Was The ‘Viral Zara Dress’ Even Viral Before It Went… Viral?

I couldn’t think of a less-confusing headline, which pretty much sums up this confusing state of affairs. Recently, I’ve heard a lot of talk about this ‘dress that’s gone viral‘. What dress that’s gone viral? Wondering if we’d travelled back to 2015 for the blue/black or gold/white dress debate – I was puzzled. However, upon researching, I found some articles about an apparent iconic Zara dress which is set to be the viral trend of the summer.

But I’d never heard about it until a few days ago.

“If you’ve heard about it, that means it’s gone viral though, right?” Well, wrong. Because the issue here is that I’d never heard of it, until the infamous dress was classified as viral?

A bit of self-promotion from Zara? I highly suspect it.

Has ANYONE Heard Of This Dress?

Confirming that I haven’t been living under a rock, I asked a few of my friends if they have heard of the ‘viral Zara dress’ and their responses were exactly what I thought they might be:

Point… proven?

Which brings me back to my first question (that might make a litle more sense now that you see where i’m going with this): was this ‘viral’ dress even a viral sensation before somebody, somewhere called it viral and promoted it as such? I mean, according to articles, this dress even has it’s own Instagram account now. Seems a little, forced?

The £39.99 Zara dress has been labelled as a sensation because it’s suitable for all women of varying shapes and sizes. Which is brilliant and it’s a product I can fully get behind. However, what’s most interesting here to me is how well the dress has been marketed on the contention of its virality, that was more than likely to have been fabricated by Zara itself. I mean, I’m no conspiracist, but I’d never heard of this dress until it was sold into the papers as the biggest viral trend of 2019. I might be wrong, but I believe this was clever play by Zara to market their own product as the next big thing.

And hats off to them, ’cause it seems to have worked.

Fair Do’s, Zara

I could very well be wrong, but everyone’s entitled to their opinions, right? Anyway, if this was a deliberate attempt by Zara to promote their own lines, then it’s a stroke of genius in my eyes? Why? I can think of a couple of reasons:

• Desirability – now that this has been duped the ‘dress of the summer’, everyone wants it. I mean, even I want it just to see how it looks on me.
• Publicity – coverage in every national and consumer publication? Can’t argue with that. Zara’s widespread media presence thanks to this dress will benefit them greatly.

What do you think? Am I a cynic for believing this is an act? Like me, did you only just hear about the viral dress because it was branded as such? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below or on Twitter.