Djerf Avenue Controversy & Bedroom Culture

Welcome back to HotToks. This edition we report on the Djerf Avenue copyright controversy, and an interesting piece from i-D on 'bedroom culture.'

Djerf Avenue Gets Hectic

TL;DR: This video from @thenewsmovement did a great job summarizing what’s happening with the brand.

Popular Scandi-inspired Swedish women’s clothing brand Djerf Avenue has been under intense heat these past few weeks. They have gained a considerable following for timeless basics during the ‘quiet luxury’ era, and their popularity has skyrocketed ever since. A couple of months ago, the brand had a pop-up in NYC and saw hundreds of Djerf Avenue fans line up.

Recently, creators have been sharing dupes for the brand’s higher-priced pajama sets and began noticing that their videos were flagged with trademark warnings. It turns out that Djerf and her team were copyright-striking smaller creators’ accounts to have dupe videos taken down. 

A creator named Aliya Sumar has spoken out about being copyright-stricken, saying that in her video, she says the Djerf pieces are of way better quality than the Amazon dupes and urged her followers to buy the real deal. For reference, the PJ set on Amazon is around $20-$30, and the Djerf Avenue PJ sets go for about $100-$120, depending on how you pair the pieces together. Not to mention, the original DA ones sell out fairly quickly. 

Dupes are not a new concept, but many DA fans on TikTok are having problems with how Djerf is claiming to invent the “clean-girl Scandinavian style” look. Her clothing line has been highly scrutinized, with some saying that many of her clothing pieces, like the vintage trench coat, existed before she launched her brand. This is common in the fashion world, so it feels ironic that she’s turning around and taking down others for doing the same thing. 

Some smaller TikTokers speaking about DA have said they encountered outrageous customer service attitudes regarding the copyright strikes. It seems that the Djerf team is taking down content from smaller creators that even support their brand (saying dupes don’t suffice) or that don’t even mention “dupe” or “alternative” in their videos.

In comparison, other bigger creators, like Sydney Adams, still have their videos with the dupes up. In addition, this creator has called Matilda Djerf out for questionable rude behavior during the NYC pop-up. Following the controversy, Djerf Avenue has deactivated its TikTok account, but the brand page remains available for shopping. When writing, #djerfavenuecontroversy has over 1.7M views on TikTok.

Unpacking Bedroom Culture

I recently came across this very cool piece about “bedroom culture” from i-D, and here’s what I learned:

The newest piece of girl culture is “bedroom culture,” – which goes to describe how the bedroom became “the centre of a teenage girl’s world, a nexus of communication, creativity, and self-expression, where teenagers were ‘experimenting with makeup, listening to records, reading the mags, sizing up boyfriends, chatting, jiving’.”

Olivia Rodrigo is quickly becoming the face of this subculture due to her album, Guts, accompanying artwork, and some lyrics that characterize teenage femininity. 

Throughout COVID, younger people became more used to being in their childhood homes well beyond their teenage years. Thus, the bedroom has retained its function as a private sanctuary, and bedroom culture and facets of girlhood started to seep into adulthood.

Bedroom culture is now a central piece of pop and internet culture, with many different media forms utilizing the symbol of the bedroom (i.e., Sabrina Carpenter’s “Nonsense” video and TV shows like Sex Education and The Summer I Turned Pretty). 

Bedroom culture thrives on social media. No girl’s bedroom is the same as another’s. Girl stars of Instagram and TikTok have let the world in on their private spaces and made their mark on overall bedroom culture, sharing how they decorate it and tips and tricks on storage. Besides the white-linen aesthetic, there’s also the #bedrotting trend. All of these takes leave a lasting impact on ‘bedroom culture’ as a whole and overall girlhood culture. 

Also, TikTok is experimenting with 15-minute uploads. One more time louder for the people in the back: TikTok is now an educational entertainment platform. What topics would you tune into TikTok for for 15 minutes? Personally, for me, Love is Blind breakdowns, don’t ask.  

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Thanks for reading!

Viv

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