[sk8ingdom]

My hypothesis is that fashion has taken a backseat to the numerous other (mainly digital) ways people use to express their individuality. If you're interested in fashion or trends, I always recommend looking at middle and high schoolers--they seem to care more than just about anyone else.

As a child of the 90s, I remember 8th grade being all about fashion: baggy pants/shorts, high white socks, "stuffed" skate shoes, low hanging backpacks with band patches, etc. Our appearance was the primary means by which we performed identity and grouped ourselves and each other into cliques.

However, as the popularity of the internet rose, we were given a new means by which to express ourselves: AIM screen names and profile content, Xanga and LiveJournal custom styles and angsty post, etc. But, even in the 90s, our digital avatars were still small, manageable, and mostly disconnected from our REAL, in-the-flesh, identities--there was a degree of anonymity, particularly for those who wanted it.

At some point, with the rise of MySpace, Gmail, Facebook, Tumblr, and (more recently) Instagram and Snapchat, and the proliferation of smart phones, the barrier between people's real identity and digital identity disappeared. With less anonymity comes MUCH more anxiety. Ridicule for faux pas now are infinitely reproducible, potentially permanent, and move at the speed of light. I imagine if you talked to middle school students today, they'd be much less concerned with the fashion of their peers than the contents of their social media profiles--this seems to be semi-supported by this article[1]:

"In my dozens of conversations with teens, parents, clinicians and school counselors across the country, there was a pervasive sense that being a teenager today is a draining full-time job that includes doing schoolwork, managing a social-media identity and fretting about career, climate change, sexism, racism–you name it. Every fight or slight is documented online for hours or days after the incident. It’s exhausting.

...

It’s hard for many adults to understand how much of teenagers’ emotional life is lived within the small screens on their phones, but a CNN special report in 2015 conducted with researchers at the University of California, Davis, and the University of Texas at Dallas examined the social-media use of more than 200 13-year-olds. Their analysis found that 'there is no firm line between their real and online worlds,' according to the researchers."

[1] http://time.com/magazine/us/4547305/november-7th-2016-vol-18...