in Sydney, the UTS Fashion class of 2017 showed their graduate collections, before an audience that included Akira Isogawa, award-winning ex-student Kacey Devlin and fashion business insiders.
                                             

Sustainability, redefining gender and challenging the meaning of luxury were all on the menu.

Backstage Gina Snodgrass explained of her stand-out ‘Dandy Boys’ collection: “I don’t feel restricted by traditional masculine or feminine forms of dress. I looked at how those gendered dress codes have been created over time, and how they’ve changed. Historically if you look at court portraiture for example the men are always very elaborately dressed.” So she decked out her boys in smocked and beaded shirting and fine wool tailoring bonded with metallic lace. Today the old codes being dismantled, and Snodgrass, having been sponsored by the Australian Wool Education Trust (AWET), is well placed to build new ones in cloth.

Jessica Guzman also looked to the historical with a fresh eye. Her ‘Moral Panic’ collection was inspired by British class tensions. She was thinking about “status change [and] fashion as a tool of empowerment” - fake it till you make it. It was a smart idea, and she explored it with confidence using strong colour and witty print. There was a real feeling for the Zeitgeist here, especially in the sportswear referencing. “I think she hit the nail on the head of what people are really responding to right now” says Chant.

Backstage Lisa Liu explained that she began by looking at “the strong masculine culture of military uniforms and how I could subvert that.” She did so through pop colour and exuberant volume. Think sugar pink! In a tiered puffer coat with emerald green lining cinched with a neon orange tactical vest.

Disposable will be a dirty word at first Eco Fashion Week

A Perth woman who is one of vegan actress Pamela Anderson’s favourite designers will host the country’s first-ever eco fashion festival in November.
Disposable will be a dirty word at the festival showcasing durable, small-run clothing designed and made in Australia.
                                                 

Brigadoon designer Zuhal Kuvan-Mills’ Green Embassy label has garnered a global following but the interest in sustainable fashion in her adopted hometown is slight, to say the least.

“I made a little top and I sent it to her and she said she would wear that top during one of her magazine shoots alongside Vivienne Westwood,” Ms Kuvan-Mills said.
Eco Fashion Week is supported by the Australian Made campaign, which will provide a prize worth up to $20,000 to the winner of Best New Australian-Made Design. It will run from November 23-27 in Fremantle.

In the interim, you can pop a choc top at the latest instalment of Kingsman: The Golden Circle which has just arrived in cinemas. Since the first Kingsman film opened in 2015, also directed by Matthew Vaughn, the fashion brand collaboration has continued with Mr Porter, one of the most finely tuned fashion-film partnerships attempted (simply synching film and fashion production timelines makes the mind boggle). The brand has continued in the interim. The sixth collection is its most successful to date, so something’s clearly working. The seventh collection coincides with the new film, and as such brings a new slant alongside the traditional Savile Row style (pictured), namely more casual US styles, as seen on the characters from Statesman (the Kingsman spy ring’s US counterpart). This includes leather bomber jackets from San Francisco brand Golden Bear, which has created these since the 1940s, and felt hats from stetson.

Sarina store celebrates vintage fashion

VICTORIAN styling combined with steam power- era clothing best describes the fashion that has swept over the Mackay region in recent months, a genre being called steampunk.
                                               

A new store dedicated entirely to the theme has also popped up in Sarina, selling everything from steampunk to rockabilly and vintage style clothing and furniture.

SteamPunk Time was opened by owners Barbara and Rick Davis, who were looking to fill a vacant retail space on Broad St and decided they wanted to bring something unique to town.

They've now been in business for over a year and have managed to generated quite a following of new SteamPunk and rockabilly lovers from across the region.

Sales attendant and son to the couple, Frazer Davis, said the store offers a total mix of mis-matched and unique items, including lots of leather, black, crazy patterns, goggles, top hats and more.

"It started when my mum Barbara visited England and purchased a leather Around the World in 80 Days-style top hat. She was like 'wow, I love that' and from there learned all about what steampunk was.

