https://www.voguebusiness.com/story/fashion/are-diy-creators-fashions-next-big-influencers

“Sustainable shopping is huge for Gen Z,” Stanback adds. For a generation fatigued by fast fashion and algorithm-driven sameness, crafting offers both self-expression and mindful consumption.
For Ruby Gold, founder of Orchard, craft channels sentimentality into fashion. “Collaging on clothing lets me create pieces that feel like meta representations of my style,” says Gold. They believe audiences are drawn to handmade content for the same reason. “Amid digital chaos and endless advertising, it feels like a return to self and authenticity.”
The future of craft in fashion comes back to the personal. “Style, like craft, is about expression and the little details that make it yours,” says Calvi. “Even with high fashion, I’ll add something customised or sentimental — a bracelet I made, a keychain, a scarf from Italy. My outfits are a scrapbook.”
Designer-slash-maker Natasha Ahmed sees personal style as bigger than outfits. “It isn’t exclusive to your tastes in fashion; it translates through all avenues,” she says. Ahmed gravitates to “bold colours, contrasting palettes and textured details” to create maximalist, mixed-media pieces layered with trinkets and stickers, which carry-through into accessories — embellished bags, piled-on jewellery — and beauty, “even gems and sparkles on my nails”.
In an industry defined by speed and sameness, craft offers an antidote: slowness, imperfection, memory. From Gold’s belief in handmade work as a safe space to Thomas’s vision of craft as empowerment, these creators show that what resonates now isn’t polish, but humanity — a future where fashion feels less like mass production and more like a collage of lived experiences.