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Everything Is Changing So Fast. Well, Not Quite Everything…
In the mid-1960s, fashions were fairly straightforward:
By the mid-1970s, things had changed a bit:
And after that, by the mid-1980s, things had changed again:
1965 to 1985 is a period of 20 years. And the people in those pictures look like they’re from different planets. It’s just amazing how fast fashion changed over only 20 years.
Of course, those 20 years were a time of great social upheaval, so such changes are not all that surprising.
Check out this picture from a TV show in 2003:
And then check out the fashions in this TV show today, 20 years later:
Oops — I got them reversed.
But it doesn’t really matter. Fashions would seem to have changed very little in the past 20 years. Certainly nothing like the changes I showed above, from 1965 to 1985.
There have been some fashion changes recently, of course. Lots more beards and tattoos. And there have been changes in men’s fashion as well.
But again, compared to the changes from 1965 to 1985, it would seem that the changes in fashion are much, much more subtle. I wonder why that is?
I’ve seen discussions on this topic around the web over the past few months. Lots of theories. None of them make much sense to me. Who knows, I suppose. Maybe it’s meaningless — maybe it just doesn’t matter.
But one reason I find this so odd is that over the past 20 years, we’ve seen absolutely enormous changes in our culture, our politics, our technologies, our social cohesion (or now, our lack thereof), and so on and so forth. But to look at our fashions, you’d never know that anything happened at all — everything looks the same.
Our music hasn’t changed much, either. I looked up what the number one song was exactly 20 years ago, and found that it was a collaborative effort from three artists seeking a greater understanding of the profound philosophical challenges that face each succeeding generation. The three artists were P. Diddy, Nelly, and Murphy Lee, and they produced the timeless classic, “Shake Ya Tailfeather.”
I listened to it, and to my untrained ear, it could be released today — I’m around a lot of current music because of my kids, and this sounds like (and I mean exactly like) what they listen to.
Imagine the top songs from 1965, like “Help” from The Beatles, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” from The Righteous Brothers, and “My Girl” from the Temptations. Compare them to top songs from 1985, like “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham, “Shout” by Tears for Fears, and “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds.
There are a lot of similarities between the music of the ’60s and the music of the ’80s — but a very different sound.
The rendition of “Shake Ya Tailfeather” by Mr. Diddy, et al., sounds very, very similar to stuff on the radio now, 20 years later.
So, our culture, politics, and society have changed profoundly over the past 20 years. I mean, check out The Babylon Bee headline in the picture. Can you imagine either of those events happening in 2003?
Many of us live much of our lives in virtual worlds like Instagram and Facebook that didn’t exist 20 years ago — that’s an incredible social change. Our society is falling apart at the seams — half the citizens of America think that our most recent President should die in prison, mostly because they don’t like him. Our political discourse appears to be controlled by the interests of transsexuals, who few people had heard of in 2003. Supporters of the Democratic Party burned cities across the country for months during our last election.
The unthinkable has become commonplace, in one social arena after another. Things are changing so fast. It’s bonkers now. Everything is so, so different.
But our fashion and music are really no different at all. You’d never know anything had changed.
I wonder why that is?
Published in General
My opinion on this is that in the 60s until the mid-90s we had what was essentially a monoculture that dominated the US. This was brought about due to the dearth of entertainment and information options available to people. Yes, there were NBC, CBS, and ABC showing three sets of news and three lineups of television shows, but between Walter Cronkite, Peter Jennings, and John Chancellor in 1980 what was the real difference?
This starts to change with the advent of cable TV in the 80s and entertainment starts to splinter. It accelerates with the emergence of FOX as a network, and as we move into the 21st century other networks, some cable-only networks like FX, SciFi, Lifetime, etc. that start to create a multitude of entertainment options for consumers. The cable news boom, and then the internet further splintered the infotainment landscape.
But, should that cause further disruption in fashion? I posit that the opposite occurs. When there is a single universal culture that is propagated by the big three and a common culture being different is a way to rebel. When there is a massive number of channels to consume, just consuming the different channels is one’s differentiation. Look at how what was previously seen as fring and geek culture has become mainstream. Knowing about the Avengers, Batman, Superman, etc. used to be the purview of the weird geeks that got beaten up and given wedgies and now…everyone knows them and it is accepted. Oddly being weird is now normal and while your photos of the fashion show that people wear t-shirts, flannels and blue jeans, what it doesn’t quite show are the messages on those t-shirts. Think about The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon wore a Flash T-shirt and the other did similar. I wear a t-shirt all the time, but they almost never are just plain ones. They are almost always geeky shirts with Star Wars, MCU, DC, Babylon 5, RPG, Dad Jokes, or similar on them. The fashion revolution is in the message of the clothing as opposed to the colors. At least that is my opinion. That at $5 will get you a grande frappuccino at Starbucks
We live in a less colorful century than the last one. In the 1970’s people were buying carpet in just about every color of the rainbow, including candy stripe! For the last 30 years, it’s almost all beige, tan, or for the really adventurous – grey. Not that I long for kitchen appliances in burnt orange, harvest gold, or avocado green, but maybe a little color wouldn’t be a bad thing.
Look at the automobile market. There have been innovations galore in the automotive industry but when it comes to color, most consumers want white, black, or some shade of grey or silver. But at least you can get other colors in car bodies. Take a walk through some large new car lots and look at the interior colors. They’re almost all black with the occasional splash of grey. In the 1970’s there were cars with tan, brown, blue, maroon, even green interiors. And not just the seats, but the dash and door panels were also colored. For those new cars that do offer red seats, you are probably going to need to special order the car if you want one, because few if any dealers are going to stock one.