SANDIE has left the building and Gypsy Lane owner Leanne Pomering said she was not coming back following the recent change of name and revamp of the popular Normanby Street shop in Yeppoon.

Leanne said the rebranding of the shop was a natural progression and fitting for the direction her business had taken.

Leanne said the shop was looking fabulous with new lighting that was much more environmentally friendly and there was accessibility for everyone, including mobility aides and prams.

Leanne's greatest pride in Gypsy Lane is that her daughter now assists her with merchandising.

Remembering fashion's lowest moment: low-slung jeans

Hit the road Paris Hilton then, now and always. With the amount of time I spent being inundated with images of your hip flexors throughout uni I could have graduated as a doctor of physiotherapy instead of just scraping through with an arts degree.
                                             

Get into the sea Bella Hadid with your new Off White low-slung denim trousers that cost more than a new Corolla (with non-faulty airbags).

I came of age in the early 2000s. An era of Lara Bingle beauty, The Hills and Anna Nicole Smith endorsed diet pills. Blonde and waif-ish was "hot" and low-riders were everywhere - in clubs, in shopping centres and in my chiropractor's waiting room. I was such a slave to the fashion of the time that I'm pretty sure I developed scoliosis while simultaneously trying to contain my dignity and peach emoji-esque derriere while wearing  trousers that had a rise the size of a Tic Tac.

This was around the time Hilton's fame (and infamy) was peaking. She was an oversized sunglasses wearing, low-rider jean advocating queen. A statuesque, monosyllabic monarch of the zeitgeist. Her Ladies in Waiting, like Nicole Richie and Kim Kardashian, were always shorter, size 10ish brunettes who, at the time, resembled what women looked like in reality instead of reality TV.

With the amount of money I, a broad with legs my grandmother once proclaimed at Christmas as "thick", wasted at Forever New  trying to emulate women like Hilton, I could now be living large in a Bondi penthouse, having my smashed avo and eating it too. My legs comfortably ensconced in activewear, because it is 2017 and leggings are pants.

Indie brands create products that leave minimal waste in their making

As fast fashion -manufacturing of garments quickly, by large retail brands -leads to increasing wastage of fabric and resources, smaller indie brands and designers in Bengaluru are working in their own little way to create products that are not only responsibly sourced but also leave minimal waste in their making.
                                     

Akin to slow-cooking, the process is time consuming, involves a high degree of human intervention and is expensive.But then, that is the price one would have to pay for the drawbacks of assembly-line production, they argue.

What's more, the fabric used in the collection is hand woven.“The easiest way to think about sustainability is being mindful of raw materials, using sustainable textiles, limiting wastage, preserving skills and providing employment,“ says Narayanan, 36, the creative director of Brass Tacks, which opened in the city recently.

Ierene Francis, who runs Corvus, an online store that sells hand-made cotton bags has a similar thought. Worried about the impact of plastic on the environment, Francis decided to experiment with cotton to start her small enterprise. “I am glad that I run a business that is not adding plastic in the oceans,“ she says. Francis does not allow plastic packaging of her products even on ecommerce sites. She, in fact had to reason with ecommerce platform Amazon for sustainable packaging. “I am amazed how ecommerce is unaffected by the plastic ban,“ she says.

JD Institute of Fashion Technology last month conducted its annual design awards titled Future Origins. The theme was innovative, ethical and sustainable fashion. Designers and students Krithika PB and Jaisel Jain who won best contemporary design collection, worked a firstof-a-kind fabric called Nettle, which is neither dyed nor bleached. “The fabric is manufactured from a weed that can grow in any kind of soil and does not need pesticide or extra water, unlike other fibers. It is also an all-weather fabric,“ say the 20-year-old fashion innovators of the brand The Closet Queen.

