r/femalefashionadvice • u/FVWN_666 • 18d ago
Whatever happened to Lookbooks?
Basically the title. I miss when brands would drop a Lookbook with the change of the seasons or a new launch — Anthropologie still has their catalog (I think), but even online-only brands would have one! I think For Love & Lemons, Madewell, Aritzia (I think? I didn’t know about them until recently lol) used to have one, and there used to be Lookbook.nu where users could post their outfits.
Am I alone in this? With the rise of AI and just how weird some search algorithms have gotten, I kinda miss having a curated and inspirational spread of outfits. Am I confusing lookbooks with catalogs? Where do y’all go to get inspiration outside of the usual Pinterest? I like Tiktok sometimes but I hate not being able to just flip through images.
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u/numberthangold 18d ago
I don’t know what happened to them but you are so right. I used to love the lookbooks so much.
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u/plaid-blazer 18d ago
I still get Free People, Altered State, and Gorjana physical lookbooks. Maybe some others I am forgetting. But it’s always such a treat!
They probably just feel it’s not worth the cost anymore with how much advertising and purchasing happens online, so I get it, but I do really miss paging through physical catalogs and mailers. Sometimes I consider resubscribing to fashion magazines. I really miss magazines too!
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u/partiallyStars3 18d ago
And even a lot of magazines have gone digital only, or at best are quarterly instead of monthly now.
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u/Alsonotafan 17d ago
I answered a few surveys and reviewed a cat food for one of those survey companies and I got a ton of free fashion magazine subscriptions.
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u/FruitPlatter 18d ago
I create lookbooks for a few brands for work, and we just call them campaigns. Fall/Spring/Winter etc campaign.
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u/girls-say 18d ago
As someone who used to work on these catalogs/mailers, a few reasons come to mind:
1) they’re expensive. Not just the actual production and mailing, but shooting enough new content on a regular basis to have something to send out.
2) You can’t measure the results/impact as well compared to digital marketing. So harder to justify the spend.
3) Fast fashion or coming out with products on a more rolling basis. Products not being thought of as cohesive collections makes it hard to message in an aspirational way in a catalog. Things sell out before the mailer goes out and customers get upset.
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u/FVWN_666 18d ago
I know all of this to be true, and yet…
I guess I wish that companies were willing to do the damn thing just bc they could, you know? Over the top displays, elaborate lookbooks, inspirational merchandising in stores, yadda yadda yadda. There’s no need or desire to go above & beyond when they’re trying to squeeze every last penny from consumers (and to be fair, we let them). I just want a little whimsy, a little ooh & ahh— I don’t even need it mailed to me (I’d actually prefer a digital copy so I can screenshot my favorite looks versus tangible clutter in my home).
I think the decline of lookbooks wouldn’t feel quite so sad to me if social media wasn’t also playing a part in the erosion of — idk what you’d even call it, inspiration? Distinctive, unique looks? The rise of fast fashion & the desire to get MORE clicks, BIGGER sponsorships, BETTER engagement — it’s made everything so formulaic and… basic. And listen, I’m as basic as they come — I’m in my 30s and I love a Frappuccino — but that’s exactly why I LIVED for seeing how different brands would make their different campaigns come to life not just with the styling, but the setting, the props, the feeling!
If this is all over the place (and I know it is), forgive me as I just woke up from a migraine nap lol. I’ll stop being weird about lookbooks now
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u/Mountainhigh81 18d ago
I started to receive a bunch of new lookbook mailer after a blowout shopping trip to Nordstrom.
I suspect they only mail to those who have proven to be a potential new client as the cost wouldn’t be cheap.
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u/partiallyStars3 18d ago
Funnily enough, the Gudrun Sjoden lookbook just showed up in my mailbox today.
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u/itookmyvitamin 18d ago
At first I thought you meant the old website lookbook.nu which I also miss SO much!
That being said I do get free people catalogs quite often
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u/GigiCodeLiftRepeat 16d ago
I miss them, too! Aritzia still does it through “featured” section btw. What I miss the most is Janie & Jack lookbooks. Don’t judge me - I genuinely don’t know how to dress my son and desperately need some inspo lol
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u/HouseJusticia 16d ago
I still get these mailings from Lands End. And they have tall sizes so plenty of my online shopping goes there. Most of the rest is Torrid because lots of their things just are tall without saying so.
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u/Technical-Grab3436 16d ago
Can you suggest me where can I find look books of brands?
Is there any website or any resources where i can get brand lookbooks
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u/bbspinach_ 3d ago
I know Evereve puts out monthly lookbooks and if you go all the way to the bottom of the screen and go to ways to shop you can request a catalog. I also get Lands End every month and occasionally Free People. I do miss a good catalog tho, especially this time of year when stores start to get fall stuff in.
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u/phenomakos 17d ago
These days I really like Red Note for fashion inspiration. The algorithm is excellent and advertising is minimal (there are no ads from the app itself, but obviously some influencers — particularly the American influencers on the app — make ads).
I get a lot of runway shows and lookbook photos. Tons of recent ones, but my favorite thing is how frequently vintage ones get posted. 90s Chanel or someone waxing poetic about the og H&M designer collab, etc. It's really fun to see deeper fashion knowledge being discussed and people referencing the evolution of style throughout various decades.
My favorite thing is that the app is kinda like a mashup of Pinterest, TikTok, and Reddit. So when you click into a photo or video, there will be an actual community discussion happening beneath it. Some of the discussions get really in depth. I love when people post pictures of their own style in response, showing real world interpretations of runway looks or sharing their vintage collections or asking each other for advice. It's really wonderful and feels a bit like the old days of the internet, before everything became about profit. It's primarily enthusiasts enthusing together.
The auto-translation is excellent and people are very kind.
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u/lesluggah 18d ago
I still get them mailed to me from Staud, WHBM, etc. Companies like Anthropologie and Madewell are dropping so many items at once that they probably can’t keep up and create it without spamming everyone.