The State That I Am In

In April, we surveyed Americans to get the scoop on their go-to fashion brands, recent beauty buys, what they’re reading, listening to, doing for fun, and who’s inspiring their style. We received 200 responses total, with the demographic skewed heavily toward older Gen Z and Millennials (91% were between the ages of 24 and 45), and overwhelmingly women (97%).

Initially we sought to uncover generational insights, but what we found turned out to be surprisingly flat. Contours emerged, however, when we broke them down by region (Northeast, West, South, and Midwest) – uncovering archetypes that felt distinct and instantly recognizable. In a country where political and cultural divides are often drawn along regional lines, it felt especially compelling to see how identity, taste, and even style are shaped by geography.

Of course, there are still some things all regions can agree on, like their shared love-hate relationship with fast fashion. They voiced strong criticisms of overconsumption and talked about shopping secondhand or using rental subscriptions like Nuuly. Yet they still listed fast-fashion brands like Free People, Revolve, and Abercrombie among their favorites. This indicates that they are conscious shoppers, but factors like money, a new world of instant gratification (thank you Amazon Prime), and the natural desire to have what’s en vogue while it’s still en vogue (accelerated trend cycles!) means they won’t boycott fast fashion all together.

When it came to where they’re getting inspiration from, over 291 individual influencers were named–making it nearly impossible to pull out clear top influencers amidst such a vast range. Unsurprisingly, Pinterest dominated as the go-to platform for style inspiration. Surprisingly, spotting stylish strangers IRL (welcome back, street style) was widely-cited as a main source of inspiration. This reveals an exciting proposition that the next style icon could be discovered not on our phone screens, but instead out in the wild (à la Chloë Sevigny). Online or offline, all regions except the South shared an awareness for pulling inspiration from people who had a similar identity or body type to them (i.e., Queer or mid-size).

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