Trendsurfing: Design-it-yourself fashion (The Times)
By David Rowan
If you want to be hip, it's no longer enough to be seen wearing the right shoes: now you also have to design them yourself. What began as a grassroots revolt against the conformity of global clothing brands has become a powerful new movement. In a trend analysts are labelling "consumer creativity" or "the democratisation of design", millions of us are suddenly demanding clothes customised to our tastes. For the mass-market fashion labels, it's a serious business threat - which is why the smartest of them are jumping on the design-it-yourself bandwagon.
Take trainers - long the coolhunters' touchstone in an ever-shifting street culture. Hang around a skateboard ramp and you'll see elaborate graffiti colour schemes decorating the skaters' branded footwear. The best are miniature works of art. Driving in Los Angeles a few months ago, I passed a hand-scrawled roadside sign pointing to a nearby shop where my frayed trainers could be hand-painted to my tastes for $20. I should have invested: Jor One, a fashionable Brooklyn graffiti writer, recently drew a few dollar signs on to five pairs of new Nike Air Jordan 10s. He sold each pair for $450.
Nike knows what's cool. That's why it has just relaunched its Nike iD website (www.nikeid.com), through which the public can design their own shoes, sports bags, even golf balls. If you happen to believe that a loudly coloured trainer is the truest way to express your personality, it offers you 144 separate boxes to tick, covering everything from the "swoosh" border to the tongue covering. Pay your £65, and five weeks later a customised pair of Free 5.0 iDs will arrive through the post along with a personal "blueprint" that flatters your creative abilities. "Once you try it, you become vested in your own design," claims a company spokesman. "There is a Nike iD customer who sees value in being able to design their own shoe, and they're willing to pay a slight premium for that customisation."
If you prefer Vans, you can go online (www.vans.com) "to express your creativity" by personalising Old Skools or Classic Slip-ons. Fans of Puma can visit shops to "touch and play with" fabrics as they formulate their one-off styles. Nor is it just the footwear firms that are scrambling to offer customisation. Ralph Lauren's www.polo.com website has a "create your own" option for T-shirts and bikinis; so, rather more expensively, do Gucci and Armani. Pfz, an online crockery firm (www.pfz.com), specialises in "personal branding" for your next dinner party. "The fashion-conscious," the company gushes, "can unlock their creative juices to design dinnerware that reflects their individual personality and styles."
Trend forecasters call it "fingerprinting" - the desire to make our own small mark on the impersonal global economy. Others say it's simply the same technology-led revolution that has turned amateurs into podcasters, video-bloggers and garage musicians. Either way, the experts agree that customisation will be a major fashion trend.
Still, even the most street-cred brands have their limits. When Jonah Peretti, a student, was designing his Nike iD running shoes, the website offered to stitch a word of his choice on the side. Peretti famously typed in "sweatshop", but Nike rejected it as "inappropriate slang". Whatever happened to the democratisation of design?
(The Times Magazine, June 18 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE TRENDSURFING COLUMNS HERE . . .
If you want to be hip, it's no longer enough to be seen wearing the right shoes: now you also have to design them yourself. What began as a grassroots revolt against the conformity of global clothing brands has become a powerful new movement. In a trend analysts are labelling "consumer creativity" or "the democratisation of design", millions of us are suddenly demanding clothes customised to our tastes. For the mass-market fashion labels, it's a serious business threat - which is why the smartest of them are jumping on the design-it-yourself bandwagon.
Take trainers - long the coolhunters' touchstone in an ever-shifting street culture. Hang around a skateboard ramp and you'll see elaborate graffiti colour schemes decorating the skaters' branded footwear. The best are miniature works of art. Driving in Los Angeles a few months ago, I passed a hand-scrawled roadside sign pointing to a nearby shop where my frayed trainers could be hand-painted to my tastes for $20. I should have invested: Jor One, a fashionable Brooklyn graffiti writer, recently drew a few dollar signs on to five pairs of new Nike Air Jordan 10s. He sold each pair for $450.
Nike knows what's cool. That's why it has just relaunched its Nike iD website (www.nikeid.com), through which the public can design their own shoes, sports bags, even golf balls. If you happen to believe that a loudly coloured trainer is the truest way to express your personality, it offers you 144 separate boxes to tick, covering everything from the "swoosh" border to the tongue covering. Pay your £65, and five weeks later a customised pair of Free 5.0 iDs will arrive through the post along with a personal "blueprint" that flatters your creative abilities. "Once you try it, you become vested in your own design," claims a company spokesman. "There is a Nike iD customer who sees value in being able to design their own shoe, and they're willing to pay a slight premium for that customisation."
If you prefer Vans, you can go online (www.vans.com) "to express your creativity" by personalising Old Skools or Classic Slip-ons. Fans of Puma can visit shops to "touch and play with" fabrics as they formulate their one-off styles. Nor is it just the footwear firms that are scrambling to offer customisation. Ralph Lauren's www.polo.com website has a "create your own" option for T-shirts and bikinis; so, rather more expensively, do Gucci and Armani. Pfz, an online crockery firm (www.pfz.com), specialises in "personal branding" for your next dinner party. "The fashion-conscious," the company gushes, "can unlock their creative juices to design dinnerware that reflects their individual personality and styles."
Trend forecasters call it "fingerprinting" - the desire to make our own small mark on the impersonal global economy. Others say it's simply the same technology-led revolution that has turned amateurs into podcasters, video-bloggers and garage musicians. Either way, the experts agree that customisation will be a major fashion trend.
Still, even the most street-cred brands have their limits. When Jonah Peretti, a student, was designing his Nike iD running shoes, the website offered to stitch a word of his choice on the side. Peretti famously typed in "sweatshop", but Nike rejected it as "inappropriate slang". Whatever happened to the democratisation of design?
(The Times Magazine, June 18 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE TRENDSURFING COLUMNS HERE . . .
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