Are costume designers the new influencers?

From Wednesday Addams' exquisitely goth wardrobe to Jennifer Coolidge's bombshell looks in The White Lotus, via Euphoria's over-the-top make-up, if anyone can boast of having laid down the law when it comes to style in 2022, it's not the influencers but the costume designers of streaming series. House of Sunny waistcoats, Prada lace-ups, crystals for the face and more: the most sought-after and best-selling garments of the last period have a cameo in our Netflix&Chill evenings in common, and the data confirms it. Searches for the word Euphoria on Depop increased by over 345% and 275% on Vestiaire Collective compared to the month before the release of the second season in January, with Emily in Paris sales of second-hand Chanel items soared and at the start of the lockdown the silver chain worn by Connell Waldron in Normal People became a must-have in jewellery boxes in English-speaking countries. While we have hitherto applauded the super power of TikTok in making any product miraculously sell out, estimates show that the true Holy Grail of marketing is TV series. The same productions that in the 1990s had the power to drive American teenage girls en masse to the hairdresser's with a picture of Jennifer Aniston in their breast pocket, now thrive with the image society monopolising fashions from beauty to clothing.

Thanks to Pam & Tommy, Pamela Anderson's distinctive style has become a reference point for Gen Z, so much so that it has earned a core of its own ("Pamcore"), the same can be said for the timeless appeal of Princess Diana's wardrobe, which with the release of the fifth season of The Crown in November has relived its glory days. In fact, according to Lyst's 2022 ranking, Lady D's revenge dress was the most influential on-screen style moment of the year, so much so that the hashtag of the same name has more than 101.7 million views on TikTok and searches for "off-the-shoulder black dresses" and "sweetheart necklines" have skyrocketed. The Regencycore trend, on the other hand, reflected a surge of interest in corsets and Bridgerton-style dresses, with a peak of 11.5 million views on the Chinese platform, just as HBO Max's Gossip Girl reboot ushered in the preppy 'dark academia' trend, causing a surge in searches for varsity jackets (+53%), checked waistcoats (+47%) and turtleneck shirts (+34%). Breaking all records, however, was the Netflix production by Tim Burton, which not only ranks as the second most viewed series on the streaming platform, but also rages on TikTok under the hashtag #wednesdayoutfits (+2.3 million views), as users post their own hacks to recreate Jenna Ortega's black prom dress or curate Wednesday-inspired shopping lists on Shein. The most mentioned brand in the program was Prada, thanks to the Monolith lace-ups sported by the goth teenager, garnering $1.4 million in media impact. And the credit goes, in large part, to the costume designers.

From Colleen Atwood, winner of four Oscars and long-time collaborator of Tim Burton, to Patricia Field, for many years responsible for the iconic looks of Carrie Bradshaw now grappling with Emily in Paris, passing by Heidi Bivens in Euphoria and Alex Bovaird in The White Lotus: the authors of this unparalleled media buzz have a name and a face. Sometimes facilitated (or forced) in their choices by a brand, entrusted with providing the looks for the characters of a given production - as was the case with the countless Fendi baguettes sported by the protagonist of ...And Just Like That - at other times left to their own devices in the arduous task of characterising or building the evolution of a character through the narrative weapon of custom design. A medium not only able to convey suggestions, hidden meanings, the essence of the protagonists in a single look, but also to move sales and entire markets by shaping the public's tastes.