The Biggest, Most Influential Trends We Saw on Instagram in 2018
Ask a Vogue editor where she bought her dress or where she discovered a new designer, and her answer to both might be “Instagram.” The app was mentioned several times in Vogue Fashion News Director Mark Holgate’s recent story about the pieces that sold in 2018, from PVC totes to “dad sneakers” and oversize blazers. Net-a-Porter’s global buying director, Elizabeth von der Goltz, explained it thusly: “Social media is still impacting customer habits in such a major way. The connection, the realism, to it being on someone . . . It just feels more accessible and relatable.”
Considering how much time we spend on the app, whether we’re mindlessly scrolling or actually clicking those shopping tools, it’s little wonder we’ve seen legitimate trends emerge from Instagram. Sometimes they’re loosely connected to a runway trend or a greater, overarching shift in women’s tastes, but more often than not, they’re trends that exist because they simply look great in photos. They don’t all make perfect sense in “real life,” but we’ll save the philosophical debate about our real selves versus our digital selves for another time.
Below, we’ve called out the trends that began—and then exploded—on Instagram in 2018, from the year’s must-have slip skirt to nostalgic accessories.
The Sheer Blouse
Instagram no longer fears the nipple, at least most of the time. These days, you don’t even think twice about seeing a model or influencer in a sheer, barely there top—sans bra. Because why would you wear a bra? It would imply a need to cover up and conform, which these girls certainly don’t want to do. Of course, no matter how cool you play it, there’s still something inherently risqué in posting a basically half-naked photo on the app (and usually to tens of thousands of followers). That might explain why we don’t see this trend quite so frequently in real life—i.e., on the streets—at least not here in New York. Maybe our French friends have adopted the whisper-sheer blouse more enthusiastically; they’ve already got topless beaches, after all.
The Beaded Bag
If your bag didn’t look like you made it at camp, what even was the point? Such was the common refrain this summer, when every girl on Instagram—and often in Soho—was toting a plastic beaded bag by Susan Alexandra or Loeffler Randall. The look is intentionally naive—hence the rainbow stripes and cherry motifs—and each one is typically made by hand, which ties in another preoccupation of the Instagram set: craft. Curiously, the beaded-bag trend never trickled up to designer collections, but that just makes them all the more charming. You wouldn’t pay four figures for a plastic beaded sack, anyway, would you? These competitively priced brands have found a niche, and we don’t anticipate their sweet bags going out of fashion anytime soon.
The Sparkly Barrette
That’s a good segue for our next trend: plastic barrettes (usually with rhinestones!) that remind us of the ones we wore as kids in the ’90s. Denmark brand Kanel is responsible for bringing them back, and the pastel-color clips have become a must-have here in the Vogue offices. Instagram stars wear them with virtually everything—streetwear, sexy party dresses, jeans—to add a touch of quirk and face-framing sparkle. Along with scrunchies, the hair clip revival actually did get co-opted by larger brands like Balmain and Gucci, though Ashley Williams got there first with her always-sold-out “Girls” and “Sex” rhinestone bobby pins.
The Nightgown for Day
Maybe it’s an evolution of the slip dressing trend, but cotton nightgowns were a thing this summer. For many girls, it came down to practicality—what else do you wear when it’s 90 degrees?—but the delicate, virginal vibe also worked nicely with other Instagram-y trends like basket bags, “naked sandals,” and, most importantly, visible lingerie (more on that shortly). A few years ago, Sleeper’s puff-sleeved linen nightie would be considered too sheer for “regular” wear, but in 2018, the opposite was true: It gave you all the more reason to upgrade your underpinnings.
The Sexy Cardigan
This year, French girls like Jeanne Damas made the case for wearing clingy, shrunken cardigans with high-rise jeans and espadrilles—a look so effortlessly sexy, we forgot all about those old-school librarian clichés. Those Instagram snaps had fashion types digging through their mom’s closet for old cardigans (or buying new ones from Damas’s label, Rouje), and the trend may have even influenced the long, half-buttoned cardigans we saw on the Spring 2019 runways.
The Market Bag (for All Year Round)
Basket bags continue to be a massive trend off the runway, to the point where girls aren’t just using them in the summer: Now, models, influencers, and designers are carrying market totes well into the colder months. They’re often styled with faux fur coats or winter boots, an incongruous mix that you’ll either love or hate. A bonus is that they’re highly affordable—particularly in light of the $4,000 handbags on the market right now. That said, we’re not sure how well a straw bag holds up in rain and snow!
The Leopard Slip Skirt
A leopard skirt became as essential as a pair of Levi’s this summer, and there was really only one to have: the spotted Naomi skirt by Réalisation Par. Nowhere else could you find a simple, streamlined, graphic-yet-classic leopard skirt—trust us, we did the legwork—hence its constant sold-out status. This is an Instagram-focused brand, so the Naomi mania absolutely started on the app, but it was timed nicely with the leopard revival on the runways and elsewhere in the market.
The Almost-Naked Selfie
Now that exposed nipples are less of a surprise on Instagram, a lingerie selfie feels almost covered up in comparison. Still, we’ve noticed more and more underwear snaps on the app, likely a result of celebrities like Kim Kardashian West posting almost nudes with abandon. Back in September, her sis Kendall Jenner posted an arty shot of her bare torso reflected in a makeup mirror, and it’s inspired dozens of similar exposed-but-not photos ever since. For most of us, a lingerie selfie—even one that only shows part of our body—still feels quite bold; we’ve been advised not to send these kinds of photos in private texts, let alone to thousands of people on a social media app. But maybe that’s the real draw here: If you elect to snap a suggestive selfie and broadcast it to the world, it’s in your power, not someone else’s.
The Prairie Dress
This was a good year for dresses, from those aforementioned nighties to bohemian gowns and wrap dresses. But no style was as needle moving as the prairie dress. Much of its success can be attributed to Batsheva Hay, who inspired women everywhere to mix puff-sleeved, ruffle-neck prairie frocks with knee-high boots, sneakers, and everything in between. She once explained the look to Vogue as “the tension between too feminine and off, too naive and childlike and tired old lady, between pastel Laura Ashley and grimy city, old vintage dress . . .” No wonder clever women love it.
