Designed to death – the observer

Once it was an explanation to dress in New York – courageous, personally, unmistakable. Now it feels like another check box on a to-do list. You scroll through your feed, and it is difficult not to notice a certain uniformity. The city's uniform is all neutral – curated appearance looks to appear effortlessly – of everything that resembles real risk. Everything feels like this … algorithm approved. What makes us ask: Has the personal style really faded – or are we just a little too careful, too curated and too insecure how we can appear as our full, unkorn self?

We live in Goldenen AGe from Nevertheless, we suffer from a famine of originality. Social media platforms that once honored creativity and originality are now aesthetics. A new one is presented every week: Clean Girl, Mob Woman, Office Siren. These cycles playfully played on the surface and talk about where we are culturally. This aesthetics are not just about clothing; It's about identity. And at the moment the identity is shaped by the Internet, filtered and reproduced by a collection of screens.

The problem? If everyone searches for the same – virality, validation, a seat at the trend table – we stop dressing ourselves. We start to dress for approval. Aesthetics become uniforms. Originality slips softly away, replaced by the subtle pressure to stay on the brand. This is sterilized by the scroll; Personal style for life preservation.

The personal identity is packed like a Pinterest board – stylized for approval, smoothed by everything that reflects reality.

New York, once celebrated for its versatile charm and fearless style, feels a bit steamed. Like a media, the gentrification of authenticity influenced. Go down almost every street in the city center, and the similarity is striking: outfits, curated interiors and coffee cups, which are polished for the feed. Instead of leading with innovation, people support themselves in safe, widely appealing aesthetics. The personal identity is packed like a Pinterest board – stylized for approval, smoothed by everything that reflects reality.

The advancement of the content industry has made equality more profitably than the award. While trend cycles accelerate to the chain speed, the lifespan of fashion has become a sprint. Microtrends are hot in a week and in the next cringy. This pressure comes out: Gen ZZ is particularly socialized in order to dress with social media – how many likes, how much commitment, will this outfit be dated tomorrow?

This is not a new phenomenon. The cultural drought of personal style has roots. In the 2000s, Fast Fashion flooded the market, followed that the Process of the multi -fiber arrangement In 2005 and the expression of global textile quotas. When social media started, our access to clothing rose while our taste went down. Platforms such as Instagram became both runway and retail. Everyone could become viral – but often just enough to be aspiration without risking real individuality.

Our collective taste of social media algorithms, enterprising aesthetics and the invisible hand of cultural equality is currently dictated.

The irony? Fashion should never be sterile. It should be alive – memorable, expressive and deeply personal. It should say: I am, take it or leave it. But now we don't dress not to be seen, but to be accepted. As the cultural theorist Stuart Hall once said: “Identity is not determined – it is formed in relation to the world around us.”

Our collective taste of social media algorithms, enterprising aesthetics and the invisible hand of cultural equality is currently dictated. At a time when our cultural world is increasingly penetrating online trends, it is no wonder why personal style feels like performance rather than expression.

So what do we do?

We start to dress again for a lifetime so as not to impress an invisible audience.

We remember that personal style is not aesthetics, but a number of decisions that the story of storytelling You. It is the boots that you have carried for your first protest. The economical jacket that fits like a hug. The colors you reach when you feel invincible. Personal style is autobiographical. It cannot be found in a train or a Tikok roundup. It must be lived.

As a connoisseur of taste and culture, we have to ask ourselves: What does this era of sterilized style say about our culture? About our trust? About our ability to not only take risks online, but in real life? Perhaps the calm fear of not fitting in a digital form forgot us how happy and liberating it feels to keep apart.

In a world that is obsessed to become the next “IT Girl”, the bravest thing you can do is You. Fashion should feel like freedom, no formula. Let us stop performing and dressing as if we mean it.