Fashion beyond the filter

Robbie Williams famously sang about 'Life through a Lens,' but in 2016 that lens has been largely filtered. From configuring our Instagram feeds to creating e-commerce wish lists featuring only brands we love and customising everything around us, we are absorbing mostly our own reflections.

By eliminating all the areas of disinterest, from the news we choose to read, the music we have on our playlists to the feeds we select to follow on our social media, there is little or no newness filtering in. In fact, it is as if we are eating the same meal day after day, week after week.

How does this affect the fashion industry? We are removing creativity from the equation and in danger of sterilising aesthetics on a global scale. In 2014, Elliot Jay Stocks declared that designers have stopped dreaming. That we’ve stopped being creative. That every site looks the same. A crazy notion considering the magnitude of tools and resources we have at our disposal.

In 2015, trend forecaster Li Edelkoort said in her Anti Fashion Manifesto: "Luxury designers are requested by the brand's marketing to focus on product and need to give most of their creative energy to bags and shoes and are rather resigned concerning the creation of clothes."

In 2016 data analytics have taken precedence over creativity. Companies such as Edited provide algorithm solutions to retailers to maximise their sales. Their analytics are the antithesis of unique creativity, filtering data from the worldwide web so retailers can respond quickly to which items are selling best online. This is why when black sleeveless dresses are 'trending' you'll see them prominently featured from FarFetch to Topshop to Net-a-Porter. Could there by anything less dull than homogenised fashion? Is the end goal only profit? Are consumers so aesthetically sterile that we all want the same thing?

The Daily Me: News purged of anything dull

Last October American Author William Poundstone in Wired magazine summed up the effects of filtering everything around us: "Now you can let your friends crowdsource your news, choosing which stories appear in your news feed. You can configure news aggregators and your TV remote to deliver a bespoke version of the day's events, one tailored to your interests, tastes and prejudices. It's The Daily Me, the news purged of anything personally irrelevant or dull."

Narrowcasting makes us stupid."

"Visionaries have long touted customisable media, but it's now claimed that our surfeit of media choices actually drives political polarisation and is to be blamed for phenomena ranging from Brexit to Donald Trump. But there's another effect of customised news that gets little attention and may be equally as disturbing: narrowcasting makes us stupid."

Hopefully brands and designers will break through the filter bubble, allowing artists to be creative in their own right. As it is in music, not every track can be Shazamed.

Photo credit: Lens, Onye-Ubanatu.jpg, source: Wikimedia Commons