The Repeating Cycle and Evolution of Fashion Trends
By: Shrisha Gupta
Corset tops, baggy pants, layered outfits, and puffed sleeves. These are a few of the predominant elements of 2021 Spring Fashion. Yet if you take a second to really think about it, we’ve already seen many of these elements flourish through previous fashion eras. The fact is, new clothing pieces are rarely created for mainstream fashion. Most of the time it’s the same clothing styles recycled in a way that makes them more modernized.
When jeans were first created in 1873, they were seen as practical workwear. As decades went by, they slowly evolved into more of a fashion statement since actors and models all started wearing more denim-wear. The 1960’s was when the first noticeable style of jeans emerged, the bell bottoms with a low-rise hipline. Everyone was all about that baggy look until the 1970’s when skinny jeans started to take over. Now, the third main style of jeans emerged in the 1980’s with stonewash, acid wash, and ripped jeans. During the 90’s, fashion history started to repeat itself. Baggy jeans made a huge comeback, in fact, the baggier the better! Moving forward to 2010, I’m sure everyone remembers the craze about skinny jeans for the past decade. The last decade brought back the skinny jeans from the 70’s, as well as the more ragged ripped look from the 80’s.
Now if we go even further back to the 16th century, that was when corsets were introduced. They flourished during the 16th and 18th centuries and are now starting to make a comeback in 2021. Puffed sleeves follow a similar trend where they were extremely popular during the 18th century and are now regaining that popularity this year. These Victorian style clothes are returning thanks to the influence of Netflix’s original show, Bridgerton. Nowadays, it is very common to see people wearing corsets as a casual top or layering them over top of shirts with billowy sleeves, especially on popular social media platforms such as TikTok.
You can see how clothing and style is heavily influenced by other media but you can also see how these trends often follow a pattern. For example, each style of jeans lasted approximately a decade. The pattern seemed to go: baggy jeans, skinny jeans, distressed jeans. Since distressed jeans were very popular during 2010–2020, denim-wear companies can assume that baggy jeans will be trending for the coming decade. And just by looking at popular fashions styles so far in 2021, you can see that the above statement is supported. For corsets and more Victorian era clothes, they seem to return every other century. First in the 1600’s, then the 1800’s, and now again in the 2000’s. While this may be a bit vague due to the long periods when Victorian styles aren’t popular, I think it’s safe to assume that Victorian style clothing will be seen again in the 2200's.
This repeating cycle of fashion trends really puts clothing companies at an advantage since they can forecast the styles and types of clothing they will need to make for the upcoming year. Designers also use this technique to ensure that they are designing clothes which will appeal to the public. Overall, analyzing patterns in fashion is an extremely useful skill for everyone. Whether you are designing, selling, or simply wearing the clothes, analyzing patterns and knowing the trends will help you stay in style!
