It all comes down to a little experiment
Okay, okay, now you are here, welcome!
Let me introduce a little bit about myself. I’m Kayla, a versatile creative professional specializing in media, marketing, and journalism, currently based in New York City. I started playing music at the age of 4 and my passion has blossomed into a multifaceted love affair with the creative sphere, encompassing the realms of art, culture, and fashion.
Eclectic, quirky, weird. That’s me.
My fashion taste is like myself, a little bit eccentric.
I became interested in fashion because of Raf Simons and his expression on the youth generation. How volatile we are enduring the difficult transitions into adulthood. With exploded fashion information on social media feeds, it becomes harder to form a certain style now. So, we experiment, and I think that’s what fashion means to me.
I used to be an Hedi Slimane girl, well, when he was still at Saint Laurent. Black boots, slim black jeans with destructive details, black biker jacket, and silver accessories. At that time, I listened to The Pretty Reckless and Avril Lavigne, and somewhat experimented what I wear based on the music I listened to — — rock n’ roll. I was playing guitar and singing at a school band. I remember browsing through the SLP leather jacket and thought, “I will buy it one day when I become a rock star”. Well, I never did, as I quit my halfway music journey and back to school. I wanted to become a biologist.
My mom is a doctor, so I know how to dress like an educated person even though I was not there yet. I got myself a pair of fitted black trousers, stole the trench coat from my mom’s closet, and finished off with a pair of burgundy loafers. And my mom loved it. She commented that it was so much better than the previous “gangster” look. Funny enough, the teachers who saw me as a “bad kid” now welcomed me to their office hours to discuss about my college application. One of them even said that I would be a great fit to Johns Hopkins Medical School just because my changed my outfits and looked “educated”. Hilarious. And of course, I didn’t make my way to JHU, I mean, it has the best medical program. But the sudden shift in people’s attitude because of the way I dressed made me wonder: “Who am I then?”
According to Glamour, fashion trends in 2024 is about sequined-everything, girlcore, prep school, nonbasic basics, C-suite chic, sheer layering, XL bags, Into the deep, 80’s excess, kitten heels, shades of green, summer in Capris, and many more vocabs that the internet has invented. I mean, I get it, and I am a subscriber of these great fashion magazines. Fashion trends, social media, content creating are excellent measures for communicating with the masses and essentially drive the whole fashion industry.
While many see fashion as an effective instrument to express their unique personality and as a social tool to get along with people with similar fashion taste, I look at it as the experimentation of the youth generation who has been mischaracterized by the mainstream culture. They intend to look for inspiration for individuality but more often become the subject of inspiration of the trend.
And that’s why I’m here. To experiment not only with fashion trends, but with media and marketing trends.
Apart from social media feeds, video and voice marketing, and mobile optimization, it is expected that businesses will use trends and technologies as an experiment. Nobody knows what a little experiment can do to the business model, especially with AI.
The presence of AI can not only help marketers better understand the customer and making the best suitable business model, but bring people together, creating a so-called “Imagined Community” as Benedict Anderson first brought the term in 1983 describing the “nation-state”. Anderson argues that nations are “imagined” because the majority of their members will never meet each other, yet they still feel a deep connection and allegiance to the nation. Although it is initially a political and socio-economical term, it stands out in the digital world as people are connected on online platforms. Marketers can create spaces where customers feel a sense of belonging and shared identity. These brand communities are essentially imagined communities, where customers may never meet in person but feel connected by their shared interest in the brand.
In turn, we are seeing genuine connections, meaningful interactions, and spaces where individuals feel a sense of belonging and identity within the digital landscape. We, humans, work hand in hand with the machine.
In the following weeks and months, we are going to experiment with all the new sauces in marketing. It may go well, it may not. But trials are necessary for success, isn’t it? Come join the journey with me and I’ll see you down the road…
