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While loungewear and minimalism trends seemed everywhere during the pandemic, a new trend from the other end of the spectrum is gaining traction: maximalism. Followers look to bold colors, mixed prints and couture-like elements to give themselves mood boosts during otherwise dreary times.
The trend is supported by maximalist influencers, who share photos and videos of their eccentric looks — think creating an outfit entirely out of newspapers — on Instagram and TikTok. Their content has gained the attention of fashion brands, including Coach, H&M and Collina Strada, and other companies that are looking to partner with the creators.
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Here, four fashion maximalist influencers talk about the phenomenon — giving insight into their own style, fall fashion trends and why they think their over-the-top aesthetic is resonating with the masses.
Alix Scherer: @WearingAlix
Fashion influencer Alix Scherer has been a lifelong fan of maximalist dressing, but has leaned more heavily on the creative outlet as a form of self-expression while working at an office job for the city of New York.
“It can be difficult when your job doesn’t involve any creativity, but you feel like you need to be creative and you have a creative side,” Scherer, who uses she/they pronouns, says. “Coming to an office every day where it can feel daunting and you don’t necessarily see windows and it lacks color — for me, I was searching for something to find an outlet of self-expression and my clothing has always been a piece of self-expression for me.”
Scherer started sharing their looks on Instagram in February 2020. The influencer has slowly built their following over the last two years, now boasting over 16,700 followers. Scherer’s colorful outfits and uplifting videos have gained the attention of several brands who’ve tapped them for partnerships, such as Hush Puppies Sock Candy.
The influencer defines her style as “colorful business casual,” given their affinity for bold colors and love of dressier styles. Their style consists of bright colors, chunky jewelry and mixed prints. For fall, Scherer says they are looking forward to wearing sequins and tulle pieces.
Scherer’s main style icon is one of the original fashion maximalists: fashion icon Iris Apfel (as well as her family, which she describes as “kind of a fashionista family).”
“My style is very uninhibited and I don’t necessarily conform to the rules that typically apply to office wear or color theory,” Scherer says. “It’s mostly that out-of-the-box and uninhibited thinking that I think people respect. As we move forward as a society, more and more people are leaning into the idea that you don’t have to follow whatever style rules were set by whatever standards in the past. It’s respected that it’s good to push those boundaries and it’s good to lean into who you are as opposed to who you think you’re supposed to be.”
Ami and Aya Suzuki: @amixxamiaya and @ayaxxamiaya
Twins Ami and Aya Suzuki have long made waves for their matching, colorful style, ever since they started blogging and using social media in the early 2010s.
The twins have had many roles throughout their careers, working as DJs, models and collaborating with Japanese fashion brands, but through it all they’ve established themselves — and developed a following of more than 550,000 on Instagram — as some of the original fashion maximalist influencers.
They’ve worked with many major brands, including Moschino, H&M, Montblanc, Coach and others.
“Our style mixes various tastes and pursues originality by expressing the joy of fashion through the use of color,” the Suzuki twins say in a joint interview. “From hair styling to makeup, we consistently aim to create an individuality that only we can bring out.”
A hallmark of the influencers’ style is their constant matching, with outfits that complement each other through shared patterns or the same color palette. They also have an affinity for pink, regularly wearing the color in their clothing and accessories, and frequently dyeing their hair different shades of pink.
“For us, the keyword ‘twins’ is one of our identities,” they say. “We try to match each other in clothing and styling in some way. This is something we are conscious of on a regular basis, not just during fashion week. Our style is very much about the impact of being twins. We express what we can do because we are twins, and we complement each other by constantly discussing, looking at each other objectively and updating each other.”
Their love of pink is something they’re keeping up this fall. In addition to keeping their pink hairstyles, the twins are looking forward to styling their looks with pink corsets and vintage pieces.
Sara Camposarcone: @saracamposarcone
Sara Camposarcone cemented her status as a fashion maximalist influencer thanks to one of her first viral TikTok videos last year where the Toronto-based creator tries on a head-to-toe, dog-themed outfit.
Since then, she’s posted many videos that center around styling an unconventional item, such as a hamburger-themed bra, flip flops featuring a grape design or a kid’s cuisine hair clip. Camposarcone’s bold looks have earned her more than 900,000 TikTok followers, plus 87,500 followers on Instagram.
“I would describe my style as pretty bold,” she explains. “I’m definitely drawn to color. For me, it’s such a big mood booster. It makes me so happy, so that’s what I go for. But [my style] is pretty eccentric and eclectic as well. I love things that are nostalgic for me. Anything that reminds me of my childhood, like anything related to a TV show that I used to watch. I love to play into my inspiration for what I wear today.”
Camposarcone has had a lifelong interest in fashion and maximalist dressing. The influencer started developing her style in high school when she grew her affinity for thrift shopping. After college, she turned her love of fashion into a career, working in marketing at an apparel company, and now she works as a content creator full time, partnering with fashion brands and major companies like McDonald’s and Samsung.
She has many style influences for her eccentric outfits, but gets most of her ideas looking at the ‘90s runways of designers like Marc Jacobs and Betsy Johnson as well as from Japanese fashion magazines, she says. This fall, she’s looking most forward to wearing layers again, as well as bringing back her favorite fuzzy hats.
“At first it started as like, ‘oh this person is super weird and her style is really weird,’” she says, about her videos. “It’s interesting to watch, but at the same time I don’t think it was like people were really like I would dress like her, but as time went on it kind of got to this point where people follow and watch my videos not even just for the fashion but for the confidence that I exude in my videos, or just the inspiration that you can wear whatever you want and not care what people think.”
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