[ultramarine]

Now that the internet has taken over the world ... and brands and designers are more more obsessed with going "global", the fact that kids wear AE from Amsterdam to Zimbawe and most people recognize the LV logo practically in any place on Earth ....

Do you think that it has affected the streetstyle? Are trends immediately picked up from some place and copies around the world within bytes per second?

I was just wondering that because I keep seeing people from differente places dressing more and more alike ...

[ChrissyM]

I think you bring up a good point... the internet makes it so that we're all looking at and being influenced by the same things...

i can't decide if that's a good or a bad thing...

it probably homogenizes things to a certain degree, but I can't help but think it's a good thing for some areas that have probably been improved by access to inspiration and information about what people in other parts of the world are wearing.

[silk skin paws]

With the rise and popularity of personal blogs we're able to take a glimpse of what everyday people wear around the world. Some blog readers go for inspiration or a way to incorporate a particular item or trends in their wardrobe and maybe to learn about a new and up and coming designer. I think we might find this oversaturation of one or two looks in younger crowds than older ones since younger people tend to be easily influenced by what their peers wear. This might bring along a universal uniform yet a part of me sees the possibility of something new and exciting coming from this.

[YoninahAliza]

I kinda hope that people aren't starting to dress in a homogenized way even though it does appear that they are. On one hand I think it's great that people have access to other parts of the world and different ideas but at the same time I fear that they are loosing themselves. That they are loosing their identity, their culture. And instead becoming part of one larger culture. Some people might see it as progressive that a kid from say, a small nation in Africa, is now wearing jeans or being influenced by fashions from America. But I wonder if by doing so they are letting go of how traditionally they dressed? And I worry that these styles of dressing will be lost forever. I worry that we will all become the same. And I would hate to be like everyone else, what makes us different is a beautiful thing. The way people dress says a lot about them; who they are, where they come from, etc and if they decide to dress like everyone else they become like everyone else. They not only adapt a certain way of dressing but often certain ways of thinking/behaving. It's not just changing the way we dress but whole aspects of society. We have inflicted our greed/and need for homogenized fashions onto others in a way which shames people into not keeping parts of their culture alive.

We were talking about this idea in my Anthropology class the other day; how do you keep the balance of maintaining one's culture with the ideals of an overwhelmingly popular viewpoint (like western ideals and ways of dressing from the US)? It's a tricky thing to do. And I don't know if I have a proper answer at the moment. Great idea for a thread btw!

[Psylocke]

I agree with silk skin paws about the influence of blogs. People get much more inspired by how other real people dress rather than celebrities and models in magazines, so they take inspiration from (street style) blogs. And I guess we can say that there is such a thing as a 'typical blogger style', as they all seem to influence each other, as well. That probably does homogenize street style all around the world. However, where I live people are still way behind on trends. I was at a fashion event two weeks ago where about 1/3 of all the 'trendy' girls were wearing the Topshop Ambush boots and a military green parka. People here on tFS were raving about those trends last summer already!
That said, I actually find it highly embarrassing to see so many people copying street style looks head to toe and not striving for any sort of individuality anymore. Even the 'quirky' ones often look so contrived and it's so obvious when they're not being themselves and copying their looks from hipster street style blogs.

I also agree that designers brands and high street brands all going global and having online shops adds to that. But I see that more as a possibility of enhancing my personal style by finding things that are entirely me and that may not be as easy to find around here.

I also find it interesting that the big luxury brands still seem to be increasing in popularity when the exclusivity of a LV handbag seems to be steadily declining. Even high fashion collections (especially by Prada, Celine, Chloé) get so whored out by bloggers that they seem to lack the timelessness and exclusivity that were once associated with those labels. I think that's one of the qualities a designer for a big fashion house requires these days: making a new collection every season that manages to excite long-time clients and bloggers alike while not losing their luxury appeal. Not that I have any proof for this, but I don't think high fashion was or seemed as accessible in the pre-internet era and high fashion being such an integrated part of street style seems like another modern phenomenon to me as well.

[tangerine]

No doubt the near-instantaneous broadcasting abilities presented by the internet have influenced streetstyle, in the sense that everyone can be aware of new trends as soon as they are presented.

But as others have pointed out, knowing the current trends doesn't mean you have to copy them. Some people will copy looks completely. Some will take bits and pieces they like and incorporate it into their own style. And some will use new trends as a blueprint of what they will not wear, because they don't want to appear to be part of any trend.

