Fashion, like many arts, is subversive. Its purpose is to alter the status quo, so when I read articles that claim that bad taste is on the rise, I can’t help but raise my eyebrows. There is nothing new, or remotely interesting, about claiming that things were better in the olden days.
Hyper-real fashion has always existed. In the form of envelope pushing, arresting looks and silhouettes, hyper-real fashion shocked people out of their day to day lives. As a cultural reaction, fashion tends to blossom in full force the more outside pressures force it out. From hippies to bikers to punk rockers and flappers, style has always tended to outrage older generations. And this is likely to never change. In response to Eugene Rabkin’s High Snobiety article that I referenced above, my simple response is “calm down”. In his closing paragraph, he asks the reader wants to live in a world that celebrates bad fashion. I am surprised that Rabkin would say no, especially since the magazine he founded is about avant-garde fashion, and has the home page slogan “For Every Culture, There is Counterculture” (link).
There is nothing new, or remotely interesting, about claiming that things were better in the olden days.
What fashion “experts” like to tell you is that you, the consumer, have fashion…
