Here's why the fashion calendar doesn't matter based on the youth and Internet

“No one wears white after Labor Day, darling”, is probably something you have overheard your very fancy grandmother state around the month of September at some point in your life. The rule goes, or used to go, that after Labor Day and before Memorial Day, no one should be wearing white, because it’s reminiscent of way-back-when folks would exchange all of their darker colored winter clothes for lighter and whiter summer clothes. Although not everyone in the world was able to enjoy the delight of boasting about having a summer home, the ruling on when to wear the cleanest of all colors, stuck.

There were rules when it came to fashion (some weirder than others), and those rules were set a long time ago by the kings of the fashion world who held their positions as the deciders of what was considered stylish or dreadful. There were designated trendsetters. The thing is, the powers that set these rules and served for years as the official deciders of which trend was in and which were out, are being dethroned by youths armed with iPhones, Instagram followers, and a wardrobe game so on fleek, you can’t help but look away.

New York, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles-- these are where the biggest names in fashion congregate so that their works of wearable art can be broadcasted throughout the world. It is from these specific locations that on specific and times, their newest lines can be revealed (that is, new summer collections, new fall collections, spring, winter…). This is how it always had been done and how it is continuously planned to be done until all of our clothes become simply holograms that we project onto our bodies. Seriously guys give it a few more years, its gonna happen.

The problem here that perhaps is being overlooked: the fashion calendar doesn’t matter anymore thanks to the internet. Being a household name entitles you, or at one point entitled you, to being a trend setter. Prada, Burberry, Gucci, Armani, Chanel, and Valentino for example, for years have been the folks who told us what to wear and when to wear it and how to wear it. The issue now, is that we don’t need to wait until the designated fashion weeks to be told when to switch trends. We just boot up Instagram and see what our favorite model is wearing.

Thanks to the almighty internet, ideas and trends are being passed around faster than a bag of marshmallows at a summer camp bonfire, and it doesn’t take a huge portfolio of designs, or a professional modeling contract to be a trendsetter anymore. All you need is a social media following, which nowadays isn’t difficult to accumulate. There just isn’t a need any more for an official unveiling of this seasons official trends from major fashion houses due to the fact that people can designate anyone to be a fashion icon. Internet users can deem anyone as a fashion trendsetter on Instagram or even just by following their favorite celebrity to see what they’ve been wearing and how they’ve been wearing it (Any of the Kardashian-Jenner crew for example, NBA players, and other InstaFamous folks).

Everyone now has their own fashion role models that they follow and emulate, and the folks that used to be idolized as the all-powerful trend makers (Prada, Gucci, Valentino and such), are no longer calling the shots.

An old world concept is what Fashion Week has become. Although it still serves successfully as a series of astounding reveals of what the biggest minds in fashion have been working on for the past few months, it doesn’t serve as necessary anymore to the youthful generation that gets all of its fashion advice from people that are their same age on blogs, Twitter, and Instagram. It would be safe to say that the average youth doesn’t pay any attention at all to the Fashion Week, as they pick up trends of their own to follow elsewhere from various sources online.

Youths no longer require the fashion calendar to tell them when to wear what as far as trends go, because the names that have served as a tent pole for so long have been dethroned by fashion themed Instagram accounts and style themed blogs. The rules that have been followed for so long about when to wear what and who to listen to when it comes to style advice are being done away with, all thanks to a having access to your parents Wi-Fi.