A Fascinating Journey of Fashion Trends

I’m a fashion designer – but I despise fashion trends. Not because I dislike fashion – I am passionate about fashion and how it can make each of us feel amazing and confident, when used sustainably. What I dislike about fashion trends is the exploitation, the lack of ethics and the capitalism that makes fashion trends happen so frequently.

Right now, at the time of writing, ‘Barbie’ the movie has been released. So many companies have jumped on the wagon and are offering Barbie inspired fashion, simply to profit on this new trend. It happens day after day, year after year.

Today I want to explore fashion trends, from what they are through to how they start and the impact that they have, in hopes that fewer of us will be sucked into buying fashion we don’t need just because it’s ‘on trend’. Let’s dive in.

What Are Fashion Trends?

Fashion trends are defined as being something that is fashionable RIGHT NOW. It is popular – extremely popular – with a large swathe of people caught up in the hype and buying into it.

New trends can happen for many reasons and they happen across many demographics, from older adults (60+ years) right down to children (1 to 12 years of age) and everything in between. 

How Do Fashion Trends Start?

Fashion trends have existed since way back in the 14th century, when fashion evolved quickly for the wealthy folks who changed their look frequently as a way of demonstrating their higher social position. And to be fair, not much has changed today!

To those of us who pay little attention, most fashion trends seem to start out of nowhere, and we only become aware of them once the trend has reached mass saturation on social media.

The Trend Timeline

I don’t think it’s called this, but the Trend Timeline looks a little like the graph below, and I’m sure that fashion trends follow the same path – except we should replace ‘innovator’ with ‘trend forecaster’.

In the 2020s it seems that the following stages of a trend are more accurate for any new fashion trend:

1. Innovators – the street style wearers (innovating) and trend forecasters (collating what the street style wearers are wearing).
2. Early Adopters – fashion industry (recreating based on the trend setters) and fashion influencers (adopting in order to market the trend for financial gain).
3. Early Majority – fashion lovers (hitting refresh as each new collection is launched, hoping to get their hands on a piece) and fashion bloggers (disseminating the new trends to the general public for social proof and (usually) financial gain).
4. Late Majority – general public who buy fashion as it hits the stores or as it’s needed.
5. Laggards – anti-fast fashion eco-warriors (and me!) and those who buy fashion as and when they really need it without thought of being ‘fashionable’.
6. Time lord – a new term added by my partner, to appease those who feel hard done by when being called a laggard. The Time Lords are not part of the cycle. they don’t care, They’re just there.

I have a great example actually having just discussed this with my partner. He’s wearing a striped Breton style top and claims to be an ‘innovator’ or an ‘early adopter’. I confess that he doesn’t wear clothing to be fashionable or make himself look and feel amazing, but to serve a purpose – being clothed when out in public. With this in mind, it is quite clear that the Breton style top he is wearing – he has three, each with a different sleeve length – is a classic that is considered to be one of the most popular styles of top. He could therefore be described as a laggard as he has only just caught onto this ‘trend’ which started back in the 1950s. Sorry David!

How Do Current Fashion Trends Become Styles?

When it comes to the latest trends becoming embedded as long lasting fashion styles, it usually comes down to the garment becoming an everyday item of clothing over a long time period. Like the Breton Top mentioned above, items of clothing are designed and shown as part of a fashion show by the likes of Bottega Veneta, Louis Vuitton and Saint Laurent. Fashion magazines and online style blogs show certain ‘looks’ of the fashion brands in round-ups featuring those items as the ‘current fashion style’. These items then get picked up by influencers and bloggers as one of the current trends and before you know it mass production happens, where the likes of fast-fashion brands ASOS, H&M, Shein and others create their own take on each popular style of clothing to profit from the successful runway looks of the various fashion weeks.

And though many of these mass produced items will just be considered as a fashion fad, some will continue to stick around and live on, to become a fashion style. A great example of a trend that has failed to become a popular Style are the ubiquitous skinny jeans – made famous by Levi jeans, worn by everyone in the early 2000s and despite being included as part of Celine’s AW23 collection, they are just not getting the fashion world excited in the same way they did a couple decades ago.

Then there’s the biker style leather jacket, a common outerwear garment that never seems to go out of style, it is firmly embedded into the ‘classics’ category of fashion, like the aforementioned Breton Top.

This is not to say that once established as a style, that a trend will live on indefinitely… history shows us that this is not the case – let’s take a look!

Fashion Trends Throughout History

We know that trends come and go, but each decade has seen one trend dominate for so long that it almost stuck as a style! Let’s have a look at some of the trends from previous decades!

1900s: Corsets

Corsets were popular throughout history, right up until the S-bend corset, which was corset’s last ‘hurrah’. A corset was used to help give women an hourglass shape to their body and it is claimed that they also helped to encourage better posture for those who wore them.

Over 100 years later and corsets are only worn by a small number of women, though there are a growing number of people who are highlighting how beneficial a corset can be for those who need the support it offers. And in fact, many formal wear dresses created by designers such as Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood for the red carpet will often use some sort of corset-like under-bodice to help provide structure for the main dress on top.

If you like the particular style of a corset, but are not keen on the structure that comes with them – historical corsets used whale bone, nowadays they are constructed with either spiral steel bones or plastic Rigilene ‘boning’ that is cut to size and sewn in place – then you can consider corset style bustier tops which imitate the look of a corset.