Beauty, fashion and looking ‘hot’

Last September, comedian Amy Schumer posted pictures of the covers of two US magazines – Girls’ Life and Boys’ Life – on Instagram with the caption “No.” The Conversation

The pressure for girls to focus on how they look or fashion themselves after adults has been much discussed. Most of this, however, has focused on “traditional” forms of media – books, magazines, TV shows – but this does not accurately depict the changing mediascapes of girls’ lives, in particular, the growing significance of YouTube.

YouTube has attained a global watch time of over 500 million hours daily. Growing by 60 per cent each year, it is prevalent in many young people’s everyday lives. But how do YouTubers typically construct and celebrate what it means to be a girl? In 2014, there were at least 45,000 YouTube channels that featured beauty-related content. In June 2016, there were more than 5.3 million videos that capitalise on the female appearance on YouTube.

Fashion

Haul videos are one of the most popular genres uploaded by young female YouTubers. In haul videos, YouTubers typically introduce and describe the products that they have purchased, after each shopping trip.

If you like fashion films and documentaries on designers then Frock Club - a group that goes behind the scenes to learn more about the fickle, fast-paced world of fashion - has something to offer.

Local freelance pattern engineer Ruth Povall started Frock Club to educate people about the fashion industry, and hosts concerns about the sustainability of fast fashion, the decline of quality hand-made fashion in Australia and the loss of skilled technical trades that contribute to Australia as a global design hub.

Introducing ELLE's Fashion Now

This week, ELLE is launching a global intiative to find and celebrate the world's best new fashion designers, and you're invited to have your say! 46 edition of ELLE from around the world have each nominated their country's most promising rising design talent, with the overall winner to be voted by you, dear readers.
                                       

ELLE Australia selected sisters Beth and Tessa Macgraw from Macgraw for the honour of representing our nation on this global platform, adding yet another feather to their already rather full fashion-award cap.

ELLE's fashion director Rachel Wayman said of the decision "Australian label Macgraw embraces the joy of the feminine, fun, fashion extrovert. Designers and sisters, Beth and Tessa Macgraw mix lace, frills, bows and ruffles in a modern way that has attracted the attention of Australian and internationa celebrities alike."

The scale of the tragedy was such that the world could no longer turn a blind eye to the people who make our clothes, often in substandard conditions in some of the poorest countries. And many are paid below what is considered a living wage in their respective countries, meaning they are unable to lift themselves and their families out of the poverty cycle.

The Fashion Revolution movement and organisation was set up in the aftermath of Rana Plaza, with more than 80 countries involved in its message of ethical fashion production, and this week marks Fashion Revolution Week. The overriding message is to urge consumers to ask a simple question of the brands they wear: Who made my clothes?

A look at the role of fashion critics today

Cathy Horyn panned Maria Grazia Chiuri’s fall 2017 show for Dior, noting that her “designs didn’t pull weight” and that she effectively “took the air out of” the house’s famous Bar jacket. She wrote that she had a “beef with Chiuri” — though it had vague foundations, having something to do with a lack of surprise in Chiuri’s designs.

This negativity may be part of Horyn’s schtick, but it runs through other critics’ reviews, as well.

Robin Givhan, of The Washington Post, tends toward drier digs, as with her latest take on Olivier Rousteing’s Balmain: “Consider his fall collection to be a sort of African road trip with ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ blaring from the speakers and huge bags of Cheetos and Doritos piled in the back seat of the Range Rover for snacking.”

An unwelcome question
Robin Givhan was initially frustrated by the question of what a fashion critic’s role is today. “The title ‘fashion critic’ seems to create all kinds of tension, paranoia and concern among people,” she said. The industry might be changing, she added, but the essence of her job remains the same: “to report the news of the industry and look at it with a critical eye.”

Vanessa Friedman agreed, explaining what to her is obvious: “I think a critic’s role has always been to act as [an] interpreter between designer and consumer. That means you bring to it a certain amount of historical and contemporary context. You provide the framework for how people think about clothes.”

