Rethinking Fashion｜Is celebrity culture largely beneficial or detrimental to the fashion media indus

What does boasting an 5-million-follower Instagram account really mean? Celebrity culture nowadays inundate viewers just like how Louis Vuitton started pouring logo-covered bags into the market in the mid-2000s. The result of logo fatigue occurred and not an astute costumer want anything that covered in Louis Vuitton’s monogram. In a world of fame dominated by social media, the monotony of celebrity found everywhere in fashion industry is a the new kind of logo fatigue. For instance, Gigi Hadid and her younger sister Bella have appeared in an almost countless number of ad campaigns within the past couple of years and there is nary an hour that goes by — literally — that Vogue does not tweet an image of one of the sisters to post an article that contains a photo of them.

Photo Taken by Myself in Whitney Museum, New York City in March 2017

The overexposure of the Hadids keeps creeping up in an era filled with bunches of Instagram news feed and excessive onslaughts of twitter tweets. It seems like that they are born with advantages, the advantages those longstanding runway classic figures lacked. Insta celebrities manage to make themselves, so to speak, and land big-name runway spots, ad campaigns, and collaborations, due to their ability to build followings and wield influence on Instagram. What does boasting an 5-million-follower Instagram account really mean? It’s, without a doubt, the new favorites pampered by the largest fashion companies, who turn these celebrities into pipers, seducing customers into a whirl called desire. Secondly, and maybe more importantly, they are considered in the upper echelon of influencers of the fashion media industry.

"A Level of Sophistication" is necessary. As for me, a successful and durable fashion media platform in modern days is completed with several elements, which are relevance of publishing, the increase of advertising revenues, and the most significantly yet easily to be neglected, a level of sophistication that goes into producing that. Interestingly, these celebrities who have a large following usually can effortlessly fulfill the first two requirements thanks to the enormous number of their fans. However, ironically, I wonder whether these new-age celebrities —the ones that are dictating and making their marks in the media world — indeed have the capacity to convey the aesthetic and historical value with depth of fashion itself. It seems unlikely.

Fashion media sacrifices the quality to win over on the quantity. The fast-paced fashion ecosystem thanks to celebrity culture is detrimental to the fashion media. It’s no secret that the rise of social media, in particular, has changed the way fashion is approached and digested in recent years. Consumers and audiences no longer need to wait for the slow-burn-type of reviews or magazines to inform them fashion news. We click open the app on our smart phones, we can directly enjoy batches of images fresh from the runway. And now, celebrity culture decidedly makes the fashion news delivery faster then ever. Thus, fashion media rushes for interviews or newly-launched collection just to climb up to get that coveting throne named CTR(click through rate). Fashion media sacrifices the quality to win over on the quantity.

The trivial fashion information scattered all over the media platforms by celebrities would conceal those traditionally-minded critics. That is, the authentic fashion materials are used in shallow context. One of the aforementioned elements of a successful fashion media is a level of depth given between the texts. However, the media dominated by celebrities is not the case. For example, in Spring/Summer 2018, there is a potential new “it” model in the midst: The shockingly beautiful 16-year-old Kaia Gerber, the daughter and almost the splitting image of supermodel Cindy Crawford. Her runway debut is for Calvin Klein, and two days later she opened the show at Alexander Wang with a fiery walk. After that, she closed the show for Marc Jacobs. Through out the whole month of runway sensation, Gerber is undeniably lightening up a new level of popularity. The 16-year-old has a 2.2 million of following on Instagram. Some of people who think they do pay serious attention on fashion weeks are actually just some people double-clicking on pictures of Kaia Gerber.

Trivial celebrities' news would eclipse professional critics. As such, relying on critics intertwining with historical substantiations and unique aesthetic perspectives to tell us what garments and accessories are standout pieces is a bit outdated when young fashion fans can simply look at photos and videos post by celebrities. Comparing to those words—it’s not even a complete article with solid content— mentioning about Kaia Gerber, her mother, her older brother and even his older brother’s girlfriend, those trusted critics written by, to say, Cathy Horyn or Robin Givhan, seem overshadowed by those about the Gerbers.

Ask Yourself A Question - What fashion and clothing truly mean to you? Last but not the least, fashion media help individuals to find their very own way of expressing self and emotions subtly through either minimal lines or Arabesque, either the colors or the dark. However, excessive celebrity fetishism would threaten this function. People pay too much attention on their skinny legs and puffy lips and the extravaganza. Receiving too much celebrity informations is like overdosing on beautifully sugar-coated medicine given by so-called fashion gurus. We would be too dependent on the homogeneity thus lose the ability of critical thinking about what fashion, styling and clothing truly mean to us.

Fashion media for me, should’ve served as a narrative agent for culture across space and time, bearing responsibilities to be in step with the contemporary. It’s aesthetic regarding diversity, creativity and the consciousness of human and the nature. However, excessive celebrity fetishism and explosion of raw, unprocessed informations would be largely detrimental to the original functions of fashion media.