menswear in the age of the internet

As menswear fashion has grown over the last several decades, so too has the prestige of those with the foresight and knowledge to predict trends in a market growing more consistently than its womenswear counterpart. Since 2016, sales growth pertaining to menswear has steadily outpaced womenswear.

This sales growth can be attributed to the ever-growing interest in fashion, an obsession fueled by social media, music, influencers, niche style tribes, and countless other factors that are influencing more men, specifically young men, to care more about their personal style than ever before. The near-infinite sources of the growing interest in menswear means more work for the fashion forecasters that work behind the scenes, keeping the industry innovating year after year; those who truly understand the motive and significance behind the countless streams of culture influencing menswear today can call themselves experts of the industry.

JW Anderson Menswear S/S 24

Social media: the nebulous cloud of information that influences everything we do, replacing newspaper, cable, publications, and magazines. In the past, to truly invest in the fashion industry as an outsider, one would need extensive external knowledge to even know where to start, beyond just aimlessly window shopping through Saks Fifth Avenue. A novice fashion enthusiast need to know which magazines to purchase, they would need to know which designers to study, and which publications to subscribe to.

Now most of this knowledge comes with time and effort, however today, investing into fashion is easier than ever with the sheer amount of information available for free on the internet. While surfing the Instagram explore page and perusing through hashtags of trendy designers is admittedly a surface level understanding of the fashion industry - for a novice, one who wishes to expand their personal style or research the industry, social media is a great place the start.

Timothee Chalamet for British Vogue - The first time in the publication’s history to feature a solo man on its cover

Through the internet, those looking to engage within a fashion subculture can find common ground easily through platforms like Reddit and Twitter, where communities are often built around a specific genre of fashion, or around designers with cult-followings, like Rick Owens, Kiko Kostadinov, and Jun Takahashi. While fashion enthusiasts have historically always flocked around their favorite designers, elevating them to a savant like status, with the internet, this process is easier and more potent than ever, especially for young men looking to engage in menswear.

Take for example Rick Owens, the American designer who, for the last three decades or so, has become the primary symbol of American counterculture in fashion. Owens’ dedication to a unique blend of dark, edgy, and sculptural elements in his designs has led to a massive cult following, with some of his fans literally only wearing his garments, right down to the underwear. On the platform Reddit, the Rick Owens subreddit (or community), currently has around 20k members, solely dedicated to his craft. The most popular Instagram account dedicated to analyzing and celebrating Owens’ work, geocasket, has over 40k followers.

Rick Owens for CFDA

For forecasters, it is not enough to simply promote emulating Owens’ design style to retailers and other designers. While Owens’ clothes are fantastic, the following he generated over the last several years is even more impressive. Forecasters need to understand how and why designers like Rick Owens are able to captivate young men who are not formally educated on fashion fundamentals and the history of the industry.

For Owens’ specifically, his designs are outlandish, unique, and of course expensive enough to generate individuality and prestige in the wearer, yet also so ubiquitous with the brand that a collector of Rick Owens feels a sense of community with other fans of the label’s work, evident through the many online communities that post the brand’s garments and philosophies. There are other examples besides Owens of course: like Kiko Kostadinov rise from Instagram designer to fully-fledged founder and creative director of his namesake label, a process that saw Kostadinov generating a online community while building a label at the same time.

The importance of community in fashion does not just pertain to designers either. Genres like gorpcore (a trend of garments inspired by both outdoor hiking apparel and streetwear), generates a massive amount of interaction on apps like Instagram, where “gorp” enthusiasts post their collections of rare raincoats, parkas, and accesories by brands like Nike, Arc’Teryx, and Patagonia, all under the gorpcore hashtag. The rise of this particular subgenre and community of fashion has been harnessed by brands like Nike, who re-produced coveted parkas and raincoats from decades ago for this new collective of eager consumers.

A gorpcore enthusiast

In the age of the internet, it is imperative that forecasters and brands are tapped into the most popular of these fashion communities. They need to know what drives these young consumers to flock together in celebration of certain labels and subgenres; that perfect balance of individuality and community that Gen Z is striving for - to stand out on the street but still feel welcomed in another part of the city. For young men that develop an interest in fashion through the internet, these communities will often be the first place they stop to become acquainted with the hundreds of designers and fashion movements that make up their Instagram explore page.