The retail response
Paying more attention to what works in retail certainly seems like the practical choice. But perhaps said retailers look to critics’ reviews when shopping for their stores?

Ken Downing, the fashion director and senior vice president of Neiman Marcus, doesn’t. “I’m of the belief that too many opinions cloud your decision-making process and can lead you in a direction that might not be appropriate for your customers,” he said. “I’m not interested in their opinions because I have my own opinion, and I’m really thinking about what’s going to be best for my stores.”

Critics as conduit
Robin Givhan, for her part, said it behooves retailers “to look at a variety of sources of information,” including reviews, “to get the best and most well-rounded sense of a brand’s footprint in the industry.” She also noted that those reviews make up a mere 10 percent of her workload.

How the global giants are squeezing out Australian fashion

It's been a bloody few weeks for Australia's apparel sector as retail's killing season claimed its annual bounty of weak and weary brands.
                                     

Four national apparel chains have collapsed in just two weeks and insolvency specialists claim the combination of rising costs and weak or falling sales have pushed a number of other, prominent fashion chains onto the endangered list.

The carnage of the last fortnight follows the collapse of kids clothing chain Pumpkin Patch as well as Payless Shoes at the end of last year. It's sharpened the focus on Australia's mid-market fashion chains and the immense challenges facing this broad swathe of the retail market.

The storm clouds that gathered over Australia's apparel sector in the past 12 months weren't just the result of the unpredictable weather conditions.

Winter arrived late on the eastern seaboard and then the chilly start to spring forced fashion retailers to cut prices again to move stock.

International fast-fashion superstars like Zara and H&M have taken hundreds of millions of dollars in sales out Australia's apparel sector, leaving long-established brands subsisting on the thinnest of margins and vulnerable to even minor shifts in spending.

JP Morgan analyst Shaun Cousins said the globalisation of Australian retail was most apparent in apparel and it had left domestic chains vulnerable to even relatively small market fluctuations.

Zara's sales in Australia have retreated from their initial "elevated levels", according to Macquarie Wealth Management, but along with Japanese giant Uniqlo and H&M these three brands captured $600 million in Australian apparel sales last year.

Macquarie reports that margins are under pressure at all three of the international chains, but they're still driving sales growth through new store openings and squeezing domestic chains out of the market.

What a fashion buyer thinks you should invest in for work in 2017

Finding the inspiration to get dressed successfully every morning can be a challenge even for the most sartorially astute. So to save you time and pain we’ve quizzed My Chameleon owner, Giselle Farhat on the must-have buys for the working year ahead.
               

What pieces should every woman look to invest in 2017 for work?
1. "A pant suit in a cool grey,
2. A sharp tailored jacket that sits past the hip either single button or double breasted with a wide leg pant or straight cropped pant,
3. The tailored dress with a T-shirt sleeve that finishes just at the knee,
4. A neck tie in silk ivory or classic black,
5. The bold striped shirt with a hint of colour.”

What advice do you have for approaching 2017 with a fresh eye when getting dressed in the morning?
“Start with an open mind and look at incorporating other elements of your wardrobe into your ‘corporate’ attire, whether it be colour, a print or more prominent details such as a bellowed sleeved shirt. Corporate wear doesn’t need to be mundane - we should feel comfortable, confident and fresh.”

Talk us through the thought process you go through when getting dress in the morning.
“My approach to dressing is simple, it is dictated by how I feel in the morning and the weather.  It is also important that I dress appropriately for the day ahead.”

What accessories should one invest in for work?
“Subtle earrings that can be worn back with any look - round stud or small drop earrings. A chic black bag with minimal hardware should be big enough to hold a laptop and other daily essentials.”

Are there are rules you think people should follow for work wear dressing?
“Take note of your working environment and industry, in my view it is always better to be more formally dressed than too casual, it shows thought and professionalism. Keep a pair of heels in your office drawer for emergencies. Avoid see-through pieces and even miniskirts. Wear dresses and skirts that are tailored but not tight.”