Whilst leafing through a friend’s copy of Grazia (okay it was mine; it’s a guilty pleasure I am wont to admit to, alongside America’s Next Top Model), I happened to come across a photograph of model du jour Agyness Deyn. In it she was sporting a leather jacket and black t-shirt teamed with tartan trousers. The caption read ‘Agyness does modern-day pretty punk’. What struck me about this throwaway ditty was how something as counter cultural as the punk look had been effortlessly reduced to a fashion reference. Since when did any dues paying punk ever concern them self with being PRETTY?
This got me thinking: do fashion and our personal sartorial choices mean anything anymore insofar as being a representation of our cultural affiliations?
In the days of the class systems of the 1940s, fashion in its truest haute-couture sense was only accessible to the upper echelons of society. Fast-forward to the new millennium and fashion is ever readily available to all in the form of the high street. No store demonstrates this credo of fashionable clothing for all more than Primark (or as I like to call it Primarni). But has this democratisation of fashion both through the high street and glossy fashion magazines lead to what we wear no longer being an expression of our creative inner selves, but purely an exercise in uniformity? Are we unconsciously adopting a clone mentality to our sense of personal style by having to have the latest ‘it’ items?
The sixties and the seventies were virtually awash with clothing styles that meant much more than purely being something to wear. The punk and mod movements and their strong looks were indicative of a viewpoint, a political stance. Isn’t it unusual how each decade of the latter half of the twentieth century had archetypal styles of dress and yet what sartorial contribution have people in the noughties made to fashion history, apart from scallies sporting the hoody, burberry caps and the uprising of chav-chic?
The aspirational aspect of fashion has been slowly subsumed into the rise of celebrity culture, causing us all to tend towards a similar aesthetic; oversized handbags and sunglasses anyone? We seem to be adopting a superficial approach to fashion which ultimately causes self expression to be deemed secondary to putting on a display of conspicuous consumerism. Women don’t covet the Birkin handbag because it speaks to them on an artistic level, but for the associations of status and wealth it brings with it.
Isn’t it about time we allowed our inner fashion mavericks out to play? I love fashion magazines as much as the next person, but surely it should serve as a source of inspiration, concepts and ideas, not something to follow slavishly. What you wear should be an expression of who you are rather than being about fitting in with some celebrity endorsed concept of what you should look like. Kate Moss is so influential because she has evolved a personal style which is recognizably her own. Rather than flocking to copy her look physically, shouldn’t we want to emulate the spirit of individuality behind it?
Comment
Have your say, tell us what you think...