Purity as a trend

In my fashion promotion and communication course, we were given a trend that we had to identify in three areas as a group; shops, history and people. We gave a presentation and created three mood boards as an outcome. While researching the trend I found that I became really interested in it, and wanted to write more about what I found, rather than just what we could include in the presentation.

Purity is an interesting concept and can mean different things to different people. For most people we found that purity meant clean, simple and untainted. Although this was the consensus, how people do and did present purity, and how brands portray this does vary.  

As a group and within my own research it quickly became clear that there were two main trends in the way it is communicated. Firstly, there is the perhaps more predictable version of what we know purity to be. This is the minimalist, simple aesthetic, with a light colour pallet (mainly whites) . The second trend was the floral, more crowded aesthetic, with lots of colours and organic shapes. 

 

Flowers are often used by brands and in history to portray innocence, for a youthful/striving to be youthful market. Flowers also seemed to give of the impression of softness and delicacy, which we felt were all things we associated with purity, as well as more expected things like love and romance. Although the two trends could be linked as romance and love can sometimes be seen as pure and innocent.

This floral trend is massive in retail and visual merchandising. A big trend that I found standing out on social media was the ‘instagramable’ waterfall of flowers used on shop fronts. I think that it is the natural, unedited beauty of flowers that draws people to them, and therefore draws customers to the stores. Flowers don’t just attract a specific market of people, or even gender which makes it a great way of attracting many people, even if the products provided might not be personally what you want. Also the fact that pictures of these stores or outside these stores are all over social media, it means that the people practically promote the store for them, and it becomes a must see attraction for a good insta snap.

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I also noticed a big link between flowers used within beauty and skincare stores. Shops like pixi and origins, often use flowers and nature as interior displays. Personally and I know that for many others we want a natural , pure and organic product for our skin. I think that is why beauty brands often use flowers to communicate all these things in there products.

The more minimalist, sleek and clean look is also used by a whole array of brands, for example Cos, the white company. Etc. To me this basically white aesthetic is to put it frankly a bit boring, and so I struggled to find a brand that was doing something different with this minimal style.

I found an interior design company called wonder wall designs, that do the interiors for many different stores, but that also have a very sleek minimal style that they use throughout. Wonderwall have however gone for a much more futuristic, and innovative look in some of their stores, that almost seem like its from space. I made this link with purity as the future is new and fresh, and to me so is purity, hence why babies are often seen as pure.

Another example of purity being portrayed in retail is this idea of sustainable fashion and recycling. As we all know fashions impact of the environment is massive. As a result sustainability being promoted by big brands such as h&m, with there recycling clothes for 15% off your purchase scheme, is becoming more and more present in stores. I viewed this as an example of purity, as it is emphasising the need to be kinder to the planet, which originally is meant to be pure and natural.

Purity is interpreted by people and what they were in different ways also. I looked into lots of current and trending influencers and bloggers. Fashion blogger @harper and Harley I felt embodied the more minimalist sleek, scandi-style, and really sticks to that even with her Instagram ‘theme’. This much like with the shops is a typical way that people see purity, no frills, plain and basic.

              

A youtuber and blogger with a totally opposite yet still pure aesthetic is @Freddy my love. She is very forward and strict in sticking to her soft pink and white colour pallets. She totally goes for florals and typically girly embellishments (basically all the frills). This is very different to the minimal, simple fabrics used in the Scandinavian style. This is also another way that the two main trends we found can be seen in people.

            

@Lydia Ellis Millen is another blogger and youtuber but is an example of someone who overall has a very clear and predominantly pure aesthetic, but also who jumps between both of the main trends to show this style. As here pictures show she may go from wearing an all-black, but very sleek and simple look (proving that pure doesn’t always mean white) To wearing a flowing ruffled Zimmerman dress covered in flowers.

           

Examples of what I perceived as pure street style can be seen worn by celebrities like Kim Kardashian-west, who is often spotted in the very simple and natural course of her husband’s Yeezy aesthetic. I also noticed a lot of ‘purity’ being worn by the general public in different ways. For example, urban outfitters and a few other high street brands have adopted this imagery of cherub angel’s for t-shirts ect. Purity is often linked to heaven and babies, light fluffy clouds and so on.

       

As I will explain there is also a link between religion and purity. This was something that I also really noticed was a trend in jewelry worn by people, but it was very obvious that most of the time this was for fashion purposes only. I found it interesting how loading up on religious style jewelry, representing purity, had been used almost as a form of rebellion. They were not being worn in a reverent respectful way, and often contrasted with the rest of the outfits.  

        

Purity has always been linked to religion, from purity of sin through things like confession, to purity of virginity through the virgin Mary. Tradition always was that a bride would be a virgin before marriage. White Wedding dresses became popular after queen Victoria, made the rather bold fashion choice for her wedding day. This started the style of purity for weddings as more minimal than they used to be, mainly because they were white. However, the fashion for wedding days in particular used to be very different.

As a wedding day often represented the whole family’s wealth, from when people married for fanatical gain, and it was more like a business exchange. The bride would be dressed in the most lavish materials and bright colours that the family could afford. As extravagant colours, fabrics and jewellery meant wealth throughout history, it is no surprise that queen Mary (also known as the virgin queen) was often dressed this way. I found fascinating how much the way of presenting a pure bride changed so dramatically and quickly.

                    

I found the cocept of purity as a constant trend really vast an interesting. This project has defiantly got me thinking about other constant trends, and how they are seen in these three main areas.