Did Tom Wolfe have it right when he claimed that much that is strange and crazy and wonderful in American culture has a way of starting out on the West Coast and eventually filtering East?

For those of us far more fascinated with the inception and dissemination of fashion trends than the consumption of them, the neighborhoods of San Francisco have always been a buffet of people watching for the street style destined to seed the runways and department stores. And Guy Trebay of the New York Times nails it in his opening line of Fashion Diary: The Tribes of San Francisco:

IF a decade spent following the fashion flock will teach you anything, it’s that fashion people seldom have much to do with generating style. This little-appreciated truth naturally comes to mind as the Fashion Week juggernaut lumbers toward Manhattan, a rolling, continuous loop of live-streamed, Tweeted product-placement set to ambient glamour-buzz cranked out by the Industrial Hype Machine.

…What she likes about San Francisco style, said Ms. Grim, who is in her early 40s, is that the town is remarkably free of fashion hierarchies and in-crowd tyrannies. There is no shoe of the season here. There is no It bag. Except perhaps for the pulp-novel heiresses Vanessa and Victoria Traina (who anyway are almost New Yorkers), there are no Vogue-anointed darlings-du-jour.

Photo: Heidi Schumann for NY Times

One thing notably absent, however, in Trebay’s analysis is the influence of Burning Man culture on the San Francisco fashion scene. Given the thousands of key Burner players whose default world residence is the bay area yet keep their culture alive and well year round, I find it hard to believe that their DIY radical self expression anti-corporate style wouldn’t permeate out onto the streets.

Interestingly enough, even though the quirky, innovative aesthetic is pervasive, my handful of trips to San Francisco hunting for the corresponding retailer sources - especially local designers - have left me standing mostly in resale shops or malls in tourist destinations. Ever so often there will be a brave entrepreneur opening a collective of local designers, a curated vintage store in a high rent district that mixes in refashioned pieces, or a boutique carrying avant-garde designers from NY… but those are the exception, not the rule.

Even locals tend to concede, unasked, that San Francisco has historically been an also-ran in fashion terms. “Every time a designer from here has a little bit of success, they disappear to New York,” said Gladys Perint Palmer, executive director of fashion at the Academy of Art University, whose fashion department has an enrollment of 2,500.

Allow me to digress for a moment… 2500 fashion students? That’s about 1000 graduating a year, and that’s just one school in one city. A private, for-profit school with 5 digit tuition. Are there enough jobs in the industry for all of them? Um, no. Back to San Francisco…

Ms. Perint Palmer was referring specifically to Nice Collective, a San Francisco-based label founded in 1997 by Joe Haller and Ian Hannula in part to capitalize on distinctive elements of a local style that, like so much else in the Bay Area, seems to be generated by some loopy organic collective impulse rather than an editorial cabal.

It’s so good I have to restate it: “generated by some loopy organic collective impulse rather than an editorial cabal.” But really, especially since the ‘youth revolution’ of the 60s, has that editorial cabal really dictated much? I’d argue that the best they can do is distill and co-opt the shapes, colors and styling that settles out of the collective choices of the loopy ones. And where do those loopy young ones go for the raw materials of their sartorial expression, especially when their piled into shared bedrooms in sky high rent apartments? You guessed it - thrift stores. Which has over the past couple of decades seeped into the mainstream to the point of becoming a standard style option, perhaps even one with far more cred for the find than the spoon fed trends of the big stores. Trebay quotes a former department store buyer:

“The stigma attached to used-clothing is gone,” she added. “You can either spend $300 on a top at Neiman Marcus or go to the thrift store and buy a bag of clothes for a tenth as much.”

Exactly. And this leaves one with far more time and disposable income for living, not just posing like a well dressed doll.

…Or you can do both and then mash up the results, as the women of the Mission tribe do.

“Those girls are the local Holly Golightlys,” Mr. Ospital of M.A.C. said of women like Rachel Corrie, a waitress at Tartine, who as she left work last week hopped onto her bike wearing what looked like a gingham onesie, feet shod in gladiator sandals and a velvet equestrian hunt cap passing as safety gear perched atop her head.

