Taming the Hypebeast in my Stash

At the intersection of fomo and yolo, there's a sweater quantity of yarn reminding you of your unaccomplished goals.

Are you a shopper? I am. I love to go hunting for special and unique items or deep discounts at clothing stores AND yarn shops. Long ago, when I first started working in fashion, I remember a time when everyday I would check in to style websites like High Snobiatry, Manrepeller, and The Cut to see what was hot that week. As a recent college graduate, I did not have a lot of money to buy fashion items, but I reveled in the experience of the ever churning trend cycle. lately, I've been thinking about how the hypebeast mentality, commonly seen in sneaker culture and high-fashion marketing, has trickled into our fiber arts world, shaping how we sell, buy and stash yarn.  the 3 main psychological hacke used to market streetwear are  often used to sell yarn. The very human desire for exclusivity, belonging, and excitement come together to convince us that we need the next hot thing, but that isn't always the best way to boost our confidence or happiness.

But what is a Hypebeast? 

It was originally an unkind term for someone who was overly obsessed with trends and brands. Over time, people who adhered to this style of dressing started to use the term as a self-identifier and the stigma disappeared, at least for those who continued adhered to this sort of fashion. The style is typified by status dressing, often heavy on the logos or iconic pieces that define a brand. If you're not familiar with popular hypebeast brands like Supreme, Bape, and (now cancelled) Alexander Wang or Yeezy, you may not immediately connect this all to knitting, but eventually you'll see where this comparison is headed. Read carefully and see if you can find the parallels between the shopping habits of sneakerheads and yarn snobs. Think of skate shoes like vans, there's often really no logo visible, but the silhouette, wavy square root mark and often the checkerboard print tell you the brand. Even though they're not expensive, they do signal a sort of knowledge of streetwear, skate culture, and elite style.

Hypebeast brands also created a new sort of marketing. They did not specifically invent the idea of marketing around exclusivity, brand collaborations, or limited drops, but it did rely on these  3 tactics, described below, more than anyone had done before, ultimately accelerating the trend cycle. 

• Limited Edition - in the market, scarcity leads to an opportunity to charge a higher price. A limited edition also creates a resale heavy market or sneaker heads would buy shoes solely with the intent of reselling them at a grade markup. Brands loved this mentality because it helped raise the perceived value of their product, even the products that aren't limited edition! 
• Collabs - I will admit that these were some of the more fun and interesting projects to work on. Brands would team up together to create a product. The resulting collection would multiply the reach of the initial marketing push and allow for a little bit more creative expression. Behind the scenes, the marketing team always knew that a certain number of customers from one brand would become loyal shoppers of both long after the collab ended
• The Drop - fashion brands used to work on a system of seasons. A single collection could be massive, every type of garment, accessory etc. for the season was meticulously  planned with large ideas and themes in mind. The limited drop took companies off of that seasonal schedule and allowed them to focus on only a few styles. It also made shopping more interesting for the customer because inventory was continuously injected with a fresh bunch of items. The same stock was not sitting on the shelf throughout the whole season. 

Each of these ideas was originally a genuine reaction to street style, photographed, blogged, then filtered out to small streetwear brands. As this sales model morphed into a multi-billion dollar industry brands would constantly release increasingly niche items, practically begging customers to buy into hype or be left behind. Some might argue it was the democratization of fashion, but it was also the monetization of subculture on a scale not seen before. The underlying urge to buy isn't rooted in need or appreciation of craftsmanship, it's simple psychological cues that push you to hand over your credit card.

But why is that relevant to knitting? Over the last 15 years, knitters have been no more or less obsessed with exclusivity, hype, and status than the average sneakerhead. In the same era, indie dyers reigned supreme. They had the agility to release small collections whenever they felt like it and a limited release was within production capabilities whereas custom milled yarn was not. Soon enough, you'd see collaborations between dyers and designers or shops, teaming up to create exclusive colors. It was always a rush to get the special thing before it sold out. Indie designers were no longer tied to schedule and could release patterns at any time, no need for a full collection or magazine, a singular well designed sweater was enough to go viral. 

After I started traveling more and teaching at multiple festivals each year, it was hard to get excited about those limited release items. While I still see the value of a niche item, a well-maintained shopping list keeps me from crossing the border from enjoying something from afar to feeling like it's reasonable to own it, even if it's not absolutely perfect for my intentions. I think most people have made one or two yarn purchases where, even days later you start to wonder whether you bought that yarn because you liked it or because you thought you could never buy it again. If you see enough, you learn that nothing is actually that hard to find. By the time you get through all of the projects that are already on your needles, you're likely to have found something similar.If you really, really need it then you can make that purchase. If it doesn't haunt you, it was never that special in the first place.

Instead of shopping for the things we like and need, consumers often shop for symbols of taste and style. We all have brands that we love, a style that we like or a way of dressing that, we hope, signals to others something about our personality, hobbies, and the subcultures that we fit in to. It’s only human to want to fit in and so we often look to fashion for that sense of belonging. Knitting is no different - in fact, the hobby may create an even stronger pull to fit in and buy the trendiest things that season.

