By Ari Lauer-Frey
If I were to ask you to visualize the aesthetic of college-age people today, what would you see? What if I prompted you to do the same for the ‘90s? I would not be surprised if a clearer image came to mind for the latter than the former. Of course, this could be for many reasons — it could be that culture, and therefore fashion, becomes easier to observe when you have achieved some critical distance from it. Or, perhaps, the fact that most twenty-somethings today only have access to the ‘90s through the simplified lens of popular media and family pictures makes it easier to consider this aesthetic. But the confusion many face in understanding fashion sensibilities today just might be indicative of something bigger as well — something immediate and growing.
Luke Leitch notes in an article for The Economist that the present stylistic fascination with the past and, particularly, the ‘90s is related to the changes the world underwent in the 21st century.: “This was the last decade before the world became dizzyingly interconnected.” This interconnectedness is perhaps nowhere more visible than the vast land of TikTok. The app seems to have superseded all previous social media, becoming the fastest-growing platform of its kind, and for good reason. Any experience with the app will make one familiar with the absolute vastness of information held within; it is a truly globalizing space that shapes the way we understand the world, ourselves and, consequently, fashion. As Tunya Carissimo (‘25) stated, “The way that I would depict this generation’s fashion would probably come from, sadly, what I’ve seen on TikTok as being very promoted in the trends.” And so the question becomes, what does this global space of content and culture actually promote?
TikTok is one of the best representations of the moment of possibility we now occupy. It can be one of the most effective tools for the proliferation of information that we have ever had, but it can also be a tool for censorship and suppression. Likewise, TikTok and the internet at large could be a space for individual expression, a way to let one’s inner fashions fly. Or it could be a new mode for stylistic dominance, influencing people en masse to wear the same things and share the same values — or perhaps the reality lies somewhere in between.
What does seem absolutely clear is that TikTok (and the realms of society that function like it) are profit driven. As Isaac Lasky (‘26) proclaims, “What is social media, if not just a giant marketing technique?” This can be seen in the TikTok Shop, an E-commerce addition to the platform that was introduced to the U.S. in September of last year and which had a Global Merchandise Volume of over $11 billion in 2023. Opening to the “Fashion” section of the shop, one will find an endless stream of absurdly cheap garments: Mens Textured Button Front Shirt for $4.22, Mac Miller T-Shirt for $2.92, Women’s Solid Color Plush Lining Slippers for $6.26; it doesn’t take much browsing through the TikTok Shop to see its contributions to fast fashion through low-quality items sold prolifically for such low prices that there is no possibility of ethical origin.
This relationship of mutual profit-boosting is confirmed by the success of fast fashion companies such as Temu, with 25% of their customer base shopping through TikTok Shop in 2023. These items and brands are further accepted and promoted through the ingenious collaboration of content production with product promotion: TikTok pays kickbacks to those creators that promote the items in the shop. While TikTok may also continue to function as a platform in which a variety of looks, ideas, and people are promoted, one must consider what they are promoted as; in essence, they do not seem to be treated as looks, ideas or people but, instead, as sources of capital.
As such, TikTok becomes a winning example of late-stage capitalism, taking genuine possibilities for meaning and devolving them into profiteering efforts. This manipulation sustains a guise of diverse choice (in content and product) through the vast variety found on TikTok, while contributing to the monopolies of fast fashion (like Temu and Shein) through their unfair competitive advantage. “I think it’s natural that people are always looking for new, better, fresher things. But now it’s just becoming easier to do that,” says George Slaats (‘27). If this is the case, TikTok has opened the floodgates.
However, to supply and platform a product is not quite enough. No, there must also be a reason for the consumer to keep buying. This is where the trend comes into play, the cycling of new and old and new again — baggy and skinny jeans swapping places in the spotlight of cultural favor in perpetuity. This marketing scheme has long been utilized. But what is new about the nature of the trend is the rate at which they are replaced, perhaps to the point of obscuring the spotlight itself. And the culprit, once again, seems to be social media, as Campbell Wencel (‘27) points out: “There’s a very strong tendency on social media to typecast people who wear certain things as this or that.” Everyday choices become factors of identification, and in doing so, every item has the potential for trend status; and so the micro-trend is born.
This overuse of the trend has been broadly accepted, with even Vogue, one of the most respected fashion opinion brands in the world, adopting the logics of TikTok with their weekly updated “TikTok Trend Watcher.” Seemingly meaningless fashion habits are here identified as trends, such as the color blue in September’s edition (aka #blueaesthetic). And, as Olivia Prime (‘26) explains, this logic can often be incorporated into daily thought: “You could go to a farm and pick flowers, and you’re like, ‘I’m having fun. I’m on a farm and picking flowers. And you can go to a farm and pick flowers and be like, ‘I’m cottage core right now.’ And that alone makes a difference in what you’re doing and how you’re feeling about what you’re doing — the idea of how it’s being perceived, the idea of how you can present it, the idea of how you can categorize and, not monetize, but, kind of make other people see it differently.” What, in essence, could (and perhaps should) be a neutral action of an individual is now at the will of constant marketization.
The purpose of observing trends, it seems, would be to come to a greater understanding of the cultural moment. Through awareness of what is trending, we can begin to discern the values of our culture. But if trends are now — like the #blueaesthetic of September — both too lacking of substance to be dissected and too momentary in consideration to grab hold of, then it would seem to be the case that nothing is valued by culture; or rather, everything is valued by culture. Both circumstances lead to the obscurity of meaning and indicate a culture that has lost the reins of its meaning-making tools. As Prime further explains, in a landscape of fashion where the present is saturated to the point of confusion, it is no wonder so many are looking backward: “I feel like a lot of things that people get really invested in and stick to are the things that have already happened because we’re constantly having things thrown at us.”