Crocheting🧶Not a Granny-Hobby Anymore

I remember the days when my mom first taught me how to make a loop with a crochet hook and I was only 12 years old. Being the kid that I am, crocheting is like a hidden gem - no one knew what the word ‘crocheting’ actually meant… or just simply calling it “knitting”.

Young me honestly thought that I would look SOOOOOO cool, crocheting at school… but my oh my, I was ridiculed by my friends and peers for having a ‘granny-hobby’ (sakit hati akuuuu!).

Now, I’m in my mid-20s and guess what I see on Instagram, TikTok and all the trendy social media nowadays? Crocheting has become the NEW fashion trend! Talk about bringing back retro.

I blame Taylor Swift - Don’t come for me, Swifties!

You know it’s true! During June this year, the Internet was sent to a YARNING frenzy when Taylor is spotted in a crochet dress when leaving a London restaurant with her boyfriend, Travis Kelce. The dress was made from an Australian brand, Vrg Girl with a rocking colour combination of Conch, Lilac Mist, Ivory and Thicket - which of course, is now SOLD OUT. Soon, the Internet was also flooded with tutorials and recreating videos of “The Taylor Swift Crochet Dress”.

Swifties work fast. Swifties. Is. SPEEDDD!

Taylor isn’t the only one flaunting the crochet look, despite the obvious clickbait-y headline. In their comeback song “Smart” stage performances, the K-pop girl group, LE SSERAFIM performed with each members wearing beautiful, hand-made and delicate crochet two-piece outfits that were all made personally by their very own member, Sakura - who honestly earned her title as the Crochet Master! Definitely not an EASY title to earn!

But hey, the credit does not go to Taylor Swift and LE SSERAFIM solely. During the dawn of social media, the crochet community has already been spreading their wisdom of the YARN and posting beginner tutorials and free patterns for lil’ potato crocheters like me. So I’m definitely not trying to disregard their work and passion but we got to recognize that Taylor’s and LE SSERAFIM's fashion appearance has sky-rocketed the art of crocheting to everyone’s For You Page!

So SUS-tainable - The Next In Fashion

Look, if you ask anyone, “Do you think Fast Fashion is good?”, any morally conscious person would say ‘no’ for the sake of the environment and honestly, for the sake of our wallets too. But with the BOOM of social media - seeing influencers dressing to the nines with the next trending MUST-BUY fashion piece always on the For You Page, it’s hard to suppress the desire to click the ‘buy now’ button.

But a new trend is coming to town - crocheting? Yes, but mostly, it’s Sustainable Fashion. Some may call it “Slow Fashion” - trendless fashion that promotes less production wastage and encourages long-term rewear and reuse. If you have ever crochet before, you know pretty well that crocheting a piece of clothing could take weeks or even months - which honestly perfectly embodied the ‘SLOW’ in Slow Fashion, haha! But that’s not the point.

The technique of crocheting is also incredibly versatile. Whether it's just a basic yarn or your old jeans cut into strips and tied together, you can literally crochet with ANYTHING… and literally MAKE anything - clothes, soft toy plushies, book covers, hair accessories, cup holders, keychains, and even a whole PLAYGROUND!

“Wait, what about the leftover yarns that are too short for another project?” Never say never. There’s even tutorials on how to use scrap yarns into a brand new project!

One crocheter trash is another’s… wait there’s no trash at all.

Crocheting - Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

Facts: Fashion is constantly changing everyday. We never know what new fashion trend is coming our way - especially with the influence of social media where everyone can start their own fashion style with just one TikTok video. Don't even get me started on how fashion icons like Gigi Hadid and even, K-pop stars like Jennie who could even viral-kan a bandage to become such a fashion style.

But one thing for sure, even if the trend of crocheting may become dull in the matters of weeks or months, past fashion trends are always making a comeback to our society every other years. Just like how the nostalgia of crocheting with my mom, comes back to me today with a bigger community of crocheter lovers!

Looking forward to meeting ‘crochet’ again soon 💖

Summer Yang is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!

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