Here we are on the cusp of the `90s. Before you know it, we`ll be dating our checks with the year 2000.
And here we are, looking at some of spring`s newest clothes-and there they are, unabashedly dipping into the past for design inspiration.
Once again, Coco Chanel is being canonized-and copied-perhaps with more fervor than ever before. Some of the more advanced men`s clothes are taking on the drapey silhouette and the languid stance of the `30s. Then there are the
`50s and `60s, which continue to intrigue some designers who insist on bringing back not only the propriety of a Grace Kelly but-egads-such wonders as hipslung bellbottoms and Nehru incarnations.
While glancing back to borrow some of the understated chic of Chanel and the unforgettable flair of Astaire is not only understandable but quite commendable, the concurrent romance with nostalgic fashion in some areas of both men`s and women`s clothing is provocative-as well as logical.
Valerie Steele sees no mystery in these resurrections and even quotes Chanel to make a point that fashion always builds on the past: ”Only those with no memory insist on their originality.”
Steele, who authored ”Paris Fashion” and teaches subjects such as the psychology of clothes in the graduate division of New York`s Fashion Institute of Technology, says, ”If designers came up with things that were completely new, we wouldn`t know what they were.” Witness the Japanese, who in the early `80s introduced extremes such as tattered skirts with multiple sleeves, which never really became bestsellers in mainstream America-or Europe, or Japan, for that matter.
At different times, according to Steele, there is a tendency to look futuristic, as Courreges did in the `60s with his very structured clothes.
”At other times, we look to the past, though we never completely bring back the past as it was. The tendency, in the last few years, has been inspiration by the past. It is the `new romanticism`-and we will continue to see more of it.” She sees such clothes as providing certain ”dreamy, or exotic elements of fantasy.”
Caroline Rennolds Milbank says it`s those ever-influential Baby Boomers who are responsible for some of the nostalgia. The author of ”Couture”
(she`s currently working on a history of American fashion), Milbank says,
”They`ve turned 40 now, so they`re looking backward rather than forward.”
But fantasy and nostalgia are not really the foundation of fashions for the majority today.
Certainly, there are ”fashion statement” clothes. This is where the
`50s and `60s play a part, and even some of the extremes from the `20s and
`30s.
”Every generation finds something wonderful from the past that they want to emulate,” says Elizabeth Jachimowicz, curator of costumes at the Chicago Historical Society. ”They see the pictures, the elegance of the photography, and that`s how they interpret that time.” Milbank adds, ”Everybody forms their image of what is beautiful as a child.” Those images then return and provide those designers-and their followers-with the means to express their personalities, their dreams, perhaps their nonconformity. Or they simply provide an opportunity to spoof.
But the larger picture today involves only peripheral flights of fancy, bits of ethnicity by way of accessories, perhaps brief adventures into safari- land sportswear.
For the most part, being too trendy, too outre is not considered chic. Through their buying-or more precisely, nonbuying-habits during the last few seasons, women in particular have shown that their preference is for relevant clothes appropriate for their age and lifestyle. And although being dowdy or bland has never been chic, being too fashionable has become a borderline sort of thing for both men and women. Clothes are now too expensive to treat too frivolously.
Having a sense of style, looking elegant, being described as smart-looking are more desirable than being too done-up, than looking like a clotheshorse. It is a matter-of-fact sign of the times.
Jachimowicz, who deals with the past every day in her position, is not exactly enthralled with ”this business of looking back for inspiration. It`s symptomatic of a lack of security and-I hate to say this-perhaps creativity, as well.” She interprets fashion`s backward glances as the search for the comfort of ”being right.”
”Being correct gives us security. So we copy only certain elements from specific times that are acceptable.” The ladylike Chanel suits, for example. The Cary Grant look, of course. Certainly not the `40s clothes of the war years. It`s a matter of selective memory, indeed.
Steele calls Chanel styles a natural for these times. ”Guaranteed good taste” is how she puts it.
Bill Blass, who admits to being under the spell of Chanel along with a plethora of designers in Europe as well as the States, explains that ”in times of economic uncertainty, fashion always turns to Chanel. The look is safe, it is always flattering.” Her ”classicism,” he continues, ”is most often the inspiration when there is a lack of fashion direction.”
But Jachimowicz says the most important element of looking back is good design. ”It comes down to taking the best from the past. Certain things come back simply because they are good design-not because they are Chanel or any other designer. Nor for the sake of nostalgia.”
Designer Alan Flusser, who has written two books on men`s clothing and style and who has a penchant for the elegance of the `30s, believes the clothes from that era, as well as the style of Chanel, have such strong appeal because ”they are almost undesigned. There is something very correct, very humanistic about them, and after much experimentation with so many options in fashion during the past 10 years, people have found that they look good in them. You know, the more designed, the more fashiony clothes are, the more obsolescent they are.”
Flusser (who also created Michael Douglas` wardrobe for ”Wall Street”)
predicts that there will be yet more delving into the past in the decade to come. ”There`s historic precedent for looking back as you approach the turn of the century.”
If that is so, it is no wonder that Steele calls the late 20th Century a
”schizophrenic time.” Conservative sometimes balances with romantic, sometimes alternates with it. Alternative fashion surges and fades.
Fashion has to change, otherwise it is not ”fashion” in the true sense of the word. And people want change-newness, that is-but not every 10 minutes. The next decade should be a doozy. –
