We live in a time where buying a new pair of shoes or an expensive handbag just happens in a vacuum. It's a group activity these days — and it's all thanks to Instagram. Because of this 'gram-it-or-it-didn't-happen mentality, certain It items blow up once one celebrity or influencer posts about it or a PR company decides to get gift-happy with a particularly hot product. Before you know it, your feed is clogged with the same scalloped bikini or designer-collab sneaker.

This past year, a crop of apparel, bags, and accessories became familiar faces as we scrolled through our timelines. We're talking the items that you couldn't refresh your app without seeing pop up on your Discover page: Rihanna's Puma creepers, the Chloé Faye bag, and Fendi's furry charms, just to name a few.

A lot of these pieces play on the Instagram community's undying obsession with minimalism, while others go to the total opposite end of the spectrum as loud, statement-making, street-style mainstays. And while we don't have the official stats on what merch got the most 'grams in 2015, we're willing to place bets on the picks ahead.