Tabis, Telfars, and Other TikTok Trends
I am currently being stalked by a cloven hoof of a shoe despite the fact that I didn’t click not one ad or look up not one brand. And, if you too find yourself in the cross section of luxury and fashion TikTok you might also be noticing this strange uptick in content detailing the history and styling of Maison Margiela’s iconic Tabi shoe.
Inspired by Japanese workers’ shoes, the Tabi is highly recognizable due to the indent between the toes, reminiscent of the Japanese sandal/sock combo but also a bit of an allusion to more devilish imagery. And, as a quintuple Capricorn, I can only love any footwear that makes me look and feel like the GOAT, but after a while the amount of videos I was seeing of this shoe started to get out of hand.
But of course, the Tabi isn’t the only item that I see constantly on TikTok, and the popularity of very specific and somewhat niche pieces on the app has made me think a lot about influencer culture online and the circulation of high fashion trends. Specifically, I believe that TikTok has become a way for fashion influencers to educate a new generation of consumers about luxury goods, while also creating a space for designers to seek relevance outside of their more traditional clientele.
For this reason, I want to unpack why this shoe, and some other key items, are following each and everyone of us around the clock on the clock app, and what this might say about consumerism, capitalism, and luxury branding in the 21st century.
But First, Let’s Talk About Telfar
After that introduction, I wanted to return to the title of this post and the unique intersection of TikTok that I exist in i.e Luxury and Black Girl TikTok. Within this specific cross-section, the item that has had all of Black FashionTok in a chokehold is none other than the Telfar (or, as it is known on TikTok, the Tel-feezey). Known as “the most popular Black-owned Accessory on the Internet”, the Telfar shopping bag has risen to popularity over the past few years due in part to social media activism and the impulse for Black people to buy luxury goods from Black brands. Created by Black and queer designer, Telfar Clemens, this bag comes in multiple colors and styles, and there is not a Black influencer that I haven’t seen with not only one, but several of this bag.
Similar to the early 2000’s obsession with stacking bracelets (because who didn’t love a full arm of Tiffany’s and Juicy Couture charms or Cartier Love Bracelets back in the day), the Telfar shopping bag comes in multiple colors and sizes, making it the perfect bag for not only collecting but also layering. Controversial as it may be to call the bag affordable, the Telfar is a more pocket friendly option to traditional luxury brands, making it a must-have for those who want fashion but don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on it.
With that being said, the Telfar is also a perfect example of how fashion, and other trends, circulate within social media platforms. Leveraging the power of user generated content in 2020, the Telfar brand team began incorporating memes about the bag into their marketing and saw a steady increase in engagement and sales (as the bags are constantly sold out online). On the other side of the Internet, Telfar TikTok is buzzing. From unpackings to layering videos, the bag is all over the influencers within and outside of Luxury and FashionTok.
At the same time, the Telfar has also inspired a lot of educational content. Due to its price point, the bag sparks conversations about what it means for a brand to be considered luxury or high fashion and the racist, classist, etc viewpoints that are inherent to how that definition is created. Challenging the belief that luxury and high fashion should be inaccessible to the masses, the Telfar (and many other brands) are pushing for a more inclusive understanding of who creates and consumes luxury goods.
Fashion Consumer Education on TikTok
And it is this education piece, in conjunction with influencer culture, that I find to be fascinating when it comes to the circulation of the Tabi shoe and other trending fashion pieces on TikTok. For those who know anything about marketing and advertising, one of the most difficult aspects of selling a product is consumer education i.e. getting the consumer to actually know why they should buy the product before they buy it. Walking into a store and seeing a product on a shelf, or surfing the web and seeing a product on a website, there isn’t much information about that product, what it does, and/or it’s value to the consumer.
Which is one of the many reasons that commercials and infomercials are so popular and successful. Through these short videos, customers are able to learn and understand why they should buy the product, outside of just the price of the product and what it looks like i.e. packaging, appearance, etc. Especially when it comes to luxury goods, the higher than average price point of these items means that most consumers will experience sticker shock and never look into what value or significance the product has. And this is where Fashion Consumer Education on TikTok comes in.
While there are some fashion influencers who primarily focus on styling outfits and buying clothes, there is another type of influencer on both Fashion and Luxury TikTok who focuses on the history and analysis of fashion. Part fashion school graduates, magazine writers, and stylists or just self-educated fashionistas, fashion influencers that focus on consumer education do the work of getting a new generation to understand the value and significance of specific brands through unpacking and historicizing their most popular products. Almost acting as mini-infomercials for these products, fashion consumer education focuses on content which explains luxury goods as wearable art or a collectible, instead of just a shoe, bag, or item of clothing.
And this is one of many ways that we see TikTok emulating the YouTube platform. Something that I have personally enjoyed is seeing Fashion and Luxury YouTubers, like Charles Gross, migrate from the YouTube platform to sharing their knowledge in short-form content with a new audience on TikTok. This type of fashion education content of course makes a lot of sense in the more long form video content affordances of YouTube, but on TikTok we see this type of content reaching a younger generation of people who are newer to fashion and luxury.
Accessible Luxury, the Model of 21st Century Consumerism
This consumer education of luxury brands is not only effective when it comes to selling products, but it is also changing the relationship that the average consumer has with luxury brands. In the past, knowledge of the value and significance of luxury brands was confined to people who knew where to find it, like museums, magazines, specific schools, etc.
Engaging with, and learning to understand, the history of fashion through those media would take years of study i.e. waiting for and watching shows, magazine issues, etc. However, with social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok, you can learn everything you want to know about a specific item or brand in very little time. Even fashion shows are being condensed down into short clips for circulation on the TikTok platform, making the runway more accessible to everyday consumers.
In this sense, we are seeing a fascinating shift to a market of individuals that have been educated on not only what luxury brands to buy, but why they should buy them. Returning to the Tabi trailing after me all over TikTok and Telfar’s use of social media, I have also begun to wonder how designers will continue to use these platforms to push their brands. Influencers are of course the most common way at the moment, but I think the value of consumer education could mean that luxury brands might begin to utilize their own staff to give a behind the scenes look into the creation of goods within a fashion house or the history of certain iconic brands, looks, or items.
Thinking about how so many artists have been able to leverage TikTok to make their music increasingly popular both within and outside of the app, I also wonder if it will be possible for luxury brands to become even more popular with the masses. Especially as luxury brands are quite complicated signifiers of wealth and class, this could mean that 21st century consumerism levels the playing field on what we see as high fashion and who we see as fashionable.
