Has fashion lost its flair?
Fashion has always been a major part of culture; when you learnt about the ancient Greeks or Romans, what they wore was a crucial part of study. Each major development in history has a corresponding advance in fashion. The most inspiring example is the women of the early twentieth century who changed fashion in order to become part of the war effort. Throughout history, fashion has defined culture. However, in recent years, fashion has not so much ‘defined’ a generation, as become a stagnant representation of celebrity.
Our idea of fashion has been developed over the last few decades with the development of ‘mass media’. Once just for the elite, runway shows have been brought to the masses through magazines, newspapers and television. Our obsession with fashion has become so intense that we even have an award winning television series about the cut-throat world of fashion journalism. Modern fashion has broken down the ability to define class purely on the clothes we wear. With celebrities such as Sienna Miller being spotted shopping in Primark and Kate Moss launching her line at Topshop, it has become virtually impossible to claim that the rich are still the reigning fashionistas.
But with this increasing accessibility to runway fashion trends, has fashion lost its credibility and innovation? Even in the early twentieth century, every era had a defining style; the twenties and the flapper dress, the forties and big, glamorous red lips, the fifties and the prom dress. What defines the early part of the new millennium, a mere revival of the last century?
This autumn/winter we’re being encouraged to wear metallic eye makeup as seen on the catwalks at Matthew Williamson and Donna Karen, but I can’t remember the last season metallic eye shadows weren’t in. Big in the seventies and eighties, they hadn’t been most designer’s first choice in a long time, until now. For the last few years, metallics have been huge and I can’t see them disappearing for a long while. Another example of the stagnant nature of modern fashion is the revival of the fringe after Kate Moss was spotted at Swarovski’s Fashion Rocks sporting a blunt fringe. The fringe has never been unpopular, Mischa Barton was seen with one throughout her time on The OC, yet if someone else wears it, we take it as a new trend.
If we were to define our generation, I’d use the term “modern”. Whenever you hear anyone describe almost anything remotely linked to fashion they always call it “very modern”. Most runway shows now either exhibit a new take on an old idea or something that could’ve been out of a space age movie. “Modern” trends include metallics, patent accessories, feathers, which if you wore together would look rather ridiculous.
However, if you walk down the street, it’s unlikely you’ll see anyone wearing a silver bubble dress with plastic, translucent platforms. The modern fashionista seems to prefer comfort over Naomi Campbell platforms. That’s not to say they completely dismiss glamour, they just sometimes appreciate boots with jeans or woolly tight, the kind popular with five year old girls countrywide. Fashion has become more personal than it once was. Someone can be “fashionable” without changing their wardrobe every season, which would just be silly anyway as it’ll probably be back next year!
Celebrities such as Kate Moss and Sienna Miller are critically acclaimed by the fashion media for their easy-to-do style. Both celebrities wear clothes that us normal people can easily incorporate into our current wardrobe. Kate Moss’s autumn line, recently launched at Topshop, showcased a basic wardrobe of shirts, waistcoats, t-shirts and jeans. Her undeniable style comes from her ability to flit between comfortable yet inspired day-to-day clothing, and evening glamour.
It’s with this rise of comfortable chic that the flair in fashion has started to subside. We no longer want to be told how to dress so that we become clones of a designer; on the contrary we want to be our own designers every day. We want inspiration to pick out a few key pieces in shops; perhaps a waistcoat one year, silver skirts another, but we want to put it together ourselves. We want to be able to wear UGG boots with a vintage dress, it would probably be more comfortable, or heels with jeans, if it’s cold when you get outside. It’s as though as day-to-day wear becomes more sensible, designers play with old styles more and more, almost to the point of absurdity. It’s high street shops which take these pieces and produce them for the general public.
It’s the combination of the obsession with celebrity and the accessibility of high end fashion which provides us with the necessary inspiration, but ultimately we all dress ourselves, style comes from within.
