Widen your googly old eyes, because there's been much evidence of late that emojis are taking over the world. There’s now even an emoticon version of Wikipedia, called Emojipediawhere you can find out all those burning emoji questions like, whose signature is scrawled across the teeny tiny emoji credit card (answer: John Appleseed, Apple's first ever CEO), and what time the emoji clock actually tells (answer: a time which does not exist, for some unfathomable reason).
And given the uptake of those little emoji friends it was, of course, only a matter of time before this very modern means of communication started populating our wardrobe, too. And though you could quite reasonably assume that the emoji clothing on offer would be just for LOLs (since when, except for fans of ’90s rave culture, has wearing a smiley cartoon face been desirous?) you’d be, like, totally wrong (talking about emojis has brought out our valley girl patois.) Sure, Shop Jeen’s Emoji Backpack, Beloved’s Poop Socks, ASOS’s Smiley Poncho and The T-Shirt Party’s Emotion Tee are definitely at the affordable gags end of the ’moji spectrum, but there’s no denying that emojis have entered bonafide fashion world, too.
London designer Lizzie King hand embroiders high-waisted Emoji Jeans (£120) and sells them through her e-store. They’re the kind of kitschily cute trousers you could imagine any of the Funky Offish collective sporting. So is it all young girls buying her jeans for some faux ’90s nostalgia? ‘I don’t actually think age has anything to do with it,’ explains Lizzie. ‘It’s about your outlook on fashion. Most fashion I love has a sense of humour about it and references popular culture, like Moschino or Prada. I love frivolous fashion worn sincerely.’ Sales of the jeans have done so well – Lizzie's response, when I ask her how sales have been, is simply a very effective trifecta of emoji jeans + a bag of $ + a thumbs up. Next in the production pipeline are embroidered emoji tees and bespoke orders. ‘I also make jeans with just one or two emojis on them, for those people who want something less full on,’ she says.
It's not just about clothes, though: we’re talking fine jewellery and luxury leather luggage, too. Despite the £2,500 price tag, London designer Anya Hindmarch has already sold out of her SS14 python skin Happy Shopper. Florentine designer Les Petits Joueurs has a Lego-based Grace Clutch for £323. US jeweller Alison Chelma ofAlison Lou Jewellery’s irreverent but pricey emoji jewellery retails from £260 (that will buy you just a single Yellow Gold Sad Face Single Stud Earring) to £2,005 (for the Ruby and Gold Love Struck Necklace) puts to bed the theory that it’s just young girls buying into the zeitgeist.
‘Surprisingly, a lot of my clientele are older women,’ she says. ‘When people come up and see it’s a crying face or a kiss face it puts a smiley on people’s faces!’ Alison isn’t the only fine jeweller creating smiley faced jewelz, either. NYC jeweller Nektar de Stagni combines pearls with black crystal pave, to simulate a smiley face, with a slightly lower price point of around the £300 mark.
Luxury pre-order site, Moda Operandi's recent trunkshow (which allows you to shop runway clothes ahead of production and therefore isn't one of our most regular bookmarks) featured a luxury, limited-edition emoji collaboration, M’oticon, between accessories designer Edie Parker and velvet slipper brand, Del Toro. Fourteen pairs of slippers were matched up with a complimentary acrylic box clutch. Some slate grey slippers (£203) featuring googly-eyed turds across the toes werepartnered with a #NOSHIT clutch (£953), while a pair of crimson slippers with a monkey covering it’s eyes on one toe and a monkey covering its ears on the other, was partnered with a lipstick red #NoEvil clutch. Neat.
The luxury brands have no doubt that emojis are sticking around for next season, either. Nektar de Stagni has a pink pearl choker with smiley faces in the pipeline for AW14 (dropping at the end of the summer) whilst Anya Hindmarch has a matching leather tote and purse. On the high street, ASOS has an emoji strewn scuba skirt for next season.
At the end of the day, it comes down to three things: do you have a GSOH? And do you have lots of moolah? It is perhaps unfathomable to most of us to spend so much money on a transient trend – especially one which, dare we say it, is at the risk of over exposure, much like the ‘selfie’ phenomenom. We’ve recently found ourselves subscribing to the counter-culture of implementing a once naff now nostalgically old school colon + paranthesis :) in lieu of a tiny cartoon.
But let’s be honest, as soon as that new keyboard drops (please, God, let it have a rasher of bacon) we’ll be all over emojis again like a rash. And as Lizzie King says, why the hell shouldn’t you invest in the emoji, if you’re into it? ‘I don’t have that kind of cash, so I will stick to embroidering emojis on my clothes, instead of wearing diamond-encrusted ones. But if you do have a spare 2K then spend it on what you like!’
O-Mighty Happy Daze Backpack, £41.05, Nasty Gal; Yellow Sequin Smiley Face Jumper, £265, Markus Lupfer at Liberty; Original Teddy Jacket in Grey and White, £55, Smiley London; The Emoji Ankle Socks, £6, Beloved.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.