TikTok’s Effects on our Trend Cycles

From fuzzy bucket hats to oversized blazers: How TikTok has altered the trend cycle.

Sabrina Soros Contributor

The trend cycle has steadily grown quicker and quicker since the birth of the internet. Society is no stranger to seeing a trend on the rise and rushing to capitalize on it, only to be discarded in a matter of a year or couple of months. However, trends that used to last for years now struggle to last more than a couple of weeks. TikTok app has altered the trajectory of practically every aspect of the modern-day trend-cycle, especially its impact on the fashion industry.

Before the development of the internet, people found their fix of up-and-coming trends through magazines with a couple of weeks in between each issue. Later, in the 2000s, post-internet discovery evolved into style blogs. Yet the coolest trends were through word of mouth. More recently, in the mid-to-late 2010s, Instagram was the hotspot for all things fashion. Still, it required you to search and follow the “trendiest” accounts to find what you were looking for. Come 2018, TikTok came into the picture to steal the spotlight with their fast-acting algorithm. The introduction of said algorithm meant that now, after you’ve downloaded the app and interacted with the ForYou page for a short amount of time, it picks up on what you like to see and shows it to you without you needing to touch the search button. Now, the speed at which fashion trends are being introduced to you becomes increasingly quicker.

If we reflect on the late 2010s, the years can each be identified by a handful of statement pieces and outfits that had their respective year in a chokehold.. and some should probably never

MUSIC be revisited ever again (I’m looking at you, galaxy print leggings). In comparison, if we only look back to 2022, it’s not hard to recall two or more popular items/styles for each month, such as: ultra mini UGGs, Lululemon‘s Scuba hoodie, and the Zara Satin Slip Dress. The common theme among these items is how they all found their claim to fame through frequenting TikTok users’ ForYou pages.

Tiktok has a way of blowing things up overnight - something that previous apps have not yet achieved to the same extent. This spells trouble for major fashion houses and brands that now have to cope with the fact that they no longer dictate what’s in vogue. Currently, it’s all in the hands of TikTok and which of its videos are happening to receive the most hype at the moment. What is in the brands’ hands however, is how they adapt to this phenomenon. Will