In the 1930s, British author James Laver proposed Laver’s Law: the idea that fashion trends would recur every 150 years. Since then, it’s been condensed to a twenty-year cycle regularly used by the fashion industry to dictate what is currently “in style.” Fashion is most often defined as a cyclical art form, and many of its biggest trends are plainly borrowed from the past. Designers have always drawn inspiration from past decades; however, there is a fine line between redesigning and reusing designs. When done correctly, the recreation of an old trend can be modernized. Take corsets, for instance: what used to be worn as undergarments are now popular “going-out” tops. To others, it can feel like brand designers are playing it safe and simply relying on past successes instead of reimagining the item. It’s easy to look at items on the runway and think that the piece is something groundbreaking; except most of the time, it’s not. For someone who has already experienced a specific trend, like low-rise jeans, platform shoes, or overalls, it feels like a cycle through the same ideas.
One of the main reasons that these trends recycle is nostalgia. People often experience clothing with past memories. The dress worn to prom or the sneakers worn during childhood all hold emotional weight, and fashion designers tap into these connections to make their clothes more appealing. While nostalgia is used as a powerful marketing tool, it also creates an industry-wide smugness, where the focus of innovation takes a backseat to the comfort of familiarity. That being said, reinterpreting past fashion isn’t inherently bad. The problem arises when the fashion industry stops taking risks and relies too heavily on nostalgia solely for the profit, blurring the line between recycling and reusing ideas.
Even with nostalgia, there is an even bigger factor at play here—fast fashion. To put it simply: the world is moving faster than ever before, and fashion is moving with it. There is a plethora of goods available to us, and we quickly get tired of what we have just gained. On any given day, we are usually able to drive to the mall and buy new clothes. Consumers are constantly chasing micro-trends—fashion that seems to be in style one day and then out the next—making stores turn to quantity over quality of their products.
In truth, I don’t think that this recycling of ideas is because the fashion designers have run out of ideas; rather, I believe creativity is overtaking innovation. When was the last time you saw something that altered the fashion industry, or changed daily life? Our world is just moving too fast to savor the pieces that are truly creative, or—dare I say—innovative.
