By Hannah Ludwig, Newswire Intern

A modern-day woman is considered stylish if the word “Parke” is written on a $130 basic grey sweatshirt. Meanwhile, in the men’s department, choosing between wearing a black, blue or gray hoodie is the big style decision of the day. Personal style is slowly fading out of our everyday wardrobes as clothing becomes increasingly bland and based off of mainstream styles, trends and quick fixes instead of originality.

While cozy clothes and basics are undoubtedly important, staple pieces like this should not automatically be considered the pinnacle of fashion. Intricacy in wardrobes, including pattern, small details, complementing accessories and color are rarer to find.

Color particularly has been disappearing from many clothing options as society has migrated towards a more neutral palette. Modern day life values all things sleek, orderly and ultimately colorless in fashion and beyond.

Many houses have taken after the “sad beige mom” aesthetic, which replaces color and personality with starched, lifeless neutrals in order to look curated, expensive and like the inhabitants have their lives together more than everyone else.

Additionally, cars have been trending in the same direction. They have become sleek and more monotone, sporting the same limited shades all picked from the same small section on a color wheel. This replaces originality with a curated and trendy blandness that is widespread throughout modern day society, and clothing follows this movement.

“Everyone looked stylish. Few people looked distinctive,” according to an article by Saint and Sofia.

The “why” as to the death of personal style is no mystery. Social media and the internet push fast fashion in consumers’ faces constantly.

People latch onto trends and search for whatever would make a perfect Instagram post or Pinterest picture. However, what would look good in a social media post is determined by the status quo of everyone else on social media, moving towards conformity instead of originality.

Especially in the world of social media, people like to feel that they fit in, particularly when they know they are being judged, so they opt for what everyone else seems to think is fashionable. Social media emphasizes blandness because it values glossed-over perfection, leaving that little room to be messy or original, which is essential personal style.

Algorithms feed off of what users want to see, and they also push trends out to the population. Everyone has instant access to what is in style and what others are wearing, making fashion less personal and instead something that is delivered and mindlessly consumed faster. Everyone is an echo chamber of everyone else’s thoughts in social media, and this includes style.

This “fast fashion” is not only central to the social media and convenience age of today, but to the pace of life as well.

People have less patience to slow down and think, so they gravitate towards what is fast and easy, which is usually something spoon-fed to them through social media.

Originality and creativity are drained when people do not make the time and space to experience the natural wanderings that create art, including fashion.

Convenience is often prioritized over quality and creativity, for example AI, which leads to mainstream and basic pieces becoming the trend.

These qualities are often amplified by being on a college campus. College campuses contain a small, selective slice of the population, containing people of generally the same age, often many from the same area, background or general social class.

People coming from a similar slice of the population amplify the lack of diversity among style.

There is still hope for the return of variety among styles. Turning social media standards upside down can allow people to showcase the unconventional and extraordinary, in turn inspiring others to question the mainstream fashion standard and slow down enough to experience an awe for creativity and figure out their own personal style. “True personal style rarely looks perfect. That imperfection is what makes it interesting,” Saint and Sofia states.