The future of fashion: are we travelling backwards?

Vintage. Retro. Original. A timeless classic. These describe many things we desperately crave in this world of rapid technological advancement. Visiting a friend and noticing a mock 60’s dial phone perched atop a rococo-inspired coffee table can instil a sense of nostalgia, envy or disgust. Depending on when we were born and our own unique tastes, relics from the past can affect us in many different ways. What puzzles me, though, is not the way in which our tastes develop to embrace certain styles from the past, but why.

 

The neat notebooks with faded yellow pages and little wallets bordered and dotted with stamps labelled ‘by air mail’ which are crammed onto shelves in department stores and boutiques are not souvenirs of the present. They belong to a world we never knew or at least no longer revolve in. Raiding grandma’s closet for a silky rayon blouse with an open-neck collar is considered more fashionable than hitting the shops. Why the obsession with old items? What do they have that modern versions don’t? The simple truth is that we cannot keep up with ourselves and our own rapid advancement. We yearn above all to connect; to keep a fragment of ‘the good old days’ alive, and whether we do this through a photograph or an old perfume, it helps us to stabilise and find our place in the big wide world. Snatching at anything we can find, items from the past help to build our identity and through them we become our own unique person – something which is becoming increasingly difficult in a place where ‘unique’ almost no longer exists. From Dolce and Gabbana’s baroque prints to Gucci’s Edwardian-inspired gowns for the Autumn/Winter 2012 collections, fashion brands delve deeply into the dusty archives of our past to bring us a ‘new take’ on an old model. Is there no such thing as ‘brand new’ anymore? They say that history repeats itself, but are we digging too deep that soon we won’t be moving forward at all?

The ease with which we can send a text or an email adds weight to a posted hand-written letter. Old methods have become something special, something with a superior level of meaning, something to treasure. With technology and fashion increasingly crossing paths to create possibilities of instant purchase and live streaming, will we soon stop bothering to attend the physical catwalks? Or will this advancement cause the same patterned reaction of heightened interest in things considered out-dated? Will we relish in watching first hand the rows of cloth-coated limbs flowing gracefully down the runway because they will be part of a world we no longer know? Fashion takes inspiration from tradition, old trends and classic pieces invented long ago. If ‘new’ is no longer accessible, which way is forward?