ARE WE BECOMING A ‘WEAR ONCE’ GENERATION?
Instagram is shifting the way we shop and dress
Cast your mind back to the blissful days when you could get away with buying one great outfit and wearing it to all your social engagements. You might have snapped up a dress that made you feel like a million, and swished its skirts from a fancy party to your cousin’s wedding to work drinks. ‘If you had four different weddings with four different groups of people, then you would happily wear the same thing,’ recalls Kat Farmer, the influencer behind the blog Does My Bum Look 40?. But then something happened. Namely: Instagram. Suddenly everyone at all four weddings could see what you wore to the first one — and the second, third and fourth — instantly slashing the appeal of the smug re-wear.
For all the talk of ‘capsule wardrobes’ and ‘investment pieces’, what we think about when we get dressed in the morning has changed. Welcome to a new era of fashion anxiety, one in which the pressure not to be seen in the same thing twice — once an anxiety confined to the red-carpet elite — has become a sartorial struggle for many of the rest of us, too.
‘Instagram has completely shifted the whole “Oh God, I can’t wear that again” feeling,’ says Natalya Wolter-Ferguson, creative director of resale site Hardly Ever Worn It (HEWI). ‘I know there have been two photos of me wearing this dress,’ she says, gesturing at her outfit, ‘posted on Instagram recently, so I’m not going to go anywhere in it tonight — I don’t want to be in a photo in it again.’
This is not as crazy as it may sound. ‘If there’s nothing worse than wasting a good outfit on a bad day, there’s definitely nothing worse than wasting a good outfit on a bad Instagram post,’ laughs Kat. Posts of her school-run and date-night outfits regularly rack up 1,000-plus likes. Even if it’s only for dinner with friends, if there’s a possibility that there could be photographic evidence — and when isn’t there these days? — you might not want to wear something you’ve just grammed the week before.
‘Saving for best’ has, it seems, been replaced by ‘saving for social media’. Instead of thriving on compliments received in real life, we’re always aware of ‘the audience’. ‘I’d be lying if I said I’d never bought a pair of shoes thinking, “Ooh, these would be great on Instagram,”’ confesses Alexandra Stedman, the freelance fashion stylist behind the blog The Frugality.
It’s worse for the younger generation. ‘If I look at my 16-year-old cousin, she only really posts selfies, and she wouldn’t dream of posting the same outfit again in her whole Instagram,’ says copywriter Faye Waterfield, 25, who also recounts how her cousin packed 10 bikinis for a recent 10-day holiday — a different one for each daily bikini pic. While Faye doesn’t go quite that far, she does understand the instinct.
And that’s where the resale sites step in, ready to snap up those cast-off Insta-wares. Sites such as Vestiaire Collective, Rebelle and HEWI are online hubs for the fashionmad to keep newness cycling through their wardrobes. Recently the sector received an endorsement directly from the red carpet, when Crazy Ex-Girlfriend star and co-creator Rachel Bloom revealed that she intended to sell the Gucci dress she wore to the Emmys on a luxury resale site: ‘Take a look on The RealReal for this dress tomorrow,’ she told an interviewer.
‘We’ve moved away from a possession era to an era of usage. Now we love to buy something for one season, enjoy the piece and then let it go,’ says Fanny Moizant, a Vestiaire Collective co-founder. Among the hottest items on resale sites right now are Gucci loafers, specifically the Princetown style. Prints, big logos and items that are obviously tied to a season or are the ‘It’ piece at the time are also ripe for resale. ‘People have always been conscious of wearing the same outfit for two events, especially if it’s a standout, recognisable piece. But it’s definitely heightened now that everything is shared on social media.’
If this all sounds exhausting, take heart: there’s a low-key pushback afoot. ‘I think that what most of us are trying to achieve after a certain age is not necessarily a wardrobe of classics but a wardrobe that we love,’ says Kat. ‘It’s cost-per-wear: we like clothes that work hard for us.’ Which is why she loves re-wearing her LaDoubleJ maxi skirt, her Mos Mosh blazer and her MiH Jeans in posts that celebrate the art of wearing something old in a new way. ‘If you find a style that works for you, say, “That’s mine,”’ she says.
‘I love showing an old piece years later,’ Alexandra agrees. And she too likes to mix and match old with new. ‘I think it’s healthy to show [the versatility of your wardrobe],’ she says. Because surely it’s just a waste otherwise. And actually you’re falling victim to FOMOOAGO: fear of missing out on a good outfit. Instead, why not live by another classic saying: if you’ve got it, flaunt it — especially on Instagram.
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