Fashion needs a Revolution

[trip]

looks like paris is giving us one right now! picking up on the collective rumblings in the underground. about time too!

 

[ultramarine]

the problem resides on big name designers who embraced revisionism recently ... and I dunno if Im more and more critical but its rare to find a whole collection who deserves praise and we're so thirsty for it that something just nice is able to cut it ...
Economy is a huge factor on this matter and war times are not the best for risque proposals ... however, yesterday or the day before there was a record set on NY Stock Exchange ... hopefully .. that'll be a sign

 

[Alexandra8715]

^Yeah its true about the war times thing. People want security through clothes when there is international instability so they go back to trends that bring them comfort...kind of like vintage clothes that hark back to a 'better' time.
But i was just trawling through ebay for some clothes and all the titles on the clothes was like 'emo' '80s' 'rockabilly' 'electro' or whatever and everyone is doing it...even me! At my art college everyone dresses that way so we all look the same. It's so hard to think outside the box when everyone is dressing that way. Even those people who think they dress originally bore the hell out of me. Infact my own style bores the hell out of me. I wish that those designers who are up and coming and trying to change peoples style could do it fast! Because I'm getting seriously frustrated with all the clothes at topshop, h&m etc. If I had the time and the skill I would make all my own clothes. In fact I think that sense of frustraton with what everyone is wearing is probably one of the reasons that drives people to become clothes designers in the first place.

 

[BerlinRocks]

the good revolution would be the (re)focus on fashion and dressing people!

 

[iluvjeisa]

^Yeah its true about the war times thing. People want security through clothes when there is international instability so they go back to trends that bring them comfort...kind of like vintage clothes that hark back to a 'better' time.
But i was just trawling through ebay for some clothes and all the titles on the clothes was like 'emo' '80s' 'rockabilly' 'electro' or whatever and everyone is doing it...even me! At my art college everyone dresses that way so we all look the same. It's so hard to think outside the box when everyone is dressing that way. Even those people who think they dress originally bore the hell out of me. Infact my own style bores the hell out of me. I wish that those designers who are up and coming and trying to change peoples style could do it fast! Because I'm getting seriously frustrated with all the clothes at topshop, h&m etc. If I had the time and the skill I would make all my own clothes. In fact I think that sense of frustraton with what everyone is wearing is probably one of the reasons that drives people to become clothes designers in the first place.

And what will happen is that everyone will walk around in grey/black/beige/white clothes for a few years (like in the late 90s) and then people will get bored and less concerned with repeating themselves or lending inspiration from fashions from the past and they'll do it again...it's just an eternal cycle.

60s fashions were revolutionary mostly for the new political freedom. Before then, fashions were dictated in a clear way because of the structure of society. Of course then, you could clearly follow the evolution of clothing from decade to decade. Today we have all these little niches connected to each other through the internet, and it will simply never be the same again as long as we have a democratic, sexualized society with a working exchange of ideas through images/videos.

Sure, there will be new materials, and many new cuts but the most functional innovations, as far as cuts go, have probably been made already. But you never know....I just think drastic political changes have to come about for substantial innovations to last.

 

[Brazilian Girl]

sure- a revolution would be nice...
but i don't think it will necessarily be a technological revolution ....

I agree. I am desperate for a revolution in fashion, but I do not think it should be a technological one.

Personally I would like to see something new in terms of design and style... it's all getting so repetitive, lots of revivals and stuff... sometimes I wonder if there is nowhere to go from here

 

[iluvjeisa]

I agree. I am desperate for a revolution in fashion, but I do not think it should be a technological one.

Personally I would like to see something new in terms of design and style... it's all getting so repetitive, lots of revivals and stuff... sometimes I wonder if there is nowhere to go from here

You can't just have change for the sake of change itself, or at least you shouldn't. There has to be some purpose, some relevance, not just exploration of purposeless and ugly new cuts because they're new rather than that they fill a function and/or look attractive. That said, obviously designers have to try to explore new possibilities...but being afraid of lending from the past is silly, because of course you will be doing that involuntarily anyway.

 

[Nyx]

The general feel I'm getting from this thread is that we seem to be bored with everything the designers throw at us. It seems that everything has been done and re-done so many times that nothing thrills us anymore. But why is that, really? The time of one super-trend is undeniably over and there are so many different trends and sources to choose from. Plus the internet means that even geography can't constrain our freedom of choice. Given the variety we have today, we should be anything but bored.

