I have zero interest in fashion (my preferred look being “backpacker” – the Sierra Club kind, not the Oz-inspired, gap-year variety, which swiped the name), and as long as my clothes keep me covered, warm and dry, I’m happy.
My eye, though, was drawn to this page in the Guardian, discussing trends in men’s clothes for the coming year, with a photo showing “cutting-edge” men’s fashions which are pure, pinched-from-the-past anachronisms.
On the left we have a WW1-era chauffeur; centre, the classic Brideshead Revisited, Brylcreemed gay look; and the extremely unoriginal Dressed by Pride & Clarke outfit (oh, ask your granddad…), on the right which, really, doesn’t sit very well on such a pallid, pencil-necked kid. He looks like a tubercular child trying on his dad’s clothes, circa 1950.
Which makes me wonder – how did men’s fashion design come to rely so blatantly on filching ideas wholesale, and virtually unchanged, from previous eras? In what possible way is this “design” at all? It’s recycling.
Later the same day:- The photo has been changed! According to the website, this happened at 12.20 today. I published this at 12.29, and I could have sworn it was still there at 12.25, but that was probably because the page needed refreshing. Anyway, it looks as if I wasn’t the only one to feel this way.
