Though trendy silhouettes have always differed and people have always preferred different styles to represent themselves, trends used to solidify differently. When low-rise flared jeans become popular, the rises sold in stores might have all trended lower and the legs might have all trended wider. Now, fast fashion dictates that anything and everything can be trending at the same time. The everything-at-once-ness of these trends also has a lot to do with our current consumerist landscape.

Clothing can be a useful social indicator. It can imply what you want to say about yourself and help you infer information from other people. Personality (graphic tees), wealth (expensive brands), values (hats or pins with political statements), religion (a hijab or a nun’s habit), where they just came from (overalls covered in mud), or where they’re going (wearing a suit and tie). But even simpler things like the rise, taper, and colors of denim jeans are often tied to the image that the wearer wishes to emulate and inspire.

In this era, denim became “an equalizer between the sexes and an identifier between social classes. Both men and women could wear jeans, and they represented a working-class, individualistic, heavily American standard that many people could relate to.

But by the 60s and 70s, many women (and some men) moved towards a higher waist and bell-bottom flares, often in bright colors. Customized jeans with patches and DIY details became popular in 1965 as well. These were all part of women’s newfound self-expression as they moved into the workforce and as they gained sexual liberation in the forms of access to contraception and abortion. The high waist and the bell bottoms both create an hourglass figure that emphasizes and celebrates women’s sexuality instead of muting or minimizing it for fear of judgment.

Both of these styles of jeans represent a societal shift through a change in the presentation of the self to the world. And they still have meaning when you wear them today! The ‘classic’ style of jeans is still associated with a working-class American and is still considered modern enough to be informal in a business setting. The 60s and 70s styles of jeans are still self-expressive and the flare style is still popular with women for their flattering shape.

The thing is, neither of these is out of style anymore. On one side of social media, All-American Denim is trending. Expensive high-quality cowboy boots and Carhartt are all the rage. On another, 60s and 70s hippie fashion is huge. Crochet, patchy jeans, and the touting of farmer’s market finds are everywhere. For the most part, they associate themselves with different politics, views, values, and aesthetics.

Somebody who ends up on either side will be, to their knowledge or not, bombarded with a certain image of people who share their beliefs or ideas. When they go to look for clothes, they will probably want to buy things that represent themself and what they believe in—items similar to what their ‘influencers’ wear. Fast fashion makes this incredibly easy to do.

What happens when you fit into multiple little sects and can’t separate yourself into one of the neat boxes? Do you buy into all of them? Alternatively, what if you take the stance that clothing styles shouldn’t mean anything?

I talked about the issues of overconsumption and overproduction of fashion in my article on the importance of media literacy. But the way that teenagers use fashion as an expression of their identity is also important because of how it waters down the point of different fashions.

Clothing is a collection of social indicators. What happens when somebody likes an aesthetic and identifies with it without understanding the underlying beliefs and even other cultures they’re repping?

“[Alford says] the main point is while people love the styles and trends set by the Black community, there is no recognition of the culture’s pain and struggles or that it is Black-style they are adopting.” 

In wearing certain aesthetics and ignoring where they come from, and what they represent, people can water down the statements and identities that the clothes originally meant to communicate.

In my eyes, this is a symptom of the larger problem that is overconsumption, and the idea of consumption as personality. In a way, you are what you eat, and you are what you buy. But at a certain point, aren’t you just purchasing products to make yourself into something else? These aesthetic beliefs are still communicating something. But when I see someone so fully dedicated to a certain modern aesthetic, I don’t think of them for what they intended to get across anymore—all I see is someone who can’t hold onto their money.