A couple of years ago, no one could have imagined that the service for creating and viewing short videos TikTok, owned by the Beijing company ByteDance, would be so firmly entrenched in our lives. In 2019, the WhatsApp messenger beat records in download rates, while TikTok was only tenth in the ranking of the most popular free applications on the Russian App Store. Today, the service has confidently ousted competitors, and the number of its active users around the world continues to grow. Analyst firm App Annie expects it to reach $ 1.2 billion by 2021.
These numbers, as well as the fact that, according to international statistics, 41% of TikTok's audience are people aged 16 to 24, made the service attractive to the fashion industry. And she has been using every means to build relationships with Generations Y and Z since consultancy Bain & Company announced that they would represent 55% of global luxury consumers by 2025.
In recent months, brands such as Burberry, Jacquemus, Gucci, Prada and Balmain have signed up on TikTok, which not only shoot ironic videos in vertical format for the service, but also organize broadcasts of new collections, although recently only YouTube and Instagram were used for this. … However, some phenomena occur on TikTok without their direct involvement, but with a direct impact on sales.
What's happening if you put an Eiffel Tour in the washing machine on # 14juilletensemble #Bastilleday? Answer at the end of the video ??? ❤️
♬ original sound - BALMAIN
Bet on TikTokers
Edi Slimane, creative director of the Celine brand, was one of the first to see a prospect in the service. In December 2019, he shot for Celine Portrait: Portrait of a Teen Idol Noen Eubanks, a blond high school student from suburban Atlanta who has amassed 11 million followers to date through makeup tutorials and dancing in a pink fur coat, cowboy hat and a striped pullover with the image of the hypnotized SpongeBob.
The presence of Tiktoker in the advertising campaign did not cause outrage, largely because he looked like a professional model and did not really stand out from a number of other project participants: Margaret Qualley (Cat from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) and Wolf Gillespie, son of Primal Scream vocalist Bobby Gillespie … Moreover, for other brands, filming has become a signal to action: with TikTok stars - open, distinctive and more understandable to Generation Z than those who show their incredible wealth on Instagram - you can and even should work.
@prada #prada dc
♬ Cannibal by Kesha - rapidsongs
Already at the February Milan Fashion Week, Tiktokers pushed aside journalists, artists and bloggers. Dolce & Gabbana invited Dina Saeva, a 21-year-old native of Tajikistan, to the show, followed by almost 18 million people on TikTok, and Prada, 16-year-old Charlie D'Amelio from the United States, whose audience exceeds 102 million. Both brands pre-dressed their ambassadors, anticipating a certain effect, but not expecting a record result. But in vain: D'Amelio's video in the interiors of the show got almost 6 million likes, and the photo with a pink Prada Re-Edition 2005 bag got more than 2 million likes. Fashion brand search analytics company Lyst has reported that demand for the accessory has increased by 90% within 24 hours of Tiktoker's publication.
Trends sell
Some products have gone viral thanks to TikTok trends - videos filmed with specific music, movement, and subject matter. For example, during the spring quarantine, users posted videos with the hashtag #pillowchallenge, trying to build a cocktail dress from a pillow using a Gucci, Versace, Valentino, Saint Laurent or Dior belt. The defile in total scored more than 750 million views on TikTok, but whether brand sales grew from this, Lyst, who called the challenge one of the most significant events of the year, did not specify.
This got me in trouble @kingali #comedy #funny #viral #fyp #pillowchallenge
♬ original sound - andreaespadatv
But the popularity of the Lirika Matoshi dress with the image of strawberries, which was attracted by the tiktoker Avery Mayer (she posted an emotional video with the unboxing of the outfit and scored 1.1 million likes), gained numerical indicators. In early August, demand for it increased by 738% compared to July, forcing the brand's team to work around the clock, seven days a week. The fire was added by a series of photos in which actress Zendaya, members of the Led Zeppelin group and singer Harry Styles tried on the dress through Photoshop. The post with the participation of the latter, published on the Instagram account of Lirika Matoshi, received almost 260 thousand likes.
THE STRAWBERRY DRESS HAS ARRIVED !!! BE READY FOR CONTENT ANF THANK YOU ALL SO SO MUCH ???????????
♬ original sound -? ⭐CALL ME MAI! ⭐?
Do it yourself
Harry Styles' appearance in another piece - the multi-colored JW Anderson cardigan - also made a splash. The singer's fans launched the #HarryStylesCardigan challenge, in which they tried to make a similar model with their own hands. To date, hundreds of videos have been published under the hashtag, which in total have gained more than 45 million views. This fact did not go unnoticed by the author of the cardigan Jonathan Anderson, who was unable to meet the demand for a ready-made designer thing that had grown by 166% and published a knitting pattern.
i did it ✌ ?? #harrystyles @jw_anderson #harrystylescardigan #crochet #jwanderson #onedirection #fyp #fup #foryoupage #girldontdoit
♬ GIRL JUST DO IT - Beph
Vogue Business explained that the cardigan went viral due to the growing popularity of craftcore - the art of creating things with your own hands, which Gen Z was especially interested in during the pandemic. Even before #HarryStylesCardigan, teenagers altered pajamas into shorts, covered old Dr. boots with glitter. Martens, created tops from different scraps of fabric and, of course, shared the results on TikTok. This is due not only to the fact that for the first time they were locked in an apartment for a long time, but also because they are concerned about environmental changes, which, among other factors, are influenced by overproduction of clothing and textile waste.