A lot of places (geographically speaking) have their own style and it can be fascinating to see how bits of industry-conceived fashion or on-trend clothing can be incorporated into local styles of dress, whether it be rural, urban, cultural or whatever.

There are stylish people everywhere and there will always be; having faster access to latest trends won't suppress their style. And the flip side of that is that some people will always copy the latest trends they can find, whether it takes a minute or a month to find out what they are.

[softgrey]

Good topic...
I've had this conversation IRL...

someone in california who had never been to NY said that he thought NY-ers dress like (aka: copy) people from Cali...based on internet images he saw...
*usually, it's the opposite...NY sets the trends and the rest of the country follows...
but with the internet, everyone has access to everything, as the original poster says, and everyone seems to dress alike now...
kinda funny how peoples' perceptions are so subjective...right?



anyway, 80-90% of people on the planet are followers rather than leaders, so it's gonna happen that people copy...it's just what most of them do...

[ellastica]

' the same as it ever was ' ?

perhaps this so-called 'homogenization' of streetstyle fashion was taking place long before the widespread documentation/instant accessibilty, just at a less accelerated pace? how does one compare streetstyle pre and post www? i.e., how many non-internet based streetstyle outlets were out there documenting local and/ or global fashion, to compare the effects of the internet?

[mishahoi]

I actually posed this question to a New York designer while doing an interview..it was someone mainstream, like Nicole Miller or such. I asked if her brand designs differently for different global markets. She answered:

"Not anymore. Things that sell well in New York are the same things that sell well in Tokyo, and so on. It's probably due to globalization and the internet. The only thing that we still make only for the Japanese market are scrunchies. I don't get why they're popular here"

And we had a little laugh about it.

Japanese street style is still pretty unique *in some circles* but most of the magazines here push a whole agenda they call "blogger style" where Rumi Neely etc are the role models. It's all the same.

[Urban Stylin]

Unfortunately it does especially with the youth who are always online and watch MTV, E and the like. I live in Africa and have been to the US, Asia, Middle East and Europe and its always the same thing. Its just the brands that change. Wes houldnt just put it on the internet though, even before the net we used to get magazines like Ebony, Smash hits and the like which also dictated how we dressed

[ultramarine]

The thing is that with this new homogenization of style, I think we are losing.

Streetstyle blogs are carefully edited and just show "cool people" or "fashionable people" and "people on trends". What about other styles? It just makes everything poorer, to say a word, I think there is less diversity on style now, esp with the impact of the internet and the global brands because people would wear stuff out of necessity and now they just conform with whatever is at hand ... it worries me that we are seeing the same thing over and over again in different versions.

And my perception is that it seems more usual or strong nowadays than before.

[Urban Stylin]

true. When Kanye tweets that a certain pair of Nikes is whats up, youth from Cairo to Guatemala will start rocking them or at least fakes so we are probably headed to an era of zombies

[Gigi Lamoroso]

The fact that everyone all over the world is dressed pretty much the same is not that bad. It just means that everybody has access to fashion now. It was not the case decades ago.

[JustABoy]

I think street style blogs are probably actually the least significant part of this picture and this is part of a larger historical trend. With the advent of movies and television, I suspect people's visual frames of reference naturally became more unified (and further down the line, blogs) but I think the homogenization of clothing has very little to do with this.


100 years ago, it was rare for people to own clothes that were mass produced. It was much more common to make your own clothing, and the markets for clothes were much more regional.

The birth of a big clothing manufacturers -- companies that could distribute across huge distances while still selling clothes relatively cheaply -- made style more homogeneous. And while it may be a shame in an aesthetic sense that regional sensibilities are being lost*, people everywhere are benefit from the availability of cheap, decent clothing -- even if it's the same as what others are wearing in different parts of the globe.

* I do not think this is actually true. It's also much easier today to find something unusual if you want to look for it, and when you compare what seems novel today -- say, Balenciaga's techno fabrics or Rick Owen's draped silhouettes -- it's way more novel than Christian Dior's new look. And it's not just at that price point that you can find unique things. So I think you have more people dressing outside of the cultural norm than ever before -- it just happens that this is also happening at a time when what is the cultural norm is shared across greater distances. More people are dressing the same across the globe, but more people are also dressing uniquely within small units of society.

[Squizree]

^ Yes, this is what I thought as soon as I opened this thread. People have always dressed similarly within regions. All the internet did was make that "region" bigger. I don't see the big deal. The only way to achieve 100% uniqueness is to end mass produced fashion, and that's obviously not happening.