Are we consuming fashion or is fashion consuming us?
I want you to think about the last thing you bought. Now ask yourself … would you have bought it if you couldn't post it on social media?
Take your time.
Fashion has always been personal. A way of communicating who you are without opening your mouth. A way of expressing personality without letting someone know you. But somewhere between the rise of Instagram, the explosion of TikTok micro-trends, and the ability to have something new on your doorstep within 48 hours, something has shifted – badly.
What was once a beautiful form of self-expression has quietly, and unnoticeably become something else entirely.
The micro-trend machine
Micro-trends are a large part of this problem, the continual content being shoved in our faces about the “Next Big Thing!” You consume this content, buy into it, and by the time whatever it is has arrived it’s gone out of style.
They are arguably the most sinister development in modern fashion. Not sinister in an overly dramatic way, sinister in a “you've spent £300 on things you no longer own” kind of way.
A micro-trend lives and dies within weeks. Mob wife, Ballet flats, Tomato Girl, Quiet luxury, euro summer… Each one arrives with the same urgency, marketed as “you need this, you need this now, everyone has this!!!!!!!” and each one becomes obsolete the second the algorithm decides it's over. Which it does quickly.
The issue isn't the trends themselves. Fashion has always had trends, and this is crucial to the industry. The issue is the speed, and the social pressure attached to keeping up with them. When your entire feed is telling you that you're behind, buying something starts to feel less like a choice and more like a reflex.
But is it even for you?
Here's the question I keep coming back to: how much of what we buy is genuinely for us, and how much of it is for the camera?
Because there is a difference between wanting something and wanting to be seen wanting something. And social media has made that line extraordinarily difficult to locate. It’s the blurriest line ever.
There's a specific type of purchase that I think most of us are familiar with – the one that felt completely necessary until it arrived, sat in your wardrobe unworn for three months, and is now listed on Vinted. It wasn't really about the item. It was about the version of yourself you were going to perform whilst wearing it. The outfit wasn't for Tuesday. It was for the photo on Tuesday. Which likely didn’t even get taken.
I'm not exempt from this, by the way. I'm pointing the finger at myself too.
The constant need for newness
We have somehow, somewhere, sometime collectively agreed that wearing something twice is a personality flaw. That having nothing new to wear to an event is a crisis. That a wardrobe full of clothes constitutes having “nothing to wear” – a sentence that should make no logical sense and yet here we all are, saying it regularly (me included).
Fast fashion has capitalised beautifully on this. Churn out enough newness at a low enough price point and you don't just have a customer, you have a habit. And habits, as we know, are very hard to break.
The most radical thing you could probably do in 2026 is rewear something without apologising for it. Style it differently. Own it. The clothes already exist, and if you genuinely like them… WEAR THEM!
Dress with personality and make YOUR style YOURS once again.
So – are we consuming fashion, or is it consuming us?
Probably both, if we're being honest. Fashion is still one of the most powerful forms of self-expression available to us and I will defend that until I can't. But there's now a version of engaging with it that's intentional, and a version that's just… reactive, performative, and deeply destructive (to bank accounts and personal style!)
The question worth sitting with after reading isn't “what's trending now ”, it's, “why do I actually want this?” And most importantly – would I still want it if nobody could see me in it?
Something to think about next time you're adding to cart or wandering around Zara.
With love,
Mimi x
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