But bored we are, deathly so. But I get the feeling that there's more to it, too. Someone brought up the effect of the international instability to the general mood, and several points have been made about the implications of consumerism to the environment. Indeed it is becoming more and more widely acknowledged that the lifestyle we have been leading the past decades has got to change. Being "environmentally aware" is no longer just one lifestyle or identity choice among others: the consensus that this kind of consumption is headed to a dead end has never been this widespread. We find it harder and harder to ignore what our lifestyle, constantly changing fashions as a part of it, is doing to the world.

And I know this may feel like a bold conclusion to draw, but I think that it is not that we are bored with the choices offered to us: the vague feeling of dissatisfaction of what we are offered is actually dissatisfaction, even disappointment with fashion per se, not really the garments we could choose from.

Some people here told that they see around them formerly fashion-loving people losing interest in it. I have noticed that too. Also, I'm one of those people. I have felt that my interest in fashion and style in general has been declining in the past years, paradoxically the same time as I feel that the variety in the market has grown. Now I've realized that I am really fed up with the whole concept of fashion. The whole idea of "fashion" is its transience, that the things you buy have to be periodically replaced just because they "seem old". I feel more and more that this kind of fashion only serves the interests of business, not the consumer. I'm personally fed up with the culture that tells me that everything beautiful, inspiring, important, productive thing in your life has to pass to you through the market. The way everything in your life, including your identity and your life choices, can first and foremost be purchased with money, and that the way to use your creativity and express yourself is reduced to buying different things.

Many people here are not only ahead of the trends in fashion, I'd say we tend to be ahead of other cultural trends as well. Thus it would be only logical that the first signs of the eventual revolution of fashion would emerge here. I think that the revolution we are talking about will eventually be a radical change in the meaning of the whole concept of fashion. Because even though fashion as we know it no longer seems to satisfy us, it doesn't mean that the needs it used to serve no longer exist. On the contrary. We will forever want to express ourselves through our appearance, we will want to be surrounded by beautiful things, we will want to have elements of fantasy in our lives. But I think that the huge machine-like industry that spits out new stuff whether anyone wants it or fails to satisfy these needs.

So what do I see as the future of fashion? I honestly don't know. What kind of phenomenon(s) could take its' place and do its' job better than the fashion of today does? What are we looking for in fashion exactly, and where else could we really find it?

 

[annelein]

i do see what you mean but in my strage little mind i do see that turning away from the bootleg which has long been seen as far more superior to the average consumer than skinny jeans then one day wham nearly everyone has a pair of skinnies, as almost revolutionary, maybe, just, a tiny bit??

It was the end of the eighties and people still agreed with me when I said that i was very very young. I saw an old movie, it was taped in the seventies, and I was mesmerised by what the people in it wore. These everyday characters, men and women boys and girls, all indiscriminately wore more or less flared pants! How strange it looked! How the shape of the pant changed their proportions, their posture, the way they moved! How extremely old-fashioned! Noone in 1988, or whichever year this took place, could ever leave their house looking like that, not even the non-fashionconcious-at-alls ... I was truly stricken.

My point is, of course, that none of the changes you mentioned are the tiniest bit revolutionary in my book. The flare comes and goes, as does the miniskirt, the A-line and the androgyny. Some weeks ago I bought a pair of pants with about 50 cm long fly; with fitted high waist, baggy groin and tapered legs. I have never owed such a weird and weirdly attractive pair and have seen extremely few other who do. Still, one of them is, once you think about it, MC Hammer and he sported them all over MTV not long after I saw that movie. No revolution in sight, compadres ....

 

[Couture_Tribe]

The general feel I'm getting from this thread is that we seem to be bored with everything the designers throw at us. It seems that everything has been done and re-done so many times that nothing thrills us anymore. But why is that, really? The time of one super-trend is undeniably over and there are so many different trends and sources to choose from. Plus the internet means that even geography can't constrain our freedom of choice. Given the variety we have today, we should be anything but bored.

But bored we are, deathly so. But I get the feeling that there's more to it, too. Someone brought up the effect of the international instability to the general mood, and several points have been made about the implications of consumerism to the environment. Indeed it is becoming more and more widely acknowledged that the lifestyle we have been leading the past decades has got to change. Being "environmentally aware" is no longer just one lifestyle or identity choice among others: the consensus that this kind of consumption is headed to a dead end has never been this widespread. We find it harder and harder to ignore what our lifestyle, constantly changing fashions as a part of it, is doing to the world.

And I know this may feel like a bold conclusion to draw, but I think that it is not that we are bored with the choices offered to us: the vague feeling of dissatisfaction of what we are offered is actually dissatisfaction, even disappointment with fashion per se, not really the garments we could choose from.