1910s: Hobble Skirt

Paul Poiret popularized the hobble skirt, which was defined by its long length which narrowed at the ankle. This small amount of fabric at the ankle was very restricting for movement, and caused anyone wearing them to ‘hobble’ along. Hobble skirts as a trend did not last long – just six years in fact! – and are to this day only worn by those who are recreating a certain look for historical reasons.

1920s: The Flapper

Credited with the flapper’s creation were fashion designers Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli and Jean Patou, and the 1920s will always be remembered as the decade of the flapper dress. It was a big hit with young women throughout the 1920s and became a style that symbolizes confidence, freedom and independence. The dress was a comfortable dress style, with a dropped waist, a lower than normal neckline, mid calf hem and more often than not featuring plenty of beading to really bling them up. 

1930s: Bias-Cut Gown

Bias cut gowns are cut on the bias – that’s a 45º angle – which allows the fabric to drape in gorgeous ways, so that it skims the body wearing it. The person who really helped popularize bias cut gowns was Madeleine Vionnet, a French fashion designer who established her fashion house back in 1912.

While garments are still made with fabric cut on the bias, they are not ‘everyday’ items of clothing, and are more about personal style than fashion style within contemporary fashion.

1940s: Bikinis

For so long the one piece swimsuit had been the swimwear of choice, but by the mid 1940s, it was being discarded in favour of bikinis. Louis Reard was the engineer who created the first two piece bikini back in 1946 and it is still the most popular swimwear type today.

1950s: The New Look

The term ‘New Look’ is the style created by Christian Dior featuring close-fitting bodices with the waist nipped, and large full skirts using yards of fabric as a rebellion to the rationing of fabrics seen during the Second World War.

While every day fashion no longer features these big voluminous skirts, it is a trend that still pops up sometimes on red carpets and within bridal wear.

1960s: Mini Skirts

With the start of the roaring 1960s came even more emphasis on self-expression. One of the biggest fashion trends during the sixties was the mini skirt – a skirt whose hemline was raised some way above the knee. The mini skirt debuted in the London fashion scene, and having quickly gained traction it soon spread to other countries. To this day mini skirts come in and out of fashion – is there anyone else who doesn’t long for the gorges tweed style mini skirt worn by Anne Hathaway in Devil Wears Prada?

1970s: Bell Bottoms

A specific style of trouser, bell bottoms are unlikely to ever be a popular trend again… right? They were huge in the seventies with the legs widening out from the knees into super wide hems. And while I don’t think bell bottoms like the originals will ever again be ‘in fashion’ we do sometimes see flared pant variations pop up as mini-trends.

1980s: Power Suit

Who doesn’t remember the big power shoulders of the 1980s, considered a decade of women’s empowerment? With the large padded shoulders and a pseudo-professional look, any woman wearing a power suit was able to effortlessly project tremendous confidence – in my opinion anyway!

1990s: Casual Chic

There really wasn’t anything exciting as a trend, as fashion had turned minimal following all the excitement of 80s fashion… With the 90s came the decade of the jeans, tee and hoodie look… casual chic at its best, but I do recall wearing capri pants quite often at the time.

2000s: Tracksuits

No longer worn just to work out, tracksuits became popular as a fashion trend in the early aughts after a variety of celebrities and style icons were seen wearing them as everyday clothing, from Jennifer Lopez and Britney Spears to Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. Ever since, when we are ‘treated’ to a rare sighting of a celebrity wearing one, tracksuits are then highlighted each season as one of the ‘latest fashion trends’ despite not being worn by anyone else. And while the trend has since evolved into athleisure (see below) it still resurfaced in 2021 when Kendall Jenner was spied wearing a ‘vintage’ tracksuit (Chloe, 2016 – does that count as ‘vintage’?) while Kim Kardashian was spotted in New York in 2022 wearing a rather expensive mens tracksuit from Balenciaga.

2010s: Athleisure

Continuing on from the tracksuit trend of the 2000s we have the ‘Athleisure’ trend of the 2010s. While not quite as relaxed and chilled as the humble tracksuit, Athleisure is a more polished take on athletic wear, making it ‘acceptable’ to wear this comfy type of clothing for design reasons.

Contemporary Fashion Trends

I should probably wrap up this article by covering some of the contemporary fashion trends seen on the high street or perhaps those that designers like Victoria Beckham and Stella McCartney are showing on their runway shows during fashion week… but that doesn’t sit easy with me.

I’m not here to help highlight new trends as I believe following trends has ended up with the fashion industry in the state that it is in. Instead, I invite you to be aware of streetwear styles that you see out and about. I invite you to look at what the luxury brands are doing. And perhaps consider what you like about the trend you’re noticing and if there is a more sustainable way to incorporate it into your wardrobe without having to go out and buy into the trend. After all, the only people that benefit from trend based purchases are those selling the fashion, and for many, it’s the fast fashion companies with little thought on sustainability or ethics.

And if you are someone who prefers to make your own clothes, why not look to existing sewing patterns, and either make something for yourself from scratch or refashion an existing item of clothing into something new. You’ll be more unique that way, and a true ‘innovator’ all the way!