Girls like her are all over the Mission. You see them flying down Valencia Street on Vespas, their wildly improvised get-ups composed of, say, rags scavenged from the Bay Area’s fabled thrift shops (Out of the Closet in the Castro, Eco-Thrift in Vallejo, the Goodwill outpost just off the 101 Freeway in San Rafael), Marni skirts, vintage SM leathers culled from an eclectic assortment of goods at Marc Josef’s locally legendary antiques shop, Tradesmen, and wingtip shoes.

…“People will wear vintage with some D.I.Y. thing they made themselves with some piece that they couldn’t resist in a boutique,” Ms. Grim said. “They’re not afraid to mash things up.”

Because it might be that one innovative, interesting piece from the boutique, something that might have been inspired by vintage, might even have been made from vintage, but definitely didn’t happen prior to this decade… that’s the piece that communicates that subtle status that signals to other members of the targeted tribe that you’re doing well enough, and care enough, for bits of investment dressing.

“It’s a very difficult city to read,” Mr. Lopez said, owing largely to the local distaste for ostentation and hype, a suspicion of anything that requires a high-degree of difficulty to pull off and that people spend a lot of their lives in cars.

“San Francisco is definitely about quiet style,” he said. “People care. They have the clothes, but they wear them in private. They bring in the most amazing stuff for consignment and I’m always thinking, ‘Where did you wear this thing?’ ”

Stealth Wealth indeed.

When Simon Doonan, Creative Director of Barney’s, (one of the handful places where fashion forward designers have access to the rare slice of edgy yet wealthy clientele that can afford their pieces), the extremely influential guy who the rest of the fashion industry knows to pay attention to… when Simon Doonan declares The Death of Trends then it’s a zeitgeist shift worth pondering. There are still going to be shapes and norms that we collectively select (whether you follow them or rebel against them) but I see this as more of a backlash against the accelerated cycle of the spending on disposable clothing hamster wheel and a coalescing around an iconic vocabulary of modernist elements; classics that are tweaked and revised with the times.

photo by Roxanna Lowit for the Jewish Daily Forward

Doonan writes for the Observer:

Fashion is no longer icy and aloof. Fashion is a massive, forgiving, ambiguous melting pot where people and trends can dig in their Lee Press-On nails and hang on for years and years without ever being out.

He goes on to list a few examples:

Uggs. Style pundits may have broadcast their out-ness for years, but last week’s snowy streets were packed with Uggs-sporting fashion plates.

There is a delicious personal irony in this example given that back in 2004 Uggs were cited in a lengthy discussion in Fashion Theory class as an example of trendy for trendy’s sake. Even though this trend might have been initiated by celebrity sitings, (so awesome to slip on between takes on outdoor shoots) could it be that they’ve had staying power because those who bought them discovered they were super comfortable and well made and lasted forever?

Skinny jeans. Despite their supposed out-ness, they have managed to become a fashion staple, especially when tucked into riding boots. Tally ho!

Key term, “Fashion Staple.” So they became ‘in’ a few years ago as the bootcut finally reached mass market saturation, but could it be that one fashion staple was traded in for another? Could it be that people want fashion staples?

Filson clothing, used as an example of 'American Workwear' trend on brand consultancy blog "We Are The Market"

Of course, now that the skinny jean is headed for eventual  mass market saturation, it will eventually go the way of the mom jean (which has been ‘out’ almost long enough to be revived…), so it’s not as if the trend cycle is no longer. But given that ‘fast fashion’ retailing cycles had accelerated to the point of new trends every six weeks, could it be that more and more consumers are weary of this and seeking alternatives?

These alternatives - especially to spending too much - have been found for the past few decades in the ‘indie’ and ‘alternative’ subcultures continued fascination with vintage. As these ‘trends’ arise in the vintage industry about which items are hot and eagerly sought after, it was a natural progression for designers to use said items as inspiration for re-issues.