Aesthetics of the villages
Another trend that originated in TikTok is cottagecore, the aesthetics of villages that many moved to during the quarantine period. Under this hashtag, users of the service published a video about how they build a house, plant trees, have a picnic, read a book in the field or dance in a so-called nap dress - a hybrid of a shirt and a summer dress. In July, when the number of views of such videos crossed the 1 billion bar, Lyst recorded a 22% increase in searches for nap dress. Over time, despite the fact that people began to return from the villages, and the temperature of the thermometer was falling rapidly, interest in dresses only increased. According to The Business of Fashion, Hill House Home, which specializes in dressy shirts, made $ 1 million in half an hour of sales in November.
@ kelley.heyer
I got a new vintage dress today and I'm never taking it off? #cottagecore #vintage #ootd #fyp #fashion #bisexual
♬ original sound - ♡ ollie ♡
The return of subcultures
At the same time, the popularity of things, the style of which is absolutely opposite to cottagecore, grew: short pleated skirts - by 16%, mesh T-shirts - by 20% and dangling mono-lace - by 72%. All thanks to e-girl - bright and even provocative characters, in which girls were reincarnated in an effort to get into the so-called "rivers" (a category with recommended TikTok videos).
The Urban Dictionary describes the emerging subculture as “a kind of emo recognizable by pink eyeshadow, small hearts under the eyes, big arrows and a red nose” and notes that typically e-girls “wear street-brand tees over longsleeves and dance on TikTok to the TeddyLoid song "Me! Me! Me!"
lmfao the end has me dead? This took forever! don't let it flop #fyp #fashion #egirl #ootd
♬ Days Of The Week Male Man British English Week Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Speech Spoken Speaking Sound Effects and Spoken Phrases Male Voice - Serious About Sound Effects
Themselves e-girls oppose themselves to "glamorous instamodels", being "creators of Internet content that look original and alternative." By the way, after e-girls, e-boys appeared in TikTok, who also look into the beauty departments for hair dyes and eyeliners and are not averse to wearing short tops and high knee-highs. Celine Ambassador Noen Eubanks is just a representative of the subculture and even one of its main propagandists.
Democratizing fashion
In general, the main change that has happened to the fashion industry with the spread of TikTok is that it has become more democratic, having lost the hierarchy with a clear distribution of roles. Now everyone can elevate any thing to a cult, become a guest of a fashion brand show and even try himself as a model.
In August, the #GucciModelChallenge trend was launched on the platform, launched by tiktoker Morgan Prisley, who explained how to become a Gucci model using improvised means. “First of all, you need a turtleneck - choose a bright one, then any shirt that doesn't go well with it. Then any vest. Layering is important. Then a colored jacket, latex pants, maybe a miniskirt on top (yes, that's stylish). Tie a scarf over your head - this is the basis of Gucci style. Add sunglasses, sheer shoes with socks. Apply bright pink lipstick. This is what Gucci models look like,”she demonstrated by inviting the brand to hire herself as a model.
Celebrating the # GucciModelChallenge-created by users to recreate Gucci-inspired looks with their clothing. @iblamepraise Voice by @morganpresleyxo
♬ original sound - Gucci
And the brand hired - not just Morgan Prisley, but a dozen platform users who recorded their videos following her instructions. First, Gucci repost several #GucciModelChallenge participants - people with both 100 thousand and 1 thousand subscribers, and then announced that they would be part of a new project.
“I know big brands don't work with influencers. They work with celebrities, so it all seemed surreal. I've never seen anything like this,”said Prisley, despite her disappointment that Gucci did not invite her to their team. "The fact that they played along with the joke instead of suing me was really cool."
However, not all luxury fashion houses are ready to open up to TikTokers with their baggage of irony. So, Fendi ignored the track of the main star of the Russian TikTok Rakhim Abramov, in which he confesses his love for the clothes of the Italian brand. The lines “Gucci, Prada, Louis? I'm only wearing Fendi Hoodies”became the mantra of thousands of platform users and even got into Snoop Dogg's Instagram, and the video for this song got over 11 million views on YouTube.
Have you watched the video ??
♬ original sound - Rakhim
Fendi's own TikTok features more classic tracks that showcase new items from its collections, while the project "F is For …", aimed at expressing millennials, features actress Sabrina Carpenter and IMG Models model Visdom Kaye. The latter, although it gained massive popularity precisely as a tiktoker who makes ironic unpacking of fashion purchases, in the brand's video simply poses in things. I would like to believe that in the coming year, the individuality of TikTok users will break through even such fortresses in fashion.>