Should Everyone do Fashion

you just want a brand

Design, by definition, is problem solving. Funnily enough, fashion design often solves very few problems. It is the vanity sector of the design world yet it remains one of its most profitable industries. As someone who studied fashion and now works in the industry, I have always struggled with the idea that fashion “isn’t important.” To me, it is important. But in the grand scheme of things, I fear that it isn’t. Fashion is polluting and excessive. And yet, almost daily, I see a new fashion brand launching.

Note how I say brand and not company. That distinction feels important because more and more young people don’t want to build companies, they want to have brands. A brand is image, lifestyle and identity. A company is infrastructure, responsibility, and longevity. Fashion seems to be increasingly rewarding the former while avoiding the latter.

Fashion has always been an elitist space, and in many ways it still is, even though pioneers like Virgil Abloh opened doors for young designers who previously would never have been let in. That shift also gave us moments that feel exciting and strange at the same time like a Lanvin capsule collection designed by Future, or Jaden Smith becoming the creative director of Louboutin. It feels like fashion has entered an era of democratization, if we overlook some nepotism.

On one hand, this is genuinely positive. Talented young designers now have access to resources, visibility, and funding that didn’t exist before. On the other hand, it raises the uncomfortable question: should everyone be doing fashion?

With modern pattern-making software, paying people on Fiverr for flatlays, overseas manufacturers, and Shopify, it has never been easier to start a fashion brand. You can actually even skip most of that and just screen-print on blanks or drop-ship something that already exists. There is very little design thinking involved in this process and no real problem is being solved. Fashion has always attracted people because it appears glamorous from the outside. Now that there are so many shortcuts, it’s easy to sell a lifestyle through social media and attach it to a T-shirt. Who is this hurting, you might ask? Let people express themselves!!!! But the reality is that the world does not need more clothes made from unrecyclable materials and produced through exploited labor.

These thoughts became harder to ignore when Twitch streamer Kai Cenat announced the launch of his own fashion brand. I enjoy some of his streams, but what the fuck does Kai Cenat know about fashion? Joking, but also not really. This is another example of someone (usually men) underestimating what it takes to build a fashion company while overestimating their ability to “design.” What problem is Kai Cenat’s clothing solving? Beyond his personal branding, what purpose does it serve?

This leads me to a question that feels taboo in creative spaces: do we need more gatekeeping? And if so, who gets to decide what counts as worthy design? We can’t tell painters to stop painting just because the world has enough paintings. But clothing is different. Paintings don’t require mass production, global supply chains, or environmental sacrifice the same way clothes do.

Maybe some people who want to start fashion brands don’t actually want to design at all. Maybe they just want visibility, expression, or authorship… and maybe some of them should start painting instead. We could use some more bad pop art in the world, maybe launch it along side a crypto coin too.

Let me now your thought xx