What Goes Around Comes Around
Image Courtesy: Pinterest
In 2014, fashion trends began to deviate from the previously popular boho style to a more edgy, punk look. Studded denim, fishnet tights, chokers, and beat-up Doc Martens were just some of the many popular pieces that came together to create the style of Tumblr fashion.
Tumblr is a microblogging platform that launched in 2007. The app peaked in 2014 with a jump from over 100 million active users by the beginning of the year to over 200 million blogs by the end of 2014. Icons such as Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Halsey, Cara Delevingne, and Kylie Jenner were amongst the most popular bloggers and helped grow the platform and its community.
Image Courtesy: Off Record Media
In 2014, fashion began to mirror what was popular at the time: indie rock artists such as Arctic Monkeys, The 1975, and Lana Del Rey were all active on Tumblr, dressed in this fashion, when it slowly became popular with their audiences. In addition, Tumblr’s tagging system allowed users to quickly find and reblog niche posts that piqued their interests. Blogs on Tumblr are also customizable. Users are able to customize their page’s layouts, meaning one’s blogs also doubled as a mood board. With the rise of Tumblr and other photo-sharing platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest, social media took charge over style magazines when it came to dictating what was "in" and "out" in the fashion world.
Today, we can see many aspects of Tumblr fashion coming back. To name a few, graphic T-shirts from Brandy Melville, which are very reminiscent of designs seen back in 2014, sheer, distressed, and patterned tights, and chokers are just some of the fashion choices that are making their way back into many closets.
Image Courtesy: Brandy Melville
With lots of different eras of fashion coming back, such as 2016 fashion trends, it begs the question: Will anything truly go out of style?
Trend cycles tell us the lifespan of a certain style or trend. There are five stages to the cycle: introduction, rise, peak, decline, and obsolescence. Oftentimes, however, there is a sixth stage called the revival, where the style or trend is brought back, sometimes with a twist.
Most major aesthetics take around 20 years to come back into trend, and when they return, they are hardly identical. Designers change silhouettes, colors, and textures to make the style more modern.
Recently, social media has sped up trend cycles. Platforms such as TikTok and Instagram have compressed traditional year-long cycles into microtrends that rise and fall much quicker. The now rapid pace of trends encourages fast production, making the trend feel fatigued within weeks.
So, is the trend of Tumblr fashion coming back? Or did it just never leave? Fashion is obviously cyclical, and Tumblr fashion is a clear example of this. Pieces that were popular in the early 2010’s are now being worn by a new generation. Chokers and distressed tights may look the same as they were, but they are now being styled in new ways.
The revival of Tumblr fashion is not a return to 2014; it is another part of the trend cycle. The revival of Tumblr fashion, and other trends, shows us that fashion rarely disappears completely. It is constantly being reshaped and rediscovered to fit newer generations.
Strike out,
Writer: Sofia Nguyen
Editor: Melany Rodriguez
Graphic Designer: Sophia Kelbert
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