In RETROspect

Article written by Gabriella Sotiriou

It’s fair to say that fashion is pretty cyclical. It’s rare to see something entirely brand spanking new these days. Most of the fashion of ‘the moment’ is actually just recycled from a previous ‘moment’, presented from a slightly different angle, making it look like something we all claim to never have seen before. But as my mum told me when I was fifteen, scouring the Topshop shelves (R.I.P) for a pair of the hip new ‘mom’ style jeans that would hide my awkward teenage, puberty racked body shape, ‘nothing is new’. And do you know what? She was, as she nearly always is, completely right. Nothing is new. High waisted jeans weren’t new when I was fifteen because there had been a couple of generations before me undergoing the same blissful discovery of denim that emphasised the waist and handily sheathed the less flattering other bits with a layer of thick, unbending denim. Trends come and go. And then come back again a decade later to be rediscovered by teenage girls all over the world - again. There will always be one of these girls making a video on the latest social media site claiming to have uncovered the long lost artefacts of the corkscrew curl and Joy Division. And alas, the cycle continues. 

In recent years however, there has been a shift towards actually acknowledging and even referencing the decades of yore in what we wear. Every now and again ‘retro’ becomes cool again and it seems as though 2020/21 is one of those times. I’ve seen traces of so many different decades in the trends of today and honestly, I love it. Seeing the fashions of yesterday remerge as something to be worn without any shred of a fancy dress costume today feeds what my mum has branded my ‘old soul’ - her way of saying that after spending her whole life trying not to be like her mother, she accidentally gave birth to her reincarnated in me. I adore seeing today’s young women reconnect with those of yesteryear whether it be via a flared denim halterneck jumpsuit and a Farah Fawcett fringe (personal experience speaks here) or a tiny diamante encrusted vest tops and Buffalo shoes (most of the cool y2K girls on Tik Tok). 

There’s something rather heartwarming about the experience of finding your own fashion, of picking and choosing between the trends as something that can unite women from the beginning of time to two seconds ago when someone, somewhere pressed ‘confirm payment’ on their ASOS order. Despite the variety of the way one can reference the past - disco, punk, mod, poodle skirts, corsets - the very idea of looking back to create something fashion forward permeates them all, creating an experience that we all can relate to in one way or another. 

Whether or not mums and grandmas feel as I do is another story - I’m sure that we’re all wearing these things ‘wrong’ and they look at us on our way out to another party in another garment worn in a way that was never how they actually did it in the 80s in complete despair, maybe pity if we’re lucky. I certainly look forward to doing just that when my future daughter and her friends are wearing the wrong colourway in their vintage Balenciaga Triple S’s or the miniature Jaquemus imitation bag they’ve bought just isn't small enough. But that’s all part of the fun isn’t it. I also eagerly await the few seconds after they’ve all piled out the door and I stand nursing my second glass of Chardonnay and quietly reminisce over all of the amazing clothes I wore in my teens and twenties (and all of the terrible ones too). The times when you and your mate turned up in the same new jeans. That one particularly jacket that I loved and probably still have somewhere lurking at the back of the garage in a box. All those times that you ripped off the newest, coolest thing because it looked so shit and then spent the rest of the day somewhere between crying your eyes out and spitting with rage. All the compliments from amazing friends. All of the good times. All of the bad times. It all comes back to fashion and good old retrospect.