Fashion trends vs. Fad
Knowing the differences between fashion trends and fads could help explain the rise and fall of fashion business empires of the 20th century. Understanding fashion trends and fads may help businesses to predict consumer demands. Fads are often short-lived fashions that last for only one season or may last for only a month. Fads are often driven by their novelty nature and offer a unique choice to the consumers. Fads catch up with a large population but “fade” or disappear very quickly. Trends often have a longer lifespan as compared to fads. This means that they can continue being fashionable for years or even decades. Primarily, trends have the potential to remain influential on the market for the long-term. Furthermore, trends often consist of altered classics, and this phenomenon may occur when a specific color appears trendy over a certain duration (Markscheinder.com 1). Orange and blue colors, for instance, gained a lot of attention in 2014. This reflective writing examines the survivability or the future of athleisure and streetwear trends in the market.
Most fashion trends emerge and fade away. However, athleisure is proving to be a distinct fashion trend that is moving fast to become a way of life. Athleisure refers to a combination of athletics and leisure. They consist of casual clothing meant for both exercise and general wear. The athleisure trend implies that clothes designed for athletic purposes are worn for a different purpose, such as social occasions, work, school, and casual (Gordon 1). Athleisure outfits most commonly worn include hoodies, sneakers, yoga pants, gym tanks, leggings, and shorts. The rise and growth of athleisure rapidly trended in the market since the 1970’s when fitness regimes gained popularity. Sports brands began improving and improvising the production of sports clothes with innovative materials that could suit multiple purposes (Gordon 1).
The innovativeness that comes with athletic brands makes them admirably resilient to the consumers in a decade after decade. Athletic brands have consistently improved the quality of wear as tastes and preferences of consumers change. The production of the attires involves a combination of new fibers with a fashion style that tends to increase conformability and make active wears a top-notch. Athleisure is versatile clothing and can be applied for various purposes, thereby making it difficult to become irrelevant even with the change in time (Seto 1). Any brand that keeps introducing changes that appeal to consumers tends to survive the market for the long-term. The innovativeness nature of the athleisure makes the consumers feel the newness in every wear because they tend to enjoy the uniqueness and difference in the wears.
Athletic wear can also be worn anytime and in every context. This tendency further makes the future of this fashion trend alive and influential. By this, many sectors and individuals such as fitness enthusiasts have come to embrace athleisure wear. They have proven to be universally accepted in any context and environment (Seto 1). The survivability of athletic wear is also determined by their durability and stylish that makes consumers comfortable in wearing the attires. The comfort and layback lifestyle is that consists of athletic wear make then to continue attracting the coming generations. Humans tend to enjoy wears that reveal a specific fashion trend and which mas associate them with certain sports or celebrity sportspersons (Morris 1). Because sporting activities are a way of life for many people, this trend keeps rocking the fabric industry periodically.
Despite that the athletics market is saturated, it continues to experience magnificent growth day by day. This growth is indicated by the blend existing between the athletic industry and the fashion industry. As athletic brands produce more leisurewear, athletic brands continue adding more fashion elements in their products. With this juxtaposed trend in the production of wears, the athletic industry continues to remain the future of the clothing industry. Athletic wears continue gaining preferences over (denim) jeans wears because of the comfort and laidback style that emerge with active attires (Morris 1). This indicates that the general consumer population is preferring athletic wear over denim, meaning that athletic wear will continue rocking the future of cloth and market industry.
Celebrity endorsement is a major fashion influencing trend where celebrities like such as Rihanna have been used to bring athleisure to the mainstream. The celebrities have also displayed athlete wears as being their key lifestyle wears which attract followers to adopt the lifestyle of the icons. The media plays a vital role in retaining the relevance of the athlete wears by featuring the lifestyle of the celebrities and carry the wave throughout the market for the consumers to have their choices. Perhaps sports and the media are two inseparable industries, and the media has been a key tool in popularizing athleisure (Wallace 1). When viewers flock the market and find wears associated with athletic activities in the market, they develop a tendency to making purchases. The media popularization of athleisure is a good illustration of a stable future of the fashion trend.