'Lily et Cie' interior from coolspotters.com

Cintra Wilson’s description of the icy snobbery at Lily et Cie in Beverly Hills, is yet another indicator of how vintage clothing continues to increase in value and status while serving as an iconic vocabulary of 20th century sartorial elements to be continually referenced and recombined by modern designers. The inaccessibility to the masses - in both attitude and price - supports the notion of a new definition of luxury for the 21st century:

As luxury seeks to redefine itself in the wake of the conglomerate takeover pandemic, there is, in certain (rich) circles, an increased demand for swanky vintage couture, the rarity of which essentially guarantees that when you sashay down the red carpet, there is no way in tarnation you will be wearing the same dress as Kim Kardashian.

…Even for a Teflon robo-cobra like me who has spent enough time in high-end establishments to have retail nerves like bridge cables, it’s a little hard to breathe in this joint.

It struck me, after my escape, why Lily et Cie has a half-million pieces: Ms. Watnick isn’t selling her formidable collection so much as hoarding it. One senses that she looks upon this mountain of untouchable fashion as her children and is loath to see any of them go.

At the Buffalo Exchange buying counter (image pulled from exploringberkeley.wordpress.com)

I dug up a fantastic article by Reyhan Harmanci for the San Francisco Chronicle, Rag Trade: Cashing in on Vintage, or Just Old, Clothes. The article is written in 2005, but from what I’ve observed personally, here in Austin, the practice of professional pickers selling to BX (Buffalo Exchange) has only grown:

The opportunity to convert used clothing into cash has created a new job: professional seller. Known as “pickers,” professional sellers can be a blessing or a curse to a store, depending on their approach to their line of work and the store’s reliance on their goods. The push and pull at the buy counter between the buyer and seller can be contentious; at its best, it’s a symbiotic relationship, based on a singular love of fashion.

At its worst, it’s a parasitic situation, in which the picker leeches off the store, preying on inexperienced buyers or dealing in stolen merchandise. Buyers, too, can sour the deal by rejecting good clothing to spite the seller or copping an attitude that, as Mascola says, “makes you feel like you’re going to see your social worker.”

Again with the judgement/shame issue I’m mentioned in other BX posts. But where do these professional sellers find enough clothes worthy to pass the knowing eyes of the buyers… and still turn a profit?

Through a friend, he heard that the place to go to was As Is, a nickname for the giant Goodwill on Van Ness and Market streets that wheels out bins of newly donated clothing every morning. “I started to get clued in, looking around at what was current, started reading fashion magazines for inspiration.

“Now I treat it like an art form,” he says, without a smile. Although Mascola has sold clothing at least once a week for six years, it’s never been a full-time job. “The profit margin is too thin; it would be too hard,” he says. “It’s more like a hobby.” He does allow that selling clothes beefs up his income from his retail job in the Castro.

from textile_fetish photostream on flickr

The Austin version of the ‘As Is’ in San Francisco? The Blue Hangar. There, I’ve said it. The secret is out in the open, and surely I’ve made an enemy or two. And the only reason I’m revealing this juicy little secret (that’s sort of out and about with the insiders, anyways) is because my day job prevents me from regular digs and pays me enough to just go buy the stuff for a higher price all pre-picked and sized at BX anyways.

The Blue Hangar on Springdale is supposedly where the clothes that have been sitting unsold on the racks for over three weeks at the regular Goodwills go to be tossed in piles on giant tables and sold for $1.25 a piece. They clear the tables and replace with fresh stock once, sometimes twice, a day and at that point the still unsold goods are compacted into bales and sold as such, often to third world countries. But a few years ago on one particularly stellar run, I quizzed the employee checking me out about the sources and she told me that often when the Goodwill stores were full and they were getting more donations than the stores could process, they’ll send the overflow straight to the Blue Hanger, unsorted. Ah ha! I knew the things that I found wouldn’t have lasted three weeks in the Goodwill store. So folks, right at the end of the month when everyone is moving and ditching stuff is THE time to hit the Blue Hanger.

