In Vogue: The New World of At-Home Fashion

Lounging about

Perhaps one of the few positives to ‘stay at home’ measures is that we all get to hang out in nice loungewear. There’s no longer any excuse to Zoom with pyjama pants and a comfy (somewhat smart) top, thanks to the overwhelming selection of sweats on offer.

The people are into it. Social users mentioning loungewear increased 29% in March and April compared to January and February 2020.

Of course we can expect loungewear and sweats to peak over the Christmas period — what else are you supposed to get the person who is impossible to buy for? Predictably, mentions fell dramatically as we went into January and remained at a steady level in February.

Who’d have thought, pre-pandemic, that we’d all be going nuts for loungewear right now?

69k people on social attributed their comfy attire to the lockdown.

We also found 89k people who had treated themselves to a new set, an increase of 40% in April and March compared to January and February.

Getting knitty with it

I’m hopeless at knitting and gave up a long time ago, but for 412k social posters, quarantine has been the perfect time to brush up on their knitting and crocheting skills.

Knitting and crocheting were consistently talked about on social media before the pandemic. Topic mentions increased in volume during the Christmas season of 2019 when people were getting crafty for presents, but they really rocketed as lockdowns went on this year.

During the pandemic, we’ve seen a big knitting fad around baby presents. There were 62k mentions of handmade baby garments for presents in March and April, up 30% from January and February. (Definitions of baby do vary).

We also found 20k users in March and April sharing and crowdsourcing knitting and crocheting patterns, an increase in mentions of 32% compared to January and February. The knitting and crocheting community is coming together to keep themselves occupied and support beginners.

Needle and thread

Social users taking up sewing to create their own garments and bring old clothes back to life are also on the rise because of stay at home orders.

It’s been the most popular DIY fashion activity. Using our Consumer Research platform, we found the number of English-language social users discussing sewing and embroidery increased by 68% in March and April compared to January and February.

Cloth face masks are the most popular sewing creation, with 337k mentions. Masks saw the biggest increase in interest of all garments, and helped drive sewing’s newfound popularity.

We also found that people talking about investing their time and money into sewing rooms was up 880%, and mentions of buying sewing machines were up 148%.

Viva la tie-dye!

In recent weeks, thanks to the pandemic and resulting lockdown, tie-dye is making a huge comeback.

Using our Consumer Research platform, we found the number of English-language social users discussing DIY tie-dye increased by 74% in March and April compared to January and February.

Google Trends echoed the same popularity increase, with tie-dye searches peaking in April, even beating out a festival season inspired jump last July.

And according to BuzzSumo, article engagement was up 348% in March and April compared to January and February. ‘How to’ guides are the most popular kind of content, with YouTube being the most popular platform for them.

This surge in interest has been driven by the coronavirus outbreak. With Consumer Research, we found 7k people posting about revamping their clothes in March and April because they wanted something to do during lockdown. To be fair, it does look like a lot of fun.

Social authors are loving customizing their outfits, with shirts being the hottest item to dye (43k mentions in March and April). Socks came a distant second with 8k mentions, followed by dresses with 6k.

We also found pink to be the most popular color with 4.6k mentions, and rainbow came in second at 3k.