Ruby Pseudo
When I was working at Nike as the Consumer Insights and Ideation Manager, I was tracking fashion trends and helping work out what the fashion future might look like 18 months to five years ahead of what was currently happening. Before that, I’d studied fashion at college, working with the British fashion designer of the year Hussein Chalayan for two seasons in a row, whilst spending most of my time wishing my legs were longer. I remember having a pink tulle dress for Erin O’Connor fitted on me, which came down to my ankles. The same dress came above her knees – she was ever so sweet about it.
Taking such a logistical view of trends and fashion at Nike had a big effect on me. Whereas wandering around Dover Street Market should have been some sort of frivolous fairytale fun, it became a nuanced pseudo-scientific mission to read in to all the nuts, bolts, hardware and hidden aspects of fashion to see what little pointers might spell out the next stages and steps of the style story. You didn’t run your hand along a Watanabe coat with designer dreams in your mind anymore; you read in to the stitches, the fabric mix and the length with military precision and a note book scribble scrawl. That wasn’t a Kawakubo classic anymore, it was a sure sign that sportswear was about to get luxe and lovely. Damn it.
I recently tweeted that reading William Gibson’s book ‘Pattern Recognition’ years ago was the reason I still dress all in black. That’s probably a lie; I’ve been dressing in black for ages, but his protagonist Cayce’s ‘allergy’ to brands resonated with me, and to read that someone else [albeit a far more fabulous, fictional female] was also dressing in ‘units’ [jeans bought in duplicates, shoes bought in duplicates, tops bought in fives] was some kind of comforting. Laureline and Leia’s equal eschewing of following fashion is fascinating; just as they both found ways to stand out and stick two fashion fingers up, I too turned to make-up and my hair to create a determined diversion; Adam Ant-esque make-up [pre-McQueen I’ll have you know], changing hair colours [even blue, like Laureline] and funny little feathers all helped calm and cure my modern malaise. Cayce might have filed the logos off her clothes, but I just didn’t have the time.
There used to be a huge difference between style and fashion; one you were innately born with, the other [fashion] found you. More and more, that divide is diminishing, Topshop has a lot to answer for [listen to my lyrics for Carbon Cats that languid legend Willy Borrell turned in to some monotone madness here] and with fashion appropriating style and the street more than ever before [and harder, better, faster, stronger I might add] - it’s never been more difficult to be different. Yet what our bloggers show, however, is the teenage tenacity to reconcile this style sum. The role London has played in this articulated algorithm is fascinating too; four years ago we’d lost our clothing crown to the likes of Stockholm [cited as “the Tokyo of Europe’] but London kids have never been so damned cool. Tokyo might have their great and gorgeous hipsters [seriously, everyone looks amazing out there at the moment, I’ve just come back], but their hipsters are homogenous; the prevalence of pretty doesn’t beat the mismatched mayhem of our streets at the moment. We don’t have one style, we have myriad; rakish rogues, vintage vultures and dapper dandies are only some of the looks you’ll see sweeping across the cement of the city. Yea Topshop are selling 55,000 units plus a week, but it’s what the kids are doing with these units that count.
The part the Internet plays here is paramount; kids can research Rockabilly, surf The Sartorialist and meet their mode makers more than ever before. This is not a generation of kids whose influence and inspiration is limited to local any more; it’s a generation with a global, grand gaze.
Embracing the remix culture is imperative; lending yourself to legends and allowing kids to know about your brand history, style stories and designers are all part of the new conversation currency. The more you can help your mass market of consumers be individuals, the brilliantly better. They’re not 55,000 units, they’re 55,000 individuals. Now that’s a lot of talking to talk. Get chatting.
Ruby Pseudo. In black, not blue. Always.
