We are so consumed by our algorithms that it’s easy to forget fashion has always been shaped by where we live. Open Instagram or TikTok and your feed quickly starts to look like everyone is dressing the same. Your favourite creators are posting shopping hauls, styling the same ‘must-have’ pieces, and convincing you that ballet flats, office siren tailoring or quiet luxury deserve a place in your wardrobe. Somewhere along the way, social media has created the illusion that fashion is universal — that what’s trending in one part of the world should naturally translate to another.
But fashion has never worked like that.
The algorithm creates a singular global trend cycle, while our lives remain incredibly local. It doesn’t account for climate, infrastructure, culture or even the way our cities function. It simply serves the same aesthetic to millions of people, regardless of where they’re watching from.
Before social media, trends travelled slowly. Fashion weeks, magazines and local retailers naturally filtered global trends through regional tastes. Today, the same TikTok reaches someone in São Paulo, Seoul and Surat within seconds. The algorithm isn’t interested in context. It rewards replication. The more a trend performs, the more universal it begins to feel, regardless of whether it makes sense in the places it’s reaching.
Take ballet flats, for instance. They look perfectly at home on the streets of New York or Paris, where walking is often part of everyday life. But in Mumbai, where commutes rely heavily on public transport, monsoons flood the streets, and potholes are almost part of the landscape, they don’t always make for the most practical footwear.
Or quiet luxury. In cities like Copenhagen, Stockholm or London, understated tailoring, muted palettes and discreet branding naturally fit into everyday dressing. In India, however, weddings and festivals occupy an entirely different place in our social calendar. Dressing up isn’t simply a personal preference, it’s often an expectation. Embellishment, colour and maximalism aren’t exceptions here; they’re part of the culture. Quiet luxury can absolutely exist, but it inevitably takes on a different form.
The same applies to suede and leather, two of fashion’s biggest autumn obsessions. They’re practical wardrobe staples across much of Europe, where cooler temperatures allow them to thrive. In cities like Bangkok, Jakarta or even Mumbai for most of the year, they’re far less wearable, no matter how many moodboards tell you otherwise.
Moschino S/S24
Even the ‘office siren’ trend begins to unravel once you move beyond the algorithm. While sharply tailored skirts, fitted shirts and heels might dominate feeds, workplaces across India, Japan and parts of the Middle East often have more conservative dress codes. The aesthetic may be aspirational, but it doesn’t always reflect the reality of getting dressed for work.
Then there’s the phenomenon of ‘Euro Summer.’ Every year, our feeds are flooded with linen co-ords, crochet dresses and breezy Mediterranean wardrobes. They’re beautiful — and if you’re actually spending your summer on the Amalfi Coast, entirely appropriate. But the trend has become so global that people find themselves dressing for holidays they’re not even taking, buying into an aesthetic that has become detached from the lifestyle it was originally created for.
The same disconnect plays out in the accessories we buy. Tiny shoulder bags might dominate the feeds of creators in New York or Paris, but in cities where people spend hours commuting, carry laptops to work, pack lunchboxes or need room for everyday essentials, they often become more aesthetic than functional. The algorithm celebrates the silhouette, but rarely the practicality.
The same can be said for cowboy boots, which have practical roots in places like Texas but become purely aesthetic elsewhere. Or layering, a cornerstone of dressing in cities like Seoul or Copenhagen, yet almost impossible to replicate in humid climates like Chennai or Manila without sacrificing comfort.
The rise of sheer dressing offers another example. While the trend has become a runway favourite and an Instagram staple, its translation varies widely across the world. In countries where modest dressing is shaped by religion, culture or workplace expectations, sheer pieces often require additional styling, or simply aren’t practical in the same way they’re presented online. The trend travels globally, but its execution inevitably changes once it meets local realities.
Luxury winter dressing (cashmere coats, leather trenches, knee-high boots) dominates our feeds every autumn because much of fashion media is centred around Europe and North America. Yet for someone in India, Brazil or Singapore, investing in those pieces often makes little practical or financial sense.
Even colour carries different meanings depending on where you are. White dressing, for instance, is often associated with quiet luxury, minimalism and effortless elegance across much of the West. In many parts of Asia, however, white has long carried cultural and ceremonial associations — often linked to mourning. The same outfit can communicate entirely different things depending on the cultural lens through which it’s viewed.
None of this is to say these trends are bad, or that you shouldn’t wear them. Fashion has always borrowed from different cultures, travelled across borders and evolved through exchange. That’s part of what makes it exciting.
The problem is that somewhere along the way, we’ve started confusing global visibility with universal relevance.
The algorithm doesn’t know whether you live in Lagos, London or Lucknow. It doesn’t know whether you’re commuting in 35-degree heat, dressing for a three-day wedding, or walking five kilometres a day. It simply rewards repetition. The more people engage with a trend, the more it convinces everyone else that they should too.
Perhaps that’s what the algorithm can never fully understand: fashion has always been global, but style has always been local. The most interesting wardrobes aren’t built by copying trends exactly as they appear online, but by translating them to fit the realities of where and how we actually live. Because style has always been local, even if our algorithms aren’t.
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