Some people here told that they see around them formerly fashion-loving people losing interest in it. I have noticed that too. Also, I'm one of those people. I have felt that my interest in fashion and style in general has been declining in the past years, paradoxically the same time as I feel that the variety in the market has grown. Now I've realized that I am really fed up with the whole concept of fashion. The whole idea of "fashion" is its transience, that the things you buy have to be periodically replaced just because they "seem old". I feel more and more that this kind of fashion only serves the interests of business, not the consumer. I'm personally fed up with the culture that tells me that everything beautiful, inspiring, important, productive thing in your life has to pass to you through the market. The way everything in your life, including your identity and your life choices, can first and foremost be purchased with money, and that the way to use your creativity and express yourself is reduced to buying different things.

Many people here are not only ahead of the trends in fashion, I'd say we tend to be ahead of other cultural trends as well. Thus it would be only logical that the first signs of the eventual revolution of fashion would emerge here. I think that the revolution we are talking about will eventually be a radical change in the meaning of the whole concept of fashion. Because even though fashion as we know it no longer seems to satisfy us, it doesn't mean that the needs it used to serve no longer exist. On the contrary. We will forever want to express ourselves through our appearance, we will want to be surrounded by beautiful things, we will want to have elements of fantasy in our lives. But I think that the huge machine-like industry that spits out new stuff whether anyone wants it or fails to satisfy these needs.

So what do I see as the future of fashion? I honestly don't know. What kind of phenomenon(s) could take its' place and do its' job better than the fashion of today does? What are we looking for in fashion exactly, and where else could we really find it?

Great conclusion/ reply! I agree with a lot of the stuff you have said!

I have something little to say.

Ok, I am one of the people who is tired of fashion, really. When I go shopping in a store, nothing excites me, half hour later, I would start mumble to my self "they sell sh*t here" Seriously, a lot of trends going on on the runway, I can even see them on hip-hop junkies or have been done X times.
And seriously, if you look around you on a street, you see more hip-hop/ gangster outfits than high fashion! High fashion is rare rare rare stuff. It's a real problem of this era, you know. People just wear sh!t.

About what we look for in fashion and where we can find it.
I think this is very true: clothes are something for young people to find/have their idenity, maturer people with status or money don't need to show it through their clothes.
Where we can find fashion? I am lost in fashion, it says that fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what's happening. But nothing new is happening now honestly.
I somehow feel the global communication sort of ruins our interest in fashion. We can talk to the most stylish people everyday, and see the latest fashion within our finger tips, there is no mystery anymore. When something loose its mystery, the whole thing is blah.

 

[Couture_Tribe]

the problem resides on big name designers who embraced revisionism recently ... and I dunno if Im more and more critical but its rare to find a whole collection who deserves praise and we're so thirsty for it that something just nice is able to cut it ...
Economy is a huge factor on this matter and war times are not the best for risque proposals ... however, yesterday or the day before there was a record set on NY Stock Exchange ... hopefully .. that'll be a sign

Ya, good point, we have becaome more critical! A great excuse to think of.

 

[TekkaMakki]

I agree with the many great points here. I believe, as Alexandra8715 said, that the current craze for retro style comes from our longing for a more 'innocent' age, in which there were unexplored possibilities, emancipations, and the disastrous effects of new technology on the environment hadn't been recognized yet. Fashion revolutions usually spring from a change in mentality, a social movement of some sort. So I also agree that what is really needed is a change in the mentality of us as consumers, and as Nyx said, the purpose of fashion needs to be reimagined in order to change our way of thinking (or perhaps it will be the other way round!)

 

[loubylou]

I think the disillusion in today's fashion goes a little way towards why vintage clothing has really taken off.

Fortunately having recently moved to a relatively fashion-forwards city I can delight in taking in all the varied personal styles i observe on a daily basis.

My conclusion is that the emphasis on style is on the individual, therefore, we must create our own revolutions. There are so many trends available, the oweness (sp?) is upon the consumer to dress herself and select her own image. Personally, if this is embraced, I believe this philosophy can be far more innovative than decades gone by, where iconic images of fashion were largely based on trends that recieved a huge, almost cult status (just some random e.gs...40s: flapper girls, 50s: preppy, 60s: mod, 70s: disco, 80s: power dressing, 90s: grunge). Gwen Stefani, Dita Von Teese and Karen O, all style icons in their own right, prove this theory. The catwalk does not have to dictate fashion, but now we should attempt to dicate the catwalks.

 

[ultramarine]

So what do I see as the future of fashion? I honestly don't know. What kind of phenomenon(s) could take its' place and do its' job better than the fashion of today does? What are we looking for in fashion exactly, and where else could we really find it?

WHOA! That was an EXCELLENT post!