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What's Up With Retro Fashion?

January 31, 2008

I decided to explain how I became introduced to the fashions of the years past. Then I realized I have no idea, which is when the research began.
By Sarah Heath
Sarah!.jpg     When did retro fashion sneak back into the closet of America’s teens? When my editor approached me with the direct quote, “Sarah you dress about how I’d imagine your mom dressed when she went to high school, but when your mom went to high school they didn’t show up in poodle skirts. I want you to explain that, what’s up with retro fashion?” I’ll admit to a little apprehension…after all, my mother went to high school in the early 1970’s. This happened to be the week of Halloween and I began to realize the point of this article when I showed up as Janis Joplin and everyone wanted to know why I hadn’t worn a costume.
    I’m a sixteen-year-old from downtown raised by Quakers and who attended a liberal arts school for junior high. To me this explains everything and I became very excited to turn in a two-paragraph editorial on why I look like how my mom might have looked like in high school. So I decided to explain how I became introduced to the fashions of the years past. Then I realized I have no idea, which is when the research began.
    Before I begin I would like to interject a disclaimer: I do not consider myself a student of fashion in any way. I also do not consider myself an influencer or role model of fashion.  Also, I have no credible knowledge about the decades, drugs, or pop culture. I am a high-school student and an observer able to conduct research, which leads me to these half-baked ideas, thus illustrating a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous.
    My two main resources on fashion history, as divided by decades, have been the two most relevant magazines in my collection: Vogue, the haute couture, highbrow fashion editorials, with hundred-thousand-dollar spreads, and Nylon, the independent fashion, down-low rag with its thousand-dollar fashion spreads. Both are proprietors of fashion news, complete with influences.
(Fashion goes so much further, filed under music and cross-referenced with money, celebrities and drugs. The fashion industry is and always has been influenced mostly by the stars.)
    For my first case I’d like to talk about the OC (the TV show, not the movie or Officer). I spent a lot of time hiding my love for the show, but ran to fill my closet with KEDS the minute Micha Barton’s ad campaign came out as early as the beginning of August 2006 because, let's face it, cool is where groovy left off. Yet, looking back through my old issues of Nylon, Micha can be seen in KEDS and then three pages later she’s in BEBE, which I guess I should explain is not within my coffee shop income. The BEBE campaign has the girl, skinny as sin, in a metallic blue tunic-tank-top that barely comes down over her leggings, which go to her knees. To me the leggings scream 80s and the patent leather pumps, gloves, and clutch, is very Madonna during her material girl years.
    That’s Nylon for you, one page you have an article about a girl who acid washes her jeans (distinctly 80’s), the next an exposé on Target’s limited-time Paul and Joe campaign with a gorgeous silk tank top with inch-and-a-half sleeves and a floral print that screams “Parisian beatnik.” Frankly, from last year to now, the 70’s and 80”s have been rolling on the ground wrestling for supremacy. At least we’re all interconnected by denim, right?
    My second argument follows Vogue. Their website, Style.com, has an archive of fashion trends. Here you can view slideshows of the Psychedelic Summer with a direct quote on the first page, “Yes, the Summer of Love is 40 years old, but beyond the anniversary parties, there’s a real boho style revival brewing that’s equal parts nostalgia and twenty-first-century eco-chic.”
     Vogue also has the new Goth and the resurrection two spreads bringing back the late 80s and early 90s fashion trends. The new Goth is a spread for girls who would, “…rather ring in the holiday season with Evanescence rather than ‘Jingle Bells.’” Kaliardos, whose designs appeared in the 2004 Pop and Paris Vogue, described his new line and editorial spread (a slinky black number with studs and sparkles is carefully placed on a tiny Gema Ward who is a reinvention of the Goth look, pale, very pale, and adorned in black) as, “A mix of Edward Scissorhands, Dario Argento [A famous fashion designer] and Edward Gorey [An illustrator famous for his Victorian influences].”
    My third case came from trying to explain my point to my mother. After I read her the above, her only comment was, “Well, what came first the designer or the design?” which makes perfect sense to me now and gave me a really great note to end on: what’s up with retro fashion? We ran out of ideas and, quite simply, now we’re playing off the old ones.  We ran out of original influences and since we ran out of original gangster rap we’ve pretty much bled out the coastal lines. It’s a time when all we have is the past; we’ve moved so fast that it is time to settle down, figure out where we are, and enjoy it. Now the designers have the responsibility to represent the past through design and influence, and the stars have a similar responsibility to pull off the clothes, but also to influence the designers by embodying the past.
    So what is up with “retro” fashion? Two separate tells. First, the influencers of fashion are faced with the difficult task of tastefully spinning off the greats. Second, we as a people, and a younger generation, need to stay innovative and let our own times influence us.

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Written by Sarah Heath · Filed Under Fashion, Headlines, Living & Arts