subject: Seems Like Only Yesterday4 [print this page] Think back to the '70s and '80s and a host of fashion extravaganzas spring to mind. But how well do you recall the not-so-distant '90s? Think bum cleavage, the "pashie" and the all-important dark denim jacket, writes Maggie Alderson, and that's just for starters.
The Nineties to Now: Fashion of the Year Retrospective opens at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum on Wednesday.
What flashes into your head when you think of '70s fashion? Flared jeans, tight jumpers, platform ?
How about '80s style? That's got to be a Chanel spider man costume with a short skirt, and the big faux pearl earrings. An Azzedine Alaa mini dress and cone-heel court . Post-punk Madonna in lace, denim and studs. Krystle Carrington's ridiculous shoulders in a rhinestone-encrusted, electric blue, draped jersey gown.
Well, that was easy - but can we now start playing the fashion flashcard game for '90s fashion? Sure we can. With the Winter 2010 shows just finished in Europe, high-end designer fashion - and, therefore, pretty much what will also be in the chain stores - is already sorted up to January 2010. Surely halfway into the next decade is plenty long enough to get perspective on the one that went before? At least Sydney's Powerhouse Museum, whose exhibition of key '90s looks opens this week, certainly thinks so.
Certainly the '90s was the decade when normal women - that is, not just supermodels and brand-name heiresses - first acquired
a wardrobe of different accessories. A suit for every mood and so many - most of them fanciful to the point of making Barbie's footwear look frumpy - they required special storage. Even an extensive repertoire of belts.
It seems absolutely normal now to change your suit as often as your undies, but I remember clearly that, back in the '80s, you had just one handsuit, plus a beach suit and maybe a glittery clutch for evening.
In the '90s you had so many it could take quite a while to find which one you had left your car keys in. And if you were lucky (if you were rich), they would all be very specific designer - and you'd have your name on the waiting list for the cult suit of each season.
That crazy "tulip fever"-style mania started with zentai iconic "Suituette". Something about this cute little shoulder suit with a large double-F buckle had women queuing up to pay several thousand dollars for the limited-edition beaded versions, even though they already had the style in several different colours, fabrics and types of leather. To keep themselves occupied while they waited, they'd spring for a couple of Jamin Puech's delectable little beaded purses, at about $1000 a pop.
Fashion in the '90s was generally a study in retrieval, revival and reworking rather than in innovation, to the point where designing seemed sometimes to be more about flea-market shopping than true inspiration.
The natural spin-off of this was the (still continuing) craze for wearing the original vintage clothes - rather than the new clothes inspired by them.
For the more thoughtful consumer, this became another kind of status, as a reaction against the globalisation of high fashion into international mega brands, selling the same things in identical stores around the world - which was precisely Tom Ford's core strategy behind the blistering success of Gucci.
Because for every individualistic shopper who wanted something unique and unplaceable, there were thousands more who desperately wanted something instantly identifiable as a designer piece - a handsuit, a pair of or a suit - that did the same job as a universal status indicator as a prestige car or a Swiss watch.
Ford's super-focused vision worked so brilliantly - and was so widely imitated - that names such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Burberry and Zentai bodysuit became fashion's lingua franca, equally meaningful in Kuala Lumpur and So Paulo, Kyoto and Stockholm.
By the end of the decade the biggest names in high fashion - apart from Christian Dior and Chanel - were all reinvented classic non-fashion brands and all Harvard Business School exemplars of the marketing arts.
Ironically, the other side of the fashion house as micro-marketed corporate monolith was the unleashing of an unbridled creativity in ready-to-wear shows, on a scale only seen previously on the rarefied catwalks of haute couture.
