'Viral Fashion'

The Fashion industry is notorious for outlandish outwear and garments that are anything but practical. With the modern age the Fashion designers have begun to use their "muses" for economic victory. The picture to the right is of a fashion model strutting down the runway in Karl Lagerfield's newest design, the half shade rounded glasses. The picture set adjacent to the model, is the reality tv star known as Nicole Richie. Richie has become somewhat of a fashion icon within recent times, and casually fashions Chanel's newest eyewear. These ordinarily strange and impractical sunglasses would never sell to the average woman. Design is a great form of expression, but without relatability the design fails in society. By assigning bizarre designs such as these glasses to recognizable faces such as Richie, the design industry achieves a form of "Viral Marketing." In other words, various social networks connect interested parties rapidly and the product is spread to the vast population. In the fashion world, this process may be coined "Viral Fashion." Through creative marketing and selective choice of representation, the atypical designs of the most creative minds in Fashion reaches the mass public.

What does this process say about us as the consumer? Is it a fallacy that we fall into their clever marketing schemes? Does the average person glorify the wardrobes of starlets and those captured by the media's eye? The common person is fearful of the eccentric, whether it is in design or everyday life. Human nature naturally strives for assimilation, yet this process of viral marketing affects our perception of the ordinary.

photograph

"Google Image Result for http://sunglassblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/17.jpg." Google Images. Web. 29 Oct. 2009. .