Crowd Shortcuts – a quick chat about something that’s caught our attention. This week, how amplifying tailoring is (finally) giving exclusive fashions for all…
Tell me more… With actor/ seamstress now a popular hyphenate career (see Joe Ando, 2.5m followers), WWD declaring Tailoring as the Fall 2024 trend, and #SewingTikTok on 7.4 billion views to date, it’s clear that tailoring is getting even more attention than a disappointing Shien haul.
Not surprising, it’s the perfect fit for our times… It’s bespoke, sustainable and the process of making it produces great online content. Tailors, dressmakers and designers gain countless followers by sharing the step-by-step processes behind their creations. When @er.embroidery (185.5K followers) embroidered a moon and stars over a mushroom on TikTok, it was viewed nine million times. Custom-fit clothes have gone from being just an option for the richest shopper to one available to all – whether that’s doing it yourself or finding a reasonably priced seamstress.
So, it’s democratising fashion? Yes, by showing that fashion simply requires patience, and anyone can do it if they put their mind to it. It’s not as complicated as the couture runways make it look.
Meanwhile, upcycling… is not a lifestyle, it’s a necessity, right. Of course, the statistics on waste and carbon emissions from textile production are horrifying – there’s no excuse not to take an alternative seriously.
So big fast fashion brands are out, where is in? Made to measure fashion brands are booming online in Vietnam. Hashtags such as #Vietnamfashion and #Vietnamesefashion on Instagram and TikTok have amassed tens of thousands of gushing posts and millions of likes, in contrast to the growing disenchantment with Chinese fast fashion brands like Shein and Temu.
And it’s gone corporate… The Singapore National Heritage Board recently launched Recustom, a fashion brand aiming to revive the country’s tailoring community with designs not available off-the-shelf. Instead, customers must visit local tailors to recreate the looks using provided design blueprints and their own pre-loved garments as raw material.
But it’s also still punk… You only need to look at Melisa Minca’s upcycled suits emblazoned with sarcastic and disruptive motifs (definitely NSFW) to see this…
TL; DR: Forget the disappointment of What I Ordered v What I Got and embrace the opportunity to instead get exactly what you want – tailoring offers fast fashion, done your way.