Fashion, cyclical nature of,

Fashion is not often seen as the most democratic and fair system of social interaction, given as it is to focus on those of us with slightly thinner than average bodies and slightly better than average faces, but there is an underlying balance in fashion as in all things that govern the chances even for those not currently shaped as in vogue as others. It has been said that fashion is a form of ugliness so bad we change it every 6 months, and with some unfortunate exceptions this holds relatively true. This means that those things in fashion now will soon not be, and those things not in fashion will be within an overseeable period of time.

The reason for this is as superficial as it is logical: Money. Or better yet, sales. And the money and fame that run concurrently with sales when discussing shops and brands.
If you are currently selling skinny jeans by the bucketload you know you are selling only to those people that wear skinny jeans. People who don’t aren’t buying. But soon enough the skinny jeans wearing crowd will have their fill of them, the market becomes glutted and it is in the best interest of stockists everywhere to start promoting the non-skinny jean, as the demographic of non-skinny jeans wearing people is ready to start buying again. Fashion is designed by the magazines, who are influenced by advertisers, who are influenced by sales, and see a real good thing in selling products to that group that holds the most money. So by setting up a relatively predictable cycle of opposing fashions the industry ensures that most of their own can stay in business while providing overall to all punters.

So if this year the a-line dress is very popular and worn under a bolero and over three-quarter length leggings all in primary colours, you can be almost certain that the next mode will be baggy pants topped with a cut-waisted upper body and the one-layered look in pastels or basic browns and grays will reign for a few months. Taken over two years (the rough time a buyer for a store needs to prepare for a new fashion trend) the see-saw of fashion will have ensured that people of all possible shapes, sizes, skin-tones and preferences have crossed the threshold of the store at least once, with a good chance of getting money from all of them.

But that is basic, day to day fashion, what about the vintage craze? What about the materials and forms which were fashionable three decades ago? Why do we feel the need to renaissance every conceivable style this and former centuries have seen? This is a process that is a lot more subtle, as it seems not to be inspired as much by direct sales but by the whims of designers. And it is. Obviously nothing is ever cut and dry black or white, and many things tend to inspire the look of an age, but bear with me here for a moment.

When I was younger my mother had one friend who everybody always commented on was very well dressed. She always had on high heels, always wore sleekly cut jackets and was usually not afraid to show a bit of cleavage. Her hair was usually swept and pinned up and she wore those kick-ass eighties glasses that give off a sexy-librarian vibe even if the gender of the person involved is not what is sexually attractive for you. Now when I think of a well dressed woman or when my friends ask me for advice on fashion, I notice I move into the friend’s direction very easily, after all, in my mind that is the template for a well dressed woman.

Fashion designers also have mothers, and more than likely these mothers also had a friend like that. So fashion designers also grow up with an image of a well-dressed woman (this all applies for men as well, obviously) somewhere in their head, which almost unavoidably bleeds through in their work. So when a new alternative need to be found for this season’s neckline it is very easy to just import the well-dressed-friend-of-mum’s neckline into existing shapes. And suddenly the 70’s neckline is back in fashion (which is itself a reflection of a 40’s neckline, because the person who introduced it into the 70’s also had a mum, and she also had a friend). But it is now used to augment and add to daily fashion that is inspired by many designers, and thus by many designers mum’s friends. This together will give a feel of an age in current fashion that grows naturally from all these borrowed elements.

These cycles together repeat ad infinitum, always inspired by best practices, new options in production and new fabrics and dyes to use to create an ongoing image of fashion as a constantly reinvented world where everything stays the same and everything comes back into fashion if only you wait long enough. Obviously, this is only an apparent truism as there are things that have, through impractically, lethality or stupidity become unfashionable for ever. The real test of ongoing style is the ability which items will be modish again in ten years and which shouldn’t even have been today.