Currently, in the fashion world, if you want to draw attention there are two possibilities: focus on oversized or tiny pieces. This is not a metaphor or a concept related to emotions or economic aspects, meaning by large and small a low-profile production or presentation with a limited budget. It is something more direct and immediate: the coolest designers on the planet are making their products extremely large or, conversely, excessively small. If you want your brand to go beyond the runways of Paris, if you are looking for the trendiest rapper to give your shoes a nickname, or you want more TV show space for your bags, it is better to produce giant or tiny items. Here is the current situation on the giant and tiny products on the market:

GIANT: shoes, outerwear, hats, and shirts.
TINY: sunglasses, bags, and jewelry.

Only one clothing item defies this dichotomy: men’s trousers. But this is the classic exception that confirms the rule and in fact fuels the giant or tiny paradigm: men’s trousers can in fact be both huge and small. They come in exaggerated proportions thanks to the fluid versions of Louis Vuitton to the leather leggings from Celine. There is no standard silhouette. Even the latest Versace swimwear has been presented in both giant and tiny versions.

Like every phenomenon belonging to the contemporary fashion universe, it must be partly thanked to Instagram. Things a bit strange, too big or small, force you to pause during the image scrolling. Fashion, of course, has an interest in maximizing the experience of those who navigate and use social media, and if someone is out and about with a branded piece, like a sneaker or a hoodie, playing with its dimensions makes everyone pay more attention to what they are seeing. A phenomenon in line with the current fashion history strongly influenced by meme culture. It is no coincidence that there is an Instagram meme account named @itsmaysmemes, dedicated to the oversized outerwear in vogue among celebrities. The same goes for the sizes of men’s bags and the tiny sunglasses that have invaded social media through a wide production of ironic memes. Fashion today is much more humorous and self-ironic than it has ever been, and what is more fun than something uncomfortably large or ridiculously small? All we have left is to laugh. But that explanation is still insufficient to understand the phenomenon in question. Why do sizes matter so much today? Why is there not the same attention, for example, towards colors, which are another juicy bait type on Instagram, or why don’t we just put normal clothes on the most followed influencers? These are all established methods that designers naturally already use, and that is why the giant or tiny dichotomy has roots that go beyond Instagram.

Since the drop culture is increasingly in vogue, sizes are also a great way to keep people hungry for novelty for the near future. Every season, Jacquemus bags get smaller and Balenciaga shoulders get bigger, allowing anyone to get into the game. Fashion once worked this way: when a new season appeared, the previous one was immediately surpassed. Consumers today have more control over what they consider beautiful and the old capricious attitude has become less sustainable and sensible. Playing with sizes is an intelligent way designers use to revitalize the market. Other visual means have succeeded in the past by making things either giant or tiny. There are the Kardashians, for example, who have fascinated us over the past decade by manipulating various parts of the body in giant and tiny proportions. On a more intellectual level there is Claes Oldenburg, who populated America with giant versions of very mundane objects: lipstick, clothespins, matches, and nurse pins. “Through vastness and dramatic visibility,” the Los Angeles Times wrote in a review of one of the first analyses of his work, in 1995, “Oldenburg’s monuments encapsulate the banal things that surround modern daily life”. In other words, making giant sneakers gives them weight. Making huge shirts reminds us or makes us think about how extremely important shirts are. It also makes them appear more valuable based on the equation: bigger stuff = more money. The Triple S looks like a more significant shoe than a sneaker. The Kapital Sloppy Shirt becomes an object to assert oneself rather than something to put on and go out in public without attracting attention.

On the side of very small things, there are artists like Laurie Simmons, who photographs dollhouses and other miniatures to underline the grim loneliness of domestic female life, and Charles LeDray, who recreates clothes and other objects at about a third of human scale. If giant things are monumental and important, small things are less visible and are fetishistic. Think of the strange delicacy of men’s jewelry, or the look-at-me and look-away dynamic of tiny sunglasses. What both of these types of art share is being based on everyday objects. There is nothing special about hats, sneakers, or crossbody bags, but suddenly changing their sizes makes them important. It may seem cynical that designers are not doing their usual job. Yet they are saying something about how we think about our belongings. Our current era is haunted by the cult of normcore and vernacular clothing, a hunt to discover and worship the next Patagonia or unfashionable shoe. Becoming giants or tiny immortalizes what is already around us: it’s the fashion of Jawn Doe.

Original text by Rachel Tashjian for AllinReplica US