I’ve shopped there for years, and during my last unemployment stint I’d go and load up with a combination of items for myself… and items to sell at BX. It’s super tricky, because you really have to know what those buyers want. I was pretty much able to break even and cover my costs of the whole run, but then again I took BX credit not cash. I was still out a wee bit of cash overall, but got to shop at BX basically for the cost of my time. I’d occasionally see BX employees there digging, too, but my costumer friend who’s there all the time has said that recently its intensified. And on a recent BX sell, I got into a conversation with a buyer who told me about a friend who was supporting her live music/drinking habit through selling finds from the Blue Hanger to BX.

Which brings up an accusation I’ve heard many times that BX employees favor their friends, or friends of friends, or ‘cool people’ when buying. (more…)

As I started digging around a little bit into what actual indie designers think about the Design Piracy Prohibition Act (DPPA), I found the situation far more frightening than I ever thought it could be. Whereas before I could just chalk it up to one more example of corporate lobbying I couldn’t control and be ever so grateful I wasn’t trying to make a living as a fashion designer, now I’m starting to grasp how this could have a major impact on consumers of fashion as well, and our access to innovation, good design and quality clothing. You can sign a petition here, (you really should, it’s super easy and the least we all can do) and there are links to contact senators in the quote from Kathleen Fasenella’s Fashion Incubator below.

Picking up where I left off in the previous post…

Marc Jacobs may have risen to fame and fortune based on his genius ability to co-opt, tweak and disribute an indie aesthetic to hipster celebutantes around the globe, but anyone who designs for Louis Vuitton can hardly be labeled and indie designer. What do the real indie designers  - the one this law is supposed to champion and protect - think about the DPPA?

From Blogger Erika Jurney’s site, Try Handmade, “Beware the Design Piracy Prohibition Act (HR 2196)”

If you care about being able to buy indie fashions, then you will be horrified to learn about the Design Piracy Prohibition Act (HR 2196). On the face, it seems reasonable. The purported goal is to prevent designers from ripping off styles from others, but their methods are insane.

Under this legislation, however, designers will need to consult with a lawyer throughout the design process to ensure that every new design created could not subjectively be found at a later date to be “closely and substantially similar” to one protected in the Copyright registry…

Further, young, up-and-coming designers would be susceptible to legal intimidation from designing anything new at all, as they would likely not have the resources to fight a legal challenge in court…

While the bill purports to keep all fashion designs that have existed in the past free and open for all to use, the legislation would allow the ability to copyright non-original design elements in the public domain if arranged in an original way.

Moreover, since there is no test for originality, the registry will begin to be populated with designs that from the public domain. Thus, a designer who draws upon inspiration from the public domain, can easily find himself/herself stuck in costly litigation. - Fashion Incubator via Boing Boing

Anyone out there know any fashion designers? Big, little, rich, poor, amateur or pro, have you ever known a fashion designer who has time to sleep, much less keep up with this kind of research and paperwork? Again, I repeat, the only designers who will benefit from this act will be the ones with enough corporate backing to retain copyright lawyers, the ones who will really benefit the most from this law.

This point is debated by two well known designers via a Reuters article is making its way around the web, which I was able to access on Canada.com:

Toledo also fears the law could hurt the independent designers it was written to protect, by making them risk expensive copyright lawsuits. “Half these young designers can hardly pay their sewers. So you’re going to take that money and go to court?” she asked.

The article highlights the arguments between the CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) - an elite, invitation-only organization representing the only the hottest names in high-end fashion; the three-four figure garments featured in aspirational editorials of the fashion media - and the American Apparel and Footwear Association, which represents the major retailers from which the vast majority of Americans procure their clothes.

Cornejo said the law would encourage collaboration between the two sides of the clothing market. Under the DPPA, mass-market retailers would have to hire designers to consult, instead of copying, she said.

But Toledo disagrees.

“They said that manufacturers would be forced to hire us, the designers. Many of the interns I’ve had happen to work now for JC Penney, or the Gap - they are designers!” she said. “What are you saying, it’s a hierarchy? We’re better?”

Toledo worries the DPPA will give high fashion a monopoly on trends, making good design more expensive and reducing consumer choice. “You’re now saying that the top (designers) can own the top and the bottom levels of the market,” she said.

The corporate sponsors of the top designers, that is.

