We're a little more than a month into spring — which means if you're doing some clothes shopping, you'll likely enter stores to see racks of new, glitzy clothing, or browse a few websites with bold banners showing off new arrivals. Regardless of your preferred shopping medium, this season's trends, such as retro prints and utility-inspired garments, will be everywhere.
There's a whole system behind how those clothing trends make their way into your closet. They often start from the top with high fashion and luxury brands, and work their way down to more affordable retailers.
That top-down influence is, perhaps, best exemplified by an infamous scene from the 2006 movie The Devil Wears Prada. Staffers at a fashion magazine are deciding between two blue belts to accessorize an outfit for a story. They look the same to fashion world newbie Andy Sachs, played by Anne Hathaway. Sachs snickers — and Miranda Priestly, played by Meryl Streep, whips her head around to educate her about how that cerulean blue made its way from runways to her "clearance bin" sweater.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 was released in theaters on Friday — marking 20 years since audiences first watched Miranda take Andy to task. And in the meantime, that trickle-down system has changed drastically. The internet has given way to faster trends, fashion experts say, and the conglomerates that own many high-fashion brands increasingly value profit over creativity.
"Speed is of the essence, just because consumers move on at a breakneck speed compared to what they did years ago," said Michael Fisher, a New York-based trend forecaster and consumer behavior expert.
What's inspiring high-fashion designers
Historically, high-fashion designers have looked to the realms of theater, architecture and travel to inspire their collections. The economic and social states of the world also often work their way in, said Lorynn Divita, an associate professor of apparel design and merchandising at Baylor University.
"They want their designs to reflect the contemporary zeitgeist or spirit of the times," she said.
But the last 20 years have shifted some designers' priorities, thanks in part to the expansion of conglomerates — like LVMH, the parent company for Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Celine, and Kering, which houses Gucci, Saint Laurent and Bottega Veneta. This can lead to a culture of sameness, Divita said.
"They are literally expected to have increasing sales season after season after season, which has resulted in a distinct lack of innovation, and that's a real shame," she said.
More recently, brands have started using artificial intelligence to figure out what will sell. For example, AI is a good tool for surveying pricing and inventory data, said Michael Palladino, a lecturer in the business of fashion program at Kingsborough Community College in New York City.
But AI is less suitable for pushing fashion design into the future, Palladino said.
"There's a need for authenticity and all that it implies," he said. "It implies human touch, it implies empathy, it implies truth."
A faster and unregulated fashion cycle
Fast fashion, lower cost retailers, such as Zara and H&M, and ultra-fast fashion retailers, including Shein and Temu, want a piece of high fashion's influence. They know consumers want those looks for less — so they make it happen, Palladino said.
"Everybody wants to wear designer, so this is as close as they're going to get" within their budgets, he said.
Copying runway looks isn't new. There have long been designer "dupes" — short for duplicates, or designer look-alikes without the branding — as well as outright counterfeit copies of those garments, Divita said.
Once upon a time, department stores would actually send artists to runway shows to sketch dupes, Divita said. Some designers would approve of this because the process to get the dupe into stores was much slower then, and therefore, less of a threat, she said.
"It would take enough time that by the time the knockoffs got into the stores, the designer would be on to the next," she said.
But then the internet came to town. When Vogue magazine launched its website in 1998, it would post photos of entire collections. And social media has made it easy for trends to circulate at whiplash speeds.
"Everyone, no matter whether in the Midwest, or they're in Paris or New York, has equal access to what trend is now," Fisher said.
Because of higher visibility, what took months and years to copy and sell now takes hours and weeks. Many fashion brands also have speedier logistic systems than before. The direct-to-consumer brand Quince, for example, has its own factories and can cut out any middlemen, Fisher said.
Fast fashion has gotten so fast that dupes sometimes end up on the market before the originals, Divita said.
In the U.S., copyrights don't offer much protection for clothing, so brands making dupes only need to "change the button, change the pull on the zipper … make little changes like that, and then you're not copying, you're inspired," Palladino said.
To avoid copycats, some designers are relying more heavily on their logos, which are easier to protect, Divita said.
"You can't copyright a short-sleeve sweater dress. You can only copyright the Fendi 'F,'" she said.
However, while copycats are fast, they don't capture the essence of the original, Palladino said.
"They can't necessarily translate verbatim what walks down the runway because they have to also offer something to the masses, so it has to be a little more palatable," he said.
Meeting of the minds
Every now and then, though, the higher and lower-end markets join forces. Target spearheaded these high-and-low collaborations with its 1999 collection of housewares with architect Michael Graves, who worked on the Washington Monument. Over the years, Target partnered with luxury fashion names like Zac Posen and Missoni. Other brands have since taken notice, Fisher said.
In March, for example, Zara announced John Galliano, a former creative director of Dior, will reimagine some of Zara's past garments over the next two years.
These are mutually beneficial relationships, Divita said.
Higher-end designers get an influx of revenue they can use for their own labels, while still keeping them exclusive. They are also introduced to a new group of consumers, who might shop at the designers' principal brands for cheaper items, like sunglasses or bag charms, Divita said.
"That is really how a lot of high-end brands make the bulk of their income, by keeping the image high, but actually making sales to the mass market," she said.
And the more affordable brands get "more cachet," Palladino said.
What has stayed the same
Though the divide between luxury and more affordable brands has narrowed in some ways, in others, it's the same as it's always been — especially along class lines.
"The upper class already sees that the lower classes are copying them and they move on to a new style," Divita said.
It's a phenomenon called "chase and flight," she said.
Although high-fashion brands hold a lot of prestige and influence, that influence ebbs and flows, Fisher said. For example, around 2008, streetwear trickled up onto the runways, he said.
And now, it's high-fashion brands "putting forth very strong points of view" that are helping to reclaim the luxury market's influence on trends, Fisher said — like Loewe and its "quirky, very colorful...very independent spirit." There's also the timeless, "rebellious attitude" of Elsa Schiaparelli and her eponymous label, Palladino said.
But consumers still hold most of the power. Their values on comfort, modesty and price continue to affect what high-end designers do, Divita said.
"We decide what's in and out," she said.
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