What TikTok Gave Fashion and What It Took Away
Style Points is a weekly column about how fashion intersects with the wider world.
It took a little while for the TikTok effect to really hit fashion. Just as Instagram influenced designers to make their collections more frontal, colorful, and texture-forward so they would pop on the grid, once the lockdown doldrums lifted and in-person fashion shows started happening again, the FYP was top of mind. Moments seemingly calculated to go viral on the app proliferated, whether it was Bella Hadid being spray-painted into a dress at Coperni or Anok Yai trailing transparent veils amid the strobe lights as she closed Mugler. (In the month following Hadid’s runway appearance, the #Coperni hashtag racked up a staggering 123 million views.) Even smaller labels like (di)vision managed to cut through the fashion month noise with a clever Copenhagen Fashion Week stunt where a model rose from a table, knocking over glasses and revealing that the wine-stained tablecloth was actually the train of her dress.
TikTok was no longer dismissible as a hub of silly dances or a fun time-waster, but a bona fide marketing tool that could beam your brand out to millions. Stars like Alix Earle and Charli D’Amelio flitted from the For You page to the front row, turning up at Gucci and Prada. That could change if, as reported by outlets like Reuters, TikTok shuts down in the U.S. this weekend in advance of a potential ban. Users are already downloading the rival app Red Note, though it’s too early to say whether that, too, will begin to exert its own influence on American fashion.
But one thing is clear: In the time it’s been around, TikTok has brought new perspectives to the industry, particularly in the form of talking-head critics who often offer needed correctives to the mainstream style narrative. It also became surprisingly rich terrain for unearthing fashion history, prompting revivals of everything from the Vivienne Westwood pearl choker to the ’60s maximalism of Pucci and Courrèges, which then spurred some designers to unveil new takes on their own archives. It even allowed industry figures like Joseph Altuzarra and Tibi designer Amy Smilovic to become influencers, of a sort, giving their own behind-the-scenes takes on what was transpiring in their ateliers. If Instagram cracked open some of the long-running insularity of fashion, TikTok swung the door wide open.
Of course, TikTok has also been a part of the conspicuous consumption machine that is social media. Hauls, though not limited to the platform, flourished there, rewarding heedless accumulation. (Though more recently, a corrective has emerged, with mended hauls, de-influencing, and underconsumption-core becoming more popular.) Also sticky on TikTok (and among humans more generally): drama, whether it was the Tabi thief who drove new interest in the cloven-hoofed footwear or the controversy around “Subway Girl” and her outré commute outfits.
It also gave rise to an almost dizzying number of microtrends. In 2022, Rebecca Jennings wrote a Vox piece arguing that “Fashion Is Just TikTok Now,” pointing to the ouroboros of niche crazes like regency-core and indie sleaze. Since then, mob wives, coastal grandmothers, and more ultra-specific archetypes have emerged, as well as a frustratingly contradictory discussion about quiet luxury and “old money” style. The current conversations about capsule wardrobes and honing your personal style feel like a reaction to the hamster wheel that seemingly demands we change our style and personalities weekly.
If fashion’s TikTok era really does end, what will step in to replace it? The answer seems to be quieter, more reasoned conversations about style, in the form of longer-form blogging and newsletter writing, highly curated personal style tips, and maybe even going back to good old-fashioned ink and paper. As author and MA student Cora Harrington recently opined on X, “People into fashion should read more books about fashion. Video essays, tweet threads, and TikToks are not interchangeable with books. Most of the people who are most knowledgeable about fashion are not on these apps. They’re writing books.”
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