But if you really want to know how scary this is for independent designers, take a look at what else Kathleen Fasenella (who has tirelessly championed up and coming designers by being one of the only sources for rock solid soup to nuts how to instructions on turning one’s dreams into a solid line of manufactured clothing distributed in stores) has to say about what life would be like for aspiring designers under this new law. The quote is from Proposed Law to Destroy 90% of Design Businesses lengthy, but is worth reading and sharing:

It seems so surreal; between CPSIA, Proposition 65 and now the Design Piracy Prohibition Act, there seems to be nothing less than a full scale war against the apparel industry. Have you forgotten about the Design Piracy Prohibition Act? Well, it’s been resurrected and presented to Congress (HR 2196). It’s nothing short of a bold power grab to protect wealthy socialite designers at the expense of independent designers, putting over 90% of them out of business. Consider this scenario of what will happen if this bill is passed:

Your name is getting out there, picking up more doors everyday and your accounts love you. Now that your fabric samples have arrived, you’re inspired and happily sketching your new styles. This is sure to be your best collection ever! So then you reach for the phone to schedule a slot to have your patterns and samples made. But on the other end, the pattern maker or sewing contractor refuses to work with you. Your heart sinks through the floor, why? You’ve got an established relationship, you’re a great customer with regular work and steady pay but still, no one will take your contracts. In fact, they’re shutting down themselves.

Why no one will take your work:
Let’s say we help you produce this line, you sell it and make your pile crumbs. Then -thanks to the influence of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA, membership by invitation only) and Congress- somebody can come out of the woodwork and claim it is their design, they own it and now you owe them. If they registered the design and you didn’t know it, this could be perfectly legal. Of course you didn’t copy them but it won’t matter. The fact that society designers have been copying nameless unknown independent designers for years doesn’t even register. Even Diane Von Furstenberg, the leading champion of this bill recently got caught doing it. Because you don’t have any money, this party will sue everyone in your production and retail chain. That means pattern makers, contractors and the stores who bought your stuff. So in the interests of avoiding law suits, any service provider is going to require you prove you own it. It’s even worse for retail buyers who face potential criminal prosecution for dealing in pirated goods. Everybody who helps you or buys from you is going to require you to prove ownership of your concept before they’ll have anything to do with it. If wealthy society designers like Diane Von Furstenberg have their way, this could become an unfortunate reality. Paradoxically, CFDA is telling Congress they’re protecting you.

You think you (or we) won’t be sued in today’s era of lawsuit happy plaintiffs? Have you ever heard of a patent troll? A patent troll is someone who enforces patents they have no intention of manufacturing, against alleged infringers. It’s somebody who makes a living filing legal papers, they don’t actually make anything. In this climate, you think there won’t be fashion copyright design trolls? Right, and the fashion industry is one big family working happily together amid resounding choruses of Kumbaya. Good grief, there are churches tattletaling on other churches to state health departments over competing bake sales! If the morally superior are ratting each out over cup cakes, you think they won’t over caftans? Folks, this is going to get ugly. The CFDA, living in happy-land as they are, deny this will happen saying similar laws haven’t encouraged law suits in France or Japan yet neither of those two nations have culture as law suit happy as the United States.

It’s been two years since I last wrote of this and I couldn’t imagine it’d go anywhere considering how it so obviously favors the wealthy and famous at the expense of designers barely eking out a living but this thing has grown legs; if H.R. 2196 becomes law, it is certain to kill what’s left of the industry except for wealthy socialite fashion designers with in-house legal departments. In one fell swoop, this law will put over 90% of us out of business. Even me. Fashion-Incubator will become an artifact, who will need it? You all will have to speak out. Congress has been misled, they think they are helping you!

The cost of doing business has just gone up astronomically. You’ll have to hire a lawyer, pay for searches through a design database of all existing design registrations. You thought a trademark or logo search was bad? I have no doubt there’s over 10,000 clothing designs out there for every logo. This will cost a fortune. But, you’ll have to do it if you want to stay in business. And those of us left standing will have to have our own lawyers to check up on you and draw up contracts and buy more insurance, our prices will double if not triple. Somehow I don’t think consumers will be happy. Assuming we could afford to shop at Neiman’s and Nordstrom’s, few society designers cut anything larger than a size 12 and I for one am not thrilled at the prospect of mini-skirts, navel grazing tops, tepid/garish colors of whatever constitutes the fashion trends dictated by elite designers.

