Who Wore It Best? Honestly, Probably a Fan on TikTok

Here’s a marketing truth we don’t talk about enough: your audience doesn’t need your campaign to create cultural relevance.

They’ve already got the tools, the POVs, and the platforms to remix, reinterpret, and reframe whatever you put into the world.

If you want to understand how influence really works in 2025, pay attention to the Fashion Weeks coming this fall. But don’t just watch the runway - watch everything around it: the fan edits, the stitched TikTok's, the GRWM theories, the thrift flips from creators with more cultural capital than most legacy brands.

TL;DR: The future belongs to brands that can spark culture, not just speak into it.

The Age of Remix Has Arrived

We’re in the middle of a shift we at 160over90 call the Drive to Derive - a cultural current unpacked in a recent zine from the agency’s cultural intelligence unit The Deep End. In this current, the most engaged audiences don’t just absorb your brand - they reinterpret it. They don’t want a finished story - they want something to build on. While the show will deliver polish, it’ll be the post-show commentary that deliver depth.

And what’s happening in fashion is happening everywhere - sport, music, gaming, even finance. Fandom has become the most powerful creative engine on the planet. And the smartest brands? They’re not just talking to fans - they’re building with them. Fan communities are driving:

• Narrative layering – linking looks across seasons, creators, and meanings
  
• Speculative styling – decoding Easter eggs, predicting future drops
  
• Cultural remix – translating high fashion through local or subcultural lenses
  

That’s where another current comes in: one we’ve named, Speculation as Spectacle. The pre-show buzz is the show. The commentary becomes the content. Culture forms before the curtain lifts.

(And if you’ve ever seen a stitched GRWM video that unpacks a look better than a Vogue writeup - you know exactly what I mean.)

What This Means for Brands (And Not Just in Fashion)

• Audiences have always had taste - but now they also have tools, agency, and platforms. And they’re not waiting for permission to spin the conversation du jour.
• Brands that resist this lose cultural velocity.
  
• Brands that embrace it build immersion, not just impressions.
  

When someone remixes your product or writes themselves into your brand’s narrative, that’s not just engagement - it’s emotional equity.

So How Do You Design for That?

1. Build Pre-Narratives, Not Just Launches. Seed curiosity. Leave room for speculation and storytelling.

2. Embrace Multiplicity. Let your brand shapeshift. Singular stories don’t win culture - flexible ones do.

3. Make Your Fans the Feature. Don’t just acknowledge remix culture - platform it. When fans reinterpret your work, show up for it.

You don’t need to go full meta all the time, but your brand should at least be fluent in how people remix meaning. If your campaign can’t handle interpretation, it’s not built for this era. That’s not a threat to your brand - it’s a chance to co-author something more powerful.

Because in this world, the best campaigns don’t end with a period.

They start with an ellipsis.

Want more? Dive into all four cultural currents featured in 160over90’s latest drop from The Deep End – a cultural intelligence unit tracking how people move, connect, and create to drive greater impact.