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By Tiffani Curry
Online fashion in recent years has had a whirlwind. Not just because of all the micro-trends but because of the contrived identities sold to us through these various trends. With trends like the eccentric grandpa and office sirens, there is this idea that if you buy a few articles of clothes you will be this. In our capitalist minds, we believe that it is possible to purchase personal style. Many of these trends take from subcultures of people who dress according to a lifestyle they have curated over the years. For them, it goes beyond the clothes but for the people seeing the “trend” on TikTok and other platforms, it is a temporary fabrication of self. It is okay to enjoy and engage with these trends but our engagement with said trends becomes questionable when we use it to create new identities instead of experimenting with our own.
One of the more recent ways people have come to buy into identity is through the keychain trend. Which, as stated by Rian Phin, is already a contrivance. It is curating this identity as a person who is well-traveled and has stories from their many endeavors. To an extent, this may reflect who you are, but there is an intentional picking of aesthetically pleasing parts of your travels and interests. Now you can buy premade keychain collections solely by picking the one that speaks to you the most. There is no real connection other than you like the way it looks. There are keychains with Italian horns being sole right now to people who are completely unaware of the meaning let alone the name. The one keychain I find to be the most perplexing is the Miu Miu keychain. There has been a mass rejection of buying these keychains because they are tied to memories from American summer camps. People are rejecting the idea of buying these keychains because they know how to make them from experience.
Are the keychains from Miu Miu worth less than the random overpriced amalgamations when they are connected to core memories of youth? I believe it comes down to people not being willing to pay for a part of themselves that they already know exists. Along with the knowledge that making the keychains ourselves makes the piece invaluable and engages us in a reconnection with our past selves. Regarding the price of the $ 300+ trinkets unreasonable (they are), but isn’t there a bit of devaluation of self? Yet making the keychains ourselves makes the piece invaluable and engages us in a reconnection with our past selves. Maybe this is what we are avoiding when we contrive identities, it gives us an “easy” way out of changing who we are without actual retrospection or growth.
In psychology, there is this idea that the most a person can exist in a contrived identity is around 3-4 months. Prada SS25 is an exploration of when we lose control and the extremes we will go to to regain control. In collaboration with Raf Simmons Muccia Prada created the collection titled “Infinite Present.” This is their second collection together, and I will say that the first one left me a bit underwhelmed this one I truly enjoyed. I liked the little details of slow unraveling like untucked shirts and wrinkling. As well as just forced deshelvedness (if that’s even a word).
There is also the continuity of false perception with belts and collars. Which has been stretched these holsters that look like they are holding up the bottoms, but, really each part is independently sustaining itself on the body.
I like how they are representing the impact of algorithms on the way we dress and not just the extremity that it pushes it, but as well as the contradictions. This forces us to express ideas that we don’t fully understand within the context of ourselves yet. I mostly see displayed in these awkward moments where it appears AI has created an outfit. This reminds me of the AI-generated Coca-Cola ads where the clips are short because you can slowly see the AI “crashing out” and disfiguring common images associated with Christmas, which is a bit terrifying and comical all at once.
Overall, I think that this collection, whether this is something Prada and Simmons have noticed in society as a whole or just in fashion, but this burnout that we refer to as “crashing out.” Crashing is simply losing control and the level of “crash out” varies from person to person as they are prepared to handle each situation. I really like this trend/moment because it allows moments to drop the mask and be fallible. It allows a space of vulnerability where people can relate and laugh at how ridiculous those moments of self-avoidance were. Ultimately remind us that it has always been okay to be yourself.
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