Even with proof of registration in hand, you will have to produce your registered design exactly as sketched. No design changes or iterations in process are allowed, otherwise you’ll have to start over and re-register a new design. Forget shortening that sleeve, changing the shape of that neckline or tapering the pant leg of that prototype. So what if it ends up looking lame and you have to start all over? That will be the new cost of doing business. Gee, how long will it take to get a line to market?

You know what the worst part is? A law professor specializing in Intellectual property told me that the standard for determining the innovation of a given design is not based on expert opinion. No no, the legal definition is based on the opinion of a non-expert, what the average Joe thinks looks similar. In other words, someone like your significant other who doesn’t even notice you’ve cut or colored your hair or are wearing a new outfit and yet they’re supposed to be the judge of a sleeve design detail? WHAT?! The average person just doesn’t notice that much* and no contractor will stake the viability of their business of what constitutes a copy if the litmus test is determined by John Q Public. So, every designer would need paper. Good luck finding a contractor otherwise.

It’s not law yet, there’s still time to speak out!

It sounds like a good idea - protect the uber creative cutting edge independent clothing designers from the the big bad corporate mass fashion retailers who steal their business when they rip off their ideas and sell mass produced cheap imitations. Too bad it won’t work that way. Mark my words, if the Design Piracy Prohibition Act (DPPA) makes it through the Senate, it will be multimillion dollar large corporate interests who back the big name designers who can afford teams of lawyers that receive ‘protection’, not the struggling independents who can barely afford their rent.

From Addovere.com: (Left: Marc Jacobs, Right: Forever 21, via Fashionista)

But look at the example above - isn’t it painfully obvious that Forever 21 copied the Marc Jacobs dress exactly? Isn’t that wrong? Well, yes, it is. And believe me, I’m no fan of Forever 21. But doesn’t this dress look like something you’d see - or have seen - in a vintage store? Don’t you think that it’s highly likely that Marc Jacobs (or even more likely, one of his 80+ design staff) copied and tweaked the design of an actual vintage dress? Leveraging vintage clothing for ‘inspiration’ is standard practice in an industry that demands dozens and dozens of ‘new looks’ from designers every few months… who are designing for an audience grown accustomed over the past decade plus to ferreting out vintage clothing because it’s so much cooler than the crap in the mall. Don’t believe me? Just put the Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton documentary in your Netflix queue and watch the practice in action. When I got the chance to visit and interview the premiere vintage supplier in NYC (I won’t cite their name because I didn’t ask for blogging rights at the time) they explained how their top stylist would pull together a set of items from their massive collection, create an inviting display, and would regularly have top name designers (or their staff) walk in the door and say ‘I’ll take it all’ and there it would be, 3 months later, strolling down the runway.

Marc Jacobs may have risen to fame and fortune based on his genius ability to co-opt, tweak and disribute an indie aesthetic to hipster celebutantes around the globe, but anyone who designs for Louis Vuitton can hardly be labeled and indie designer. What do the real indie designers  - the one this law is supposed to champion and protect - think about the DPPA? Stay tuned as I explore this issue further in my next post.

Coinciding with the revival of swing dancing over a decade ago, there has been a continual stream of articles alerting us to the popularity of vintage clothing in contemporary fashion. Unlike trends that disappear in a season or two, the interest in and demand for quality vintage has only increased. Given the fact that there is an absolutely finite supply of clothing made in 1955 (or any other year), it was inevitable that archival remakes would appear on the scene.

House of Vionnet 2007

The fashion industry right now seems poised in a moment of cognitive dissonance - watching the hype machine formula that served them so well contract and crumble around them, nervous about committing to a new direction while knowing that their survival depends on it. While there are no doubt many independent designers who relish striking forward into new visions for 21st century, the business machinery who back the vast majority of manufacturing and distribution are groping for a sure thing.