The future of athleisure is also evident in the weather adaptive nature of the fashion trend. Also, the rise of fitness lifestyle makes athletic wear not only admirable but also crucial tools of the fitness industry. Unlike many other fashions wears that suit only a particular weather condition, athleisure is conducive to any weather pattern. For instance, sportswear fabric is suitable for summer weather because it can absorb sweat, dries the body, and removes moisture from the skin. Overcoat and hoody athleisure brands are also ideal for cold weathers such as during winter because they regulate the body temperature (Wallace 1). Fitness influencers in athletic wear continue getting a huge social media following. They actively promote active wears, and many of their viewers adopt the trend. This trend has resulted in an “athleisure cult” with the wears being worn on streets, gyms, and runways. The flexibility that comes with athleisure is also a forecast for a stable future of athletic wear (Glazek 1).
Whereas athleisure is designed for classic status, streetwear fashion is just a passing fad. Streetwear is a form of casual clothing that gained popularity in the 90s and consists of a combination of casual but comfortable pieces of wears such as Jeans, T-Shirts, sneakers, and even baseball caps. It is impossible to conclude that streetwear is a deadbeat fashion despite it not being at the center of the designer’s motivation (Glazek 1). The style remains relevant but changes in-between clothes that exhibit a more classic form of wearing. As tailoring continues to witness a comeback, well-tailored suits are finding their ways into the wardrobes of the millennial generations.
The future of streetwear is unpredictable and faces the risk of sinking onto the modern forms of decent wearing. The contemporary generation of young people prefers khaki trousers because their material and design serve both official and unofficial purposes. The burden of having two sets of wears, official and unofficial, is changing the trends of street wears. This is because official work duties require employees to report work in formal outfits, and the restriction is shifting people to khaki wears, which serve both purposes (Markscheinder.com 1). The street wears became popular as casual wear for young people as musicians played an influential role in attracting many young people into the trend. Music has since exhibited a distinct trend and keeps changing with time. As such, the streetwear has been dying out and emerging with some modifications which tend to surpass the previous properties if the streetwear trends.
Street wearing has shifted from the 80s and 90s oversize attires to many fitting clothes, especially for men. Men are out here looking for clothes that fit their bodies and reveal their real body size and shape. The fashion trends that are associated with streetwear attempt to adopt modern and fitting forms of clothes that suit the wearers’ preferences of the time. As a result, streetwear continues to vanish in the word of unique choices (Gordon 1). The young people are focused on wearing uniqueness and fitness that define their beauty. There is a tendency of young people disassociating themselves with classical streetwear and prefer modern forms of streetwear to the classical forms because they believe in the current fashion trends. They don’t want to appear “old” literally, and the perception makes them feel younger and fit in the current generation.
Streetwear has grown into becoming a multibillion eye-catching fashion of the 1980s and 1990s to the modern street wears. People appear to be experiencing a form of liberty as they opt for attractive wears. The challenge that comes with the fast-growing and changing industry where a mixture of clothes is used to introduce a new fashion into the clothing industry is its possibility of fading away within a short period of time (Morris 1). Fashioners in this industry have to be very creative day after day because when they lapse in innovativeness, the market lacks appealing products. Athleisure does not require being creative every other time because the fashioners simply adopt trending sportswear and then improvise the wears into appealing clothes for the population.
Streetwear also faces the risk of “extinction” because they are adopted geographically because of cultural variations. Unlike sportswear fashion, which is universal, streetwear emerges from cultures and is then adopted by other persons across the globe. However, the wears may not be appealing to individuals of a different culture. This tendency indicates that fashion wears face the risk of disappearance from the industry (Seto 1). Streetwear has been found to emerge among the youth as a subculture which mergers with casualization and deformation of societal norms. As a culture, the trend may not be fully welcome in any social setting. For instance, men are not required to wear suits to works in some regions or industries. However, this trend is not consistent with all cultures across the world. The future of any fashion lies in its flexibility and ability to fit into multiple cultures, spread, and grows roots that last for a long time. As such, a fashion develops the potential of market sustainability.
Considering the athleisure and streetwear fashion trends, it is clear that athleisure is destined for classical status while streetwear is just a passing fad. Wears associated with athletic and sporting activities are here to stay because the sports industry itself is classical and retains ancient elements while adopting modern forms of fashion. Streetwear, on the other hand, does not contain classical elements that can be carried along to appeal next generation of individuals in the fashion and wear industry. The comparison between the two aspects of fashion form an excellent indicator of how the clothing industry is transforming into something new, and the chances of the industry to produce or reduce elements of fashion in the market continue being high. Fashioners have a huge task of observing the trends and knowing the right time for them to take a shift in their designs.
Works Cited
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