To say that TV shows have dominated our pandemic lives would be an understatement. Each show, when you really think about it, has pinpointed a particular time in the past year. First came Tiger King right at the beginning of lockdown during the end of March 2020, and along with it an ignited interest in animal prints and Carol Baskin costumes prepped for Halloween. There was Normal People, I May Destroy You, Selling Sunset, Unorthodox, The Queen’s Gambit, and new seasons of The Crown and Schitt’s Creek. And that was just 2020. This year already has seen the popularity of the BBC’s The Serpent and Channel 4’s It’s a Sin. And the TV hits will keep on coming, no doubt.
What I’m saying is that with nowhere to go and with a need for escapism, the lure of a really great series has been unmatched. Combine that with some incredible costumes and increasing budgets from streaming services, and you’ve got yourself some understandable fashion influence. I reached out to Lyst, the global fashion shopping platform, to see what searches they’d seen around some of the key, most fashionable shows from the past year. Keep scrolling to see which TV shows have impacted our wardrobes the most and the pieces we have been copying.
There’s no denying the Connell’s Chain effect. From the moment Paul Mescal’s character Connell Waldron wore a gold chain, we were hooked. According to Lyst last April, searches for chain necklaces spiked 23% week-on-week and within 24 hours, “silver” and “chain necklace” became the most commonly used search terms for men’s jewellery. And the influence is still going, “almost one year later, searches for “gold chains” are up 42% year-on-year whilst page views for chain necklaces are up 36% year-on-year”.
The love for Princess Diana’s wardrobe has been long documented, way before Emma Corrin took on the role in The Crown. But thanks to season four’s series, which heavily features the Diana and Charles story, we’re thinking about her style even more. Lyst says that “three weeks following the launch of The Crown’s fourth season, Princess Diana’s on-screen style has sent searches for sheep sweaters (+110%), high collared pink gingham (+73%) and pie crust collar tops (+31%) soaring”.
While the Regency-era dresses aren’t for everyone, not to mention no one is really dressing up right now, there is one item of clothing that has shot up in popularity: corsets. “Four weeks following the launch of Bridgerton, we saw searches for corsets spiking +123%. Currently, global searches for corsets are up 39% month-on-month. Compared to the same season last year, searches for the category are up 46% Meanwhile, page views for corset tops are up 31% year-on-year,” Lyst tells me.
The Queen’s Gambit was perhaps the surprise hit when it came to fashion. Unsurprisingly, though, the thing that people ended up searching for the most, as a result of the show was checked pieces. Lyst tells me that “searches for checked-pattern pieces jumped 43% month-on-month”.
The ’70s rarely go out of style so when The Serpent hit our screens in early 2021, it’s not a total surprise that “searches for flares (+39%), halter-neck tops (+33%) and printed hair scarves (+23%) have all increased since the series launched at the start of January while the words “psychedelic” and “printed” have collectively increased 45%”.
Mega hit, It’s a Sin has one clear stand-out star when it comes to fashion and that Roscoe Babatunde. Thanks to his sense of style, Lyst saw a “60% jump in searches for acid-wash jeans” two weeks after the series’s launch.