In her article for the Financial Times, Nicola Copping explains “fashion’s love affair with reinventing its own past:”

“The demand for archive pieces is huge in the fashion market,” says Jean Bousquet, managing director of Cacharel, which launched a vintage collection, in collaboration with Liberty, to celebrate its 50th anniversary in April. “We are arriving at the end of a fashion cycle; there has been nothing very new for a long time and a general tiredness has been established. The comeback of vintage testifies to a passion for the renewal of the past. We look at past successes to create the new. We might do several more archive collections in the future.”

It seems contradictory that the antidote to tiredness and lack of newness would be to remake old pieces rather than innovate new ways of dressing. But perhaps the sameness and monotony lamented refers more to what’s hanging on the racks in the mall right now - hundreds of thousands of similar versions of the same WGSN trend dictated pattern blocks. Against that backdrop, an dress from the fifties seems intricate and novel by comparison. Not to mention nostalgic:

“With all the recent concerns in the economy, people are feeling a bit nostalgic; they are looking to brands they can trust, who have a significant heritage and who offer great quality and value,” says Sir Stuart Rose, executive chairman of M&S…After all, when the future is uncertain, why not rely on the stability of the past?

It makes me wonder, though, how this demand for archival quality vintage remakes fits in with Cathy Horyn and Simon Doonan’s observations I quoted in an earlier post:

“It’s impossible to think of something you can drag out from the land of naffness and make cool,” Mr. Doonan said, referring to the process by which banal or out-of-date styles are brought back and, after much analysis and decoding and finally brand approval, become fashionable. He offered up the drop-waist denim dress, a wholesome style from the ’80s, saying it was rife with ironic potential.

I laughed. That was really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

When the term ‘vintage’ has reached the point where it is applied to intricately tailored designer suits from the forties and the pilled rayon floral drop yoked dresses from the early nineties all over the racks of ‘vintage’ stores on South Congress alike, it’s time to dig deeper and get more specific.

At which point I venture into subjective commentary that threatens to reveal the inner old lady I’m cultivating, who’s ever so sure that things were much better in her day… (more…)

In Irony and the Old Lady, a semi-autobiographical pondering of what women over 50 can and can no longer get away with in fashion, Cathy Horyn ventures into a succinct history lesson:

Irony is harder to part with — for the simple reason that many of us who are now in our 50s grew up with that kind of cerebral fashion and were happy to have clothes that made reference to ideas, worlds, that only those in our orbit could understand. Our mothers (mine, anyway) did not see the point in adopting flannel shirts or rummaging through Goodwill bins for just the right filthy cardigan.

And why would they? Grunge and deconstruction, which provided a counterpoint to the slick, aggressive fashion of the late 1980s, were our peculiar trip.

Except now the tacky colorful excess of the eighties - and even the nineties - are the new thing to be ironic about.

But now that every sitcom re-run look has been re-hashed ad nauseum, how much longer will this irony be truly ironic? Will sporting the ugliest thing in the thrift store (like the early nineties floral dress blech currently selling for $40+ at the local ‘vintage’ store) finally lose its cool? Horyn muses:

It may just be that we’ve had a bellyful of abstractions like irony and now hanker for something direct and concrete. This desire for clarity isn’t limited to an age group — young people seem to crave it, too — and it’s not a defense against the standard complaint that you’re not cool enough to get the joke. Who cares if the joke is available to everyone through the Internet?

Madonna’s bunny ears are just the last gasp. Fashion needs a new antidote for modernity.

“It’s impossible to think of something you can drag out from the land of naffness and make cool,” Mr. Doonan said, referring to the process by which banal or out-of-date styles are brought back and, after much analysis and decoding and finally brand approval, become fashionable. He offered up the drop-waist denim dress, a wholesome style from the ’80s, saying it was rife with ironic potential.

I laughed. That was really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

He thought for a moment. “To be overweight and not care, like Beth Ditto, is the most transgressive you can be right now.” But he only said that, I think, because plus-size stories were in a couple of newspapers that day. And you know what they say about newspapers.