"And so the vitriol with which magazines like Teen Vogue - which makes money on advertising the aspirational to girlies - greets the arrival of Shein and the like which make fashion into disposables, not aspirationals"
What is it that makes the clothing aspirational? That boils down to what, who, are you trying to copy? What signals, status, in-, out-group, does it send? Further, SF author William Gibson: "something appealingly “low-drag” about gray man theory: reduced friction with one’s environment", or , how much of a twat do you look?
Two things seem to follow; first, how available, visually, is the original? How easy is it to adopt "the look"?
The first relies on a media profile, underlying that, bandwidth; the second on disposable income.
The bandwidth that the (potential) consumer can process has is static, the bandwidth that producers can attempt to command is heavily mediated by gatekeepers. The Mk1 Eyeball hasn't changed.
So, the '70s. TV achieved critical mass somewhere in the early part of this period, supplanting cinema (and Pathe). High inflation, leading to expectations of high(er) inflation, same for tax rates. Consumers anticipated ever lower disposable income.
TVs new status lead to an initial attempt to grab eyeballs as soon as possible - so, stage costumes, think Freddie Mercury or ABBA (also; tax breaks). But, those costumes could not be easily adopted; very high signalling, but also high cost now, and most likely a higher crystallised opportunity cost in the next period. And (very) high drag, outside of very specific environments.
Consumers traded off. Accepted lower signalling effectiveness, for lower cash cost and lower drag, only elements of "the look" got adopted.
This lead producers to abandon the high cost costumes, in order to consistently attract more eyeballs. This lead to more producers being able to enter the space, with their own variations, specialisations.
Then the wider environment changed.
Thinking of the early New Romantics, but, by late '82, into '83, that early look had been completely dropped by at least two of the movement's highest profile bands. Sharp suits all the way.
What's the aspirational signalling here, given the timing?
A bit later on, we run into the Spice Girls, where each member of the group had, adopted, a specific look or character, in order to appeal to specific audience segments, maximising eyeballs. Literally, Posh and Sporty and Baby. Scary occasionally showed elements of Gibson, purely utilitarian clothing, workwear and military, from much earlier periods.
Audience cultures had already fragmented, largely down to the economics, but also technology. For Sporty, it's satellite feeds, blame Italia 90, then Sky and the Premier League.
Technology adoption further disrupted the gatekeepers. Top of the Pops vs. VH1 and MTV. Internet technologies made this much, much worse, fragmenting audiences into ever smaller segments, which can be pretended to be identifiable, even if globalisation massively increased the total addressable market.
Now, I'm willing to bet that given the nature of tournament markets and superstar effects, Taylor Swift (by far not the only one, and it's been going on for a while - Beyonce springs to mind) has shifted back toward outfits that are high signal, high cost and high drag.
It's 1976 all over again. You could not identify a Swiftie in the street simply via the clothing.
Shein's response is to massively overweight the low cost, and since the stuff apparently doesn't survive a single cycle in a washing machine, drag is also reduced.
Pretty sure that you once theorised about differences between US and European youth culture; that European youth culture was more fluid across Friday, Saturday nights, simply changing the colour of your jeans meant you could be a member of multiple groups at the same time. US culture was far more binding; choose a group, get trapped.
The above suggests that the US teen culture model is now broken, or more European, meaning Teen Vogue et al no longer have market power, and no natural allies (pop stars, sports stars) that can deliver the required audience to advertisers in a high cost, high drag environment. The reaction is exactly as you say.
Amusingly, I could suggest that the chunk of responsibility for the much derided (in certain quarters) high consumption society would be a highly redistributive welfare state, itself more dependent upon high deficit spending and it's own wage bill, as the signal/cost/drag environment changes from factors well outside it's control.
They simultaneously complain about the cost of living crisis and cheap clothes. Amazing.
"And so the vitriol with which magazines like Teen Vogue - which makes money on advertising the aspirational to girlies - greets the arrival of Shein and the like which make fashion into disposables, not aspirationals"
What is it that makes the clothing aspirational? That boils down to what, who, are you trying to copy? What signals, status, in-, out-group, does it send? Further, SF author William Gibson: "something appealingly “low-drag” about gray man theory: reduced friction with one’s environment", or , how much of a twat do you look?
Two things seem to follow; first, how available, visually, is the original? How easy is it to adopt "the look"?
The first relies on a media profile, underlying that, bandwidth; the second on disposable income.
The bandwidth that the (potential) consumer can process has is static, the bandwidth that producers can attempt to command is heavily mediated by gatekeepers. The Mk1 Eyeball hasn't changed.
So, the '70s. TV achieved critical mass somewhere in the early part of this period, supplanting cinema (and Pathe). High inflation, leading to expectations of high(er) inflation, same for tax rates. Consumers anticipated ever lower disposable income.
TVs new status lead to an initial attempt to grab eyeballs as soon as possible - so, stage costumes, think Freddie Mercury or ABBA (also; tax breaks). But, those costumes could not be easily adopted; very high signalling, but also high cost now, and most likely a higher crystallised opportunity cost in the next period. And (very) high drag, outside of very specific environments.
Consumers traded off. Accepted lower signalling effectiveness, for lower cash cost and lower drag, only elements of "the look" got adopted.
This lead producers to abandon the high cost costumes, in order to consistently attract more eyeballs. This lead to more producers being able to enter the space, with their own variations, specialisations.
Then the wider environment changed.
Thinking of the early New Romantics, but, by late '82, into '83, that early look had been completely dropped by at least two of the movement's highest profile bands. Sharp suits all the way.
What's the aspirational signalling here, given the timing?
A bit later on, we run into the Spice Girls, where each member of the group had, adopted, a specific look or character, in order to appeal to specific audience segments, maximising eyeballs. Literally, Posh and Sporty and Baby. Scary occasionally showed elements of Gibson, purely utilitarian clothing, workwear and military, from much earlier periods.
Audience cultures had already fragmented, largely down to the economics, but also technology. For Sporty, it's satellite feeds, blame Italia 90, then Sky and the Premier League.
Technology adoption further disrupted the gatekeepers. Top of the Pops vs. VH1 and MTV. Internet technologies made this much, much worse, fragmenting audiences into ever smaller segments, which can be pretended to be identifiable, even if globalisation massively increased the total addressable market.
Now, I'm willing to bet that given the nature of tournament markets and superstar effects, Taylor Swift (by far not the only one, and it's been going on for a while - Beyonce springs to mind) has shifted back toward outfits that are high signal, high cost and high drag.
It's 1976 all over again. You could not identify a Swiftie in the street simply via the clothing.
Shein's response is to massively overweight the low cost, and since the stuff apparently doesn't survive a single cycle in a washing machine, drag is also reduced.
Pretty sure that you once theorised about differences between US and European youth culture; that European youth culture was more fluid across Friday, Saturday nights, simply changing the colour of your jeans meant you could be a member of multiple groups at the same time. US culture was far more binding; choose a group, get trapped.
The above suggests that the US teen culture model is now broken, or more European, meaning Teen Vogue et al no longer have market power, and no natural allies (pop stars, sports stars) that can deliver the required audience to advertisers in a high cost, high drag environment. The reaction is exactly as you say.
Amusingly, I could suggest that the chunk of responsibility for the much derided (in certain quarters) high consumption society would be a highly redistributive welfare state, itself more dependent upon high deficit spending and it's own wage bill, as the signal/cost/drag environment changes from factors well outside it's control.
Stella McCartney complained about this while selling €290 T shirts. All of you, back into the fields, Now!