Generation (Fashion) X

I used to think that today's fashion industry was constantly evolving, changing and adapting to survive (after all, Drapers is always banging on about tough trading conditions). I believed that where the elderly of past generations had become caricatures of themselves, we were somehow removed from this same fate.

That was until a couple of weeks ago, when I saw a gang of school kids decked out in Kickers, Nike Air Max, Adidas sportswear and Elizabeth Duke jewellery. These are the very same items and brands that were 'hip' when I was a bairn! (Also, out of interest do you remember Fruit of the Loom, The Sweatershop, Kangol, Caterpillar, and Kappa - particularly the tracksuit bottoms with poppas down the sides? Shocking!). Obviously, myself and most of my class mates grew out of this 'phrase' at sixth form where we moved onto strapless, two-tone polyester boob-tube style dresses, denim skirts and questionable knee high boots (well it was the 90s) before reaching today's current fashion destination (via some dodgy satin combats / vest combos and sacks and leggings). And I assumed that this was the natural course that fashion had settled on, like the seemingly random path a river takes that can not be duplicated. But then I see today's school kids, if not wearing exactly the same as we were, are pretty bloody close and it has shaken my fashion beliefs to the very core. I mean, I will be the first to admit that I am not up with what the teenage kids are wearing these days, but I assumed that they were wearing their trousers and jeans below the crotch with only a belt to stop them falling down completely and doing stuff like sticking combs in their hair for decoration rather that practical hair brushing use. Something different and absurd and fun that I didn't understand. This is was i-d magazine had lead me to believe at least. I certainly did not expect them to be wearing Kickers! KICKERS! The same brand of shoe that I begged my Mam to order from the Freemans catalogue in 1995 for the bargain price of £1.62 per week! Who would have thunk it?

I have often heard people say that our generation will not be the same as the previous and unlike our parents and grandparents whose style certainly nods at their heyday, we won't be susceptible to the fashion time warp. We, in the time of fast fashion, ever changing trends and mass consumer spending culture are supposed to be immune to such a fate and destined to be 'trendy' until the day we die.

Well, where I may once have agreed with this statement (out of pride I guess, what self respecting Fashionista wants to admit that there will come a day when trends hold no interest or authority in their wardrobe making decisions?), I now have to say I think that it is utter bollocks.

Like many things, 'fashion' is not immune to 'the circle of life' (And it moves us all, through despair and hope, through faith and love, till we find our place, on the path unwinding, in the circle, the circle of liiiiiiiife). We may be a generation of 'fast' consumer culture but as we grow older we are still susceptible to the same feelings and experiences observed by our parents, and their parents before them. We will become more self-assured, confident, happy, wise, comfortable, but also bitter, frustrated and a daily mail subscriber. This in-turn impacts upon our tastes and sartorial style and we deviate far less from our signature look until eventually we NEVER leave it. It is not a generational thing, it is an age thing.

So, unfortunately, though we may not want to admit it, this decade is defining our future style, when we grow old (dis)gracefully. People like Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Patrica Field and Rachel Zoe have left their notch on fashion's bedpost.

Sooooo, what looks from this decade do we think we will we be rocking into our old age? Skinny jeans? Boyfriend blazers? Huge bags and sunglasses? Clashing colours and prints? Are we going to be a old generation of wrinkly Olsen-look-a-likes?! Whoever becomes our style 'definition', here's hoping that some of the noughties less desirable looks (exposed muffin tops and Crocs) stay where they belong, firmly in the present. After all, no-one wants to see Grandma hobbling around in plastic coloured clogs with her belly out.

Edith