Published
Apr 12, 2019
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Neon and animal print trends show how Instagram influencers are disrupting the fashion cycle

Published
Apr 12, 2019

With Instagram influencer marketing now a $1.7 billion industry, according to figures from MediaKix, a new report from Edited tracks the ways in which the popular image-sharing platform continues to revolutionize how trends in the fashion industry are set, focusing on two of the hottest looks of the moment: neon and animal print.


Edited plotted the progression of the neon trend against popular neon-related posts made by the Kardashian-Jenners - Image: Edited

 
As pointed out by Edited, while trends used to either trickle down from the runway or bubble up from the street, the rapid feedback that some mass market retailers can now give has added a new element to the fashion cycle.
 
More importantly, however, thanks to the fact that consumers can engage with influencers in real time, viral social media trends can now intervene and disrupt this cycle at any point.

The neon trend, for example, began picking up speed in August of last year, when Kim Kardashian West attended sister Kylie’s birthday celebrations in a custom neon pink dress by Yeezy, an event that was heavily documented on Instagram. Since then the quantity of new neon product has grown 743% compared to the prior-year period, while #neon currently features on some 10 million posts on Instagram.
 
Fast-fashion retailer Fashion Nova was one of the first to latch onto the trend, quickly teasing a range of upcoming neon products, while the runway soon followed suit, with brands including Off-White, Blumarine and Christian Sirano all sending out neon looks for Spring 2019.
 
With the trend now consecrated, its growth began to accelerate rapidly, a progression plotted by Edited, which tracked the introduction of new neon products to the US mass market against popular posts made by the Kardashian-Jenner clan.
 
As shown by Edited’s graph, the trend really started to pick up the pace in December 2018 and has continued to see particularly strong growth since January, when Kendall Jenner posted a photo of herself in a neon green milkmaid top which garnered close to 7.8 million likes.
 
It was Kylie Jenner, however, who gave a boost to a somewhat unexpected sub-trend in January of this year, with new cow-print product having increased 260% in the last three months, following the publication of a photo of her sporting a one-piece swimsuit decorated with the bovine pattern at her one-year-old daughter Stormi’s birthday getaway.
 
Animal prints more generally have long been established as a favorite of influencers and celebrities, and the US mass market has seen a 371% increase in new product featuring this kind of pattern since 2016.

Leopard print has led the way, with the number of new products rising 345% since 2016, but snake print is catching up fast, registering new product growth of 427% in the same period.


The evolution of the leopard and snake print sub-trends - Image: Edited

 
Looking to the future, Edited also highlighted four trends popular with influencers which look set to take off in the coming months. New arrivals of tie-dye products, for example, have shot up 803% in the US mass market in the last three months compared to the same period in the previous year, while introductions of new hair slides have grown 135%.
 
A recurrent trend on the Fall 2019 catwalks, 30% more new boilersuits were introduced in the same three-month period, with neutral tones also gaining ground, seeing growth of 22%.
 
As of March 2019, Instagram boasted over 1 billion users and more than 500 million daily users of Instagram Stories. And the power of the platform’s influencers looks sure to keep growing, thanks both to new functionalities introduced by the platform itself, like its recently launched checkout feature, and innovative influencer partnerships organized by brands, such as Zara’s new collaborative @livingzara profile.

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