This summer, social media was filled with posts declaring that almost anything was “kinda chic”. Repeating outfits was kinda chic. Being overdressed was kinda chic. Doing something unfashionable could, apparently, also be kinda chic.

But can you remember the content of many individual “kinda chic” posts now? Probably not. What is much easier to remember is the format itself: the language, the rhythm, the way an ordinary behaviour or object was reframed as evidence of taste.

That distinction tells us something important about fashion online. We often worry that social media is making everyone dress the same, but perhaps the greater similarity lies in how we communicate being fashionable.

Social media does not only circulate products and trends, it circulates recognisable ways of presenting them. A city street or a zebra crossing becomes the setting for an outfit photograph. Coffee appears alongside carefully placed handbags. Hotels, holidays and fashion events become backdrops. Accessories are photographed in close-up, bodies adopt familiar poses and captions perform effortlessness even when the accompanying image is highly composed.

The individual content changes but the mode of communication often does not.

Fashion has always depended on shared meanings. Clothes can distinguish us precisely because other people understand something about what they signify. Cowboy boots, a Chanel jacket or a football shirt come with cultural associations long before an individual wears them.

No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You........

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