“Fashion is life if you ask us!”
Fashion is a very old concept that keeps evolving from time to time, making it a new concept on a whole every few years. It is quite subjective and depends on people’s taste.
But have you ever seen a piece of clothing that you loved, looked at the price tag, immediately put the hanger down, and felt the need to leave the shop? Yes, we all have ‘been there, done that’. We also have wished to buy designer clothes that celebrities gracefully wear. But by just looking at the price tag, we often keep this idea hidden inside our mind deep down. However, have you ever wondered why there is so much hype around designer dresses? It is all just about marketing and selling, or there is a point behind it?
Despite everything, fashion trends haven’t come to a complete halt in the year of the global pandemic: 2020. From celebrity collaborations that sell out in minutes to questionably overpriced items that grace the runways, the current landscape of the fashion industry sometimes looks like a flurry of hype-driven madness that is entirely fickle. And all the big brands are faring well in the hype-driven market.
“Today, what we discuss, wear, and support is less about celebrated artistry and instead focused on perhaps one of the most powerful and illusive undercurrents of the industry: hype.”
Fashion today is spreading like a wildfire through social media. We have influencers showcasing designer dresses and we all want it. Just like a viral Tik Tok dance, people are wildly following on fashion choices of the influencers and celebrities.
There is so much hype around designer dresses that sometimes, customers are desperate to buy them six months before they were even released – some products are catnip for social media, especially Instagram. When a dress picks up traction on social media, there are obvious benefits: popularity online often equates to a spike in website traffic or even sales.
Coming to the point, why designer clothes are so much hyped and overpriced? In an interview with Glamour magazine, Alber Elbaz linked the high prices to a laborious design process: “I took all the bones out, and I stitch, and to get there, you know, it took me forever. It took me six or seven dresses to make one. And it’s time and it’s money and we are not doing it in offshore countries — we pay 65% taxes in France! It is so much work. Doing a collection for me is almost like creating a vaccine. Once you create the one vaccine, then you can duplicate it for nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. But see if you can create it for nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, and the answer is no.”
Fashion designers and influencers
As far as we have seen, fashion influencers do not get enough credits for what they do for fashion brands, apparels, and designers. No doubt, the whole lot of appraisal goes to the fashion designers cause they are the innovators behind every dress and without them, fashion influencing won’t be a thing cause there will be nothing to influence.
However, fashion designers need to realize how important it is for their brands to have influencers who can wear their wears and hype them among direct consumers like us.
However, it is different when it comes to celebrities endorsing or wearing the designer’s labels. Of course, having one of the most talked-about celebrities wear your designs translates into the kind of publicity that money can’t buy. Often it is seen that celebrities knowingly or unknowingly promote the dress and the brand they wear every day.
Stories behind the viral dresses
Let us tell you a true story of how the popularity of one polka-dotted dress inspired a dedicated Instagram fan page: hot4thespot of its own, without any help from influencers or celebrities. And the page has over 23.4k followers as of this writing. This happened in Britain in 2019 when a particular Zara dress put people into a frenzy. Referred to as ‘The Dress’, the fuss-free midi number is designed with a ruffled hem and an unassuming silhouette, which makes it an ideal dress for any weather. With a price tag of £39.99 (~ Rs 3,500), the dress’s meteoric success has inspired a namesake Instagram account, which is devoted to sightings of the dress from Wimbledon to Russia. This dress instantly became a hit without any celebrity endorsing it. Perhaps this is why an unlikely sisterhood has sprung up around the dress. “It has started a weird club that people want to be a part of.”
In India, it was just a while ago when netizens went into a frenzy over Anushka Sharma’s dress! Why you ask…because she wore a black-white polka dot dress when she and hubby Virat Kohli announced their pregnancy. Since recently, Hardik Pandya’s wife Nataša Stanković who recently delivered a baby boy, and Kareena Kapoor Khan who recently announced her second pregnancy wore similar black-white polka dot dresses, Twitterati couldn’t handle themselves. Soon there was a meme fest on social media. And that dress was officially taglined as the ‘Pregnancy dress’. The dress became viral in no time, and thus a hype around a simple dress was created. However, this time, no PR, no marketing, no branding was behind its popularity. It was just a meme that started it all.