I understand walking away from the stylistic excesses of the 1970’s. Gigantic afros, bell-bottom jeans with embroidered butterflies and peace signs, and candy-stripe shag carpet are not things I am nostalgic for. But we have very much over-corrected. I don’t have a theory to explain why people in our age reject color. Maybe the whole country has been pessimistic for 30+ years and wants to emulate Johnny Cash?
https://youtu.be/oDd32K-mOVw?si=6yRJbMLsu7UPFquQ
Man, I hate that song.
Lucky me, I just found this the other day!
I am.
I would pose a few ideas but I’m not especially married to any of them.
Hmm, seems like a gif version is needed, to avoid “spoilers…”
What about the drastic change from prim long dresses to modern clothing for women between, say, 1905 and 1925? And the wild styles women wore in the ’20’s? I get whiplash just thinking about it. Can the cultural dynamics at play be compared to those between the ’60’s and the 80’s?
widespread contraception
Even stranger than clothing are the buzzwords and phrases that come up, appear everywhere for a bit in article titles, and then disappear. Yesterday I listened to the local NPR outlet for a bit and didn’t hear the “vocal fry” or even the rising inflection that made every statement sound like a question. No, I don’t miss those at all, but was my listening experience an aberration or are they disappearing as well? Are they just out of style now?
I looked twice to make sure there were no goldfish in his heels.
Thanks. Any thoughts on the trend among young men especially to dress for the turn of the previous century? I blame the popularity of The Peaky Blinders.
I wear tee shirts all the time too. I used to wear a lot of college tees, even schools I didn’t go to (still do). Now, I have shirts with funny sayings on them, or great eating places.
Although David noted the stifling effects of the “Big Three” in the 60’s through the 90’s, I would posit that Woke Corporate America has a much more stifling effect than ever before. Big Tech/ Media has a personal profile on each one of us which is used many times a day to “groom” our choices to fit what they think is best for us. A marketing Big Brother on steroids that subtly directs our attention and preferences in the approved “right” direction.
Independent thought is becoming a dire threat to our Ruling Class so it must be quashed with due haste. We must be made to conform and the Big Brother marketing machine does this for them without many us even realizing it.
However there is a side note to this. Woke Corporate America used and pushed the “deconstructism”movement to destabilize many of the conservative institutions that made America great, but a funny thing happens to most art movements – they run out of gas- particularly when they are based upon shocking people. So now the “Deconstructism” “ movement no longer shocks because they have run out of things to shock you and have in fact become a movement mainstream.
The artistic “rebels” are now the traditionalists and we surely cannot let those weirdo traditionalists people influence us because they yearn for those “divisive” and racist traditions we can no longer allow .
Why they will ruin everything we have achieved!
Fashion changes just because it has to otherwise it is not the latest thing. That wonderful Valley Girl phrase from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) about a dress being “so five minutes ago” captures that. The movie is also about the contentment of being absorbed in the flux of consumer culture being disrupted by a need to answer the call to be part of an ancient and unchanging battle against evil.
So, it is less about superficial change but whether prevailing values and styles made it easier or harder to answer that call.
I’d be interested to see what the fashion differences were between 1940-1960.
It could be we’ve finally settled on clothing that’s based on what’s actually usable in common situations.
Depends where you look
I think a large part of it comes down to changes in the way media (primarily music and television) are delivered. Before the 1990s, such media were controlled by a relatively small number of outlets (TV networks, major record labels, radio stations). That level of gatekeeping made it possible for a single “mainstream culture” to dominate. Everybody was watching the same TV shows and listening to the same Top 40. And that meant that a relatively small number of people were guiding what became fashionable.
But that model fell apart, thanks to the proliferation of cable channels and new technologies like satellite radio and Internet streaming. The market fragmented, because we can all now pursue programming that matches our individual tastes. That’s why even the most successful TV shows today have only a fraction of the audience that a show back in the ’80s had. It’s also why we have a clear idea of what ’80s music is, but there is no such clear definition of 2010s music.
So nobody is steering the ship of fashion anymore; it’s adrift, with a million different trends pushing and pulling in a million different directions. Hence the appearance (and maybe the reality) of slower movement.
I’m right here, man.
Twenty-three skiddoo!
Killroy was here!
Actually, I was thinking of: 1) [someone] makes his opinion on [something no one cares about] very clear, 2) [someone] sends strong message to . . .
Clothing is communicative.
These days, it’s not so much what people wear, but who is wearing what.
E.g. Dylan Mulvaney…Ellen Page…that creepy nuclear bicuspid luggage thief in fluorescing heels now mercifully gone from the Corridors of Power…not to mention the Senator from Pennsylvania, shlumping around in basketball shorts and a hoodie. Which Chuck Schumer has now declared to be totes kosher for all occasions.
My first thought upon seeing the photos of Lauren Boebert’s hands-in-the-laps- of-judgement theater date was “there is decolletage that would make Marylin Monroe blanch.” Which is only odd, these days, because she’s a congresswoman.
I think I can pull off the GQ, modern, sophisticated, high fashion look pretty well, despite my weight. Not everybody looks good in fancy duds like this:
I’ll stick to my daily wear:
Hey now…I wore this Tux to three Proms my senior year. I even had a top hat and cane to go with it.
White Tuxes were the rage in 1986 it seems…and never again thank goodness
In a tux:
With my wife hiding behind me so she won’t be in the picture and other goofiness happening around me.
You should see my prom pictures with the silver tux from 1980.
I wore a silver tuxedo with a pink shirt to my prom in 1987.
Sadly, the pictures were lost in a flood. Then a fire, then a chemical spill, then a radiation leak, then an earthquake opened a sinkhole, for them never to be seen again.
Otherwise, I would have been happy to share them with you. Really.
I wore a tuxedo T-shirt to My prom. It matched the mullet.
Cropping out my girlfriend because she turned out to be evil.
Yeah, but she looks better.