The Return of the Fashion Flat-Lay

The rise of flat-lay collages in fashion advertising suggests nostalgia for simpler forms of digital media, but also offers the chance for audiences to be playful and creative.

Fashion marketing is just incredibly flat at the moment — and I don’t mean unimaginative. Fashion ads have typically featured clothes modelled on the body, but lately, we’re seeing more of them photographed off it. In May 2024, Dash Hudson reported that flat-lay visuals increased by 43% across 200 brands. Springing up across digital wardrobe apps — from Whering to Indyx — through to independent designers Fruity Booty and Paolina Russo, the fashion flat-lay has become symptomatic of a nostalgic generation.

If you can remember the wholesome days of Polyvore, then you know flat-lays aren’t new — they were a major design feature of 2000s internet culture. Frequented by designer-loving users who had a higher-than-average order value of $383, the site gamified styling and e-commerce, allowing members to experiment with cut-and-paste shoppable outfits in a social platform.

It was a home to the subcultural niche, with entire micro-trends blooming and dying off seemingly overnight. But when Ssense acquired the company in 2018 and promptly shut it down, its 20 million monthly active users were abandoned, and distraught core followers lost years of creative work and friends to the virtual abyss. Hashtags like #BringBackPolyvore failed to revive it.

Top: Pinterest; Above: Paolina Russo pre-fall 25 campaign, image: Jordan Core

Source: Creative Review