There's really nothing inherently wrong with the idea of smaller batches, more interesting products, and curated collections designed only to reach those who truly care about the collaboration or the limited edition colors. One reason that Indie dyers love to do smaller batches of color is because it's easier to keep the formula consistent in a small batch than it is to keep it consistent over the course of years. But with practically anything you can imagine out there to buy, I need to stay in control somehow. The same way that I maintain and monitor the ready-made clothing that comes into my collection, I maintain a shopping list for my stash of yarn and patterns. If I've searched through everything in my stash multiple times and still haven't found the perfect DK weight yarn for a pattern, It's ready to be added to the shopping list. For this reason that I will occasionally indulge in an impulse buy or limited release if the product is something that I truly love, if it's been on my list for a while and it's finally available to me, I will absolutely buy as much of it as I can, knowing that they will always be plenty of uses for that perfect yarn. But, when presented with an opportunity where my excitement exceeds my attention span. I'll skip the purchase.

I always remember a conversation at VKL 2019 with the head dyer of a large indie brand. She told the group “If customers stop collecting our yarn and actually start using their stash, we'll be out of business.” In the environmental sense and as a general business model, this is obviously not a sustainable business model. When, later that year, they sold out to a larger company, people were shocked, but nobody who's been part of that conversation could be that surprised. The brand has since been eaten up by multiple levels of private equity - still no shock - but before that night I might have been upset to see something like this happen. They knew it was a race against the clock. If those limited edition colors (which were never really so limited) were actually used instead of sitting in stashes, they wouldn't sell any new yarn and the company would never have survived long enough to be sold. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to support smaller brands who grow their customer base and stay afloat by creating truly limited and special products, not manufacturing hype instead of good yarn.

The post-covid interest in longevity plus the tightening of wallets (and belts) has led to a period where more interesting styles have fallen to the wayside, slowly yielding to the bland and beige. Supposedly, this shift is based on the desire to create more timeless, classic pieces. For the same reason that menswear has turned from bright, skin tight suits to loafers and tailoring, knitters have started to make some pretty boring stuff. It makes sense, if you're going to spend hours and hours making one, a sweater should look good for more than just a season. But I don't see beigeification as one of knitting’s most lasting trends (and yes, avoiding trends is always just a trend). Instead, I see this as a backlash to knitting's own hypebeast era. We had years of the brightest and most intricate projects, shawls that only increased in size until they were practically blankets. But the shrinking of scarves and the decreasing number of colors in each project is not the final stage. It's a transitional step towards a more lasting philosophy: style is personal and the best and most fashionable items are personalized.

Over the next few years, you're going to see an increase in the term "dopamine dressing.” This is a philosophy less based on a coherent aesthetic trend, then a trend in how people want to feel while wearing their clothing. We were overstimulated and overwhelmed and so things got really simple for a while. If you've taken time to find out a little bit about yourself and what styles you like, you've probably balanced out a little bit. It might feel like it's time again soon to buy something a little outrageous and to make something that can't be found in a store. With clothing trends going the way that they are, you're about to see a huge expansion in the luxury market based on this idea of uniqueness. Anyone can buy something mass-produced but only a select few can afford to commission a couture piece or an even smaller number who can make their own clothing.

One of the best things about crafting is that we are never truly finished with a project. If it goes out of style you can rip the sweater out, make it again and it's something new. If you don't like the pattern, you can buy a new one and try again. Even if you love what you made but your size has changed, you can make that thing you love into something that's still special without wasting those perfect materials. We don't have to dispose of things that we love. We have those skills within ourselves. Our fashion and trend cycle need not be so damaging and careless if we opt for dopamine dressing over dopamine shopping.

Knitting itself is a cultural activity. We do not need to add a layer of meaning or hype on top of that to keep it interesting, and yet so many look for the hot new pattern and yarn each season. At a certain point, we must admit we are no different than any other consumer, whether making new fashion or buying it. The true joy that we get from crafting comes from more than just the product itself. We learn so much over the process of a project that even something we really don't enjoy making or wearing is not a complete loss. It's self-improvement and that's something I can rarely say about a misguided clothing purchase from a shop.

So don't stop loving the hype, but also remember to check in with yourself and know your needs and desires. Track the trends, but know when they're something you love from afar vs. something you need in your life. Don't just look at what social media has told you to desire. examine what your most fulfilling projects involved, not just the result or the yarn, but the process, the enjoyment, and the community of the making process. not all knitters are the same, I cannot promise that you'll find a way to change your shopping habits - not everyone wants to. But once you start to see the hype, exclusivity, and manufactured scarcity for what they are (marketing strategies) it's so much easier to resist temptation. Maybe with this knowledge, you too can tame the hypebeast in your stash.