I had the plaid bell bottoms (forever!) and currently have some platform clogs (new a couple of years ago) that I frequently am falling off of (that's very cool, I'm sure), but I'm really waiting for the insurgence of fringe. I haven't seen as much fringe as I'd like (other than around the edges of my husband's head)...

 

^Fringe. I have a golden brown suede wrap around skirt with fringe on it. I wore it in Jr High and it's the only thing from those days I can't part with. Remember all the suede jackets with fringe on the arms? I think that was early 70's. I couldn't afford one but I loved them. Now the only fringe I see is on the clothes of the Harley riders.

 

When my daughter started wearing platform shoes Paula told her to go check out the box in the spare bedroom closet. She came out with several pairs of cork sole platform clogs.

Hot pants yeah they were groovy. I liked those tops that tied behind the back and the neck. Halter tops maybe????

Peace, love, dope, incense, bells, and hari-christna all you groovy freaks!

 

hahaha how true it is....hope you all like orange and aqua and lime this spring...
swirls are in too. at market this year everything looked like my mother!

my wifes in the kids biz my kids are in the surf and swim biz. I just go and watch...but I can spot the trends.

And all those broad striped ls shirts i looked stupid in years ago are back too.

The best trend I've seen lately is Cowboy Surf Wear...cool cowboy shirts and plaid baggies....lol


fltsfshr

 

^ Ah ha, a hint into the life of flats fisher. Fltsfsher Designer Wear. I can see it now next to Ralph Lauren's Polo shirts, with a little Halibut for the logo.

 

good one kyras but that's fastsuzy not me her logos are an appletree and a flower the upscale end of kids you figure out which ones they are....my bucks came from all the books legalbill had to buy. My kids are into surf and swim....cause it provides them with an endless supply of beach babes...nice to be a bachelor in that situation lol.


thanks legalbill

fltsfshr

me i'm just a poor fisherman with a fast car and a slow boat

what do you all do kyras?

ps i always appreciate ralpers comments on the fashion industry...he hits the nail right on the heads

 

Thank you. I spent a lot of years in the clothing business.

Here's an interesting question for all of you (I wrote a paper on this topic about 30 years ago for a marketing class at F.I.T.). "Do you think that clothing designers really are creative and design, or is their talent just to interpret the times and translate the mood of the people into clothing fashions?"

What do you think?

 

ralper

fastsuzy says it's the latter. Fashion follows cultural desire. She says for example right now it's all retro Right now they want to be 50's Donna Reed with all the happiness of then and the perks of 2004. And she says it means Moms won, Brittany lost.

Another interesting thing she said was that fashions are influenced by culture in other ways. She says the short skirts of the early 1900's were caused by a lack of fabric in ww1. So I guess we owe mini skirts and flappers to the kaiser? I just thought he gave us rolls.

In my opinion, styles just repeat what changes are the colors. The successful designers and buyers have "perfect color". They can look at it once and then pick it and it's complementary colors out all day long with no deviation in any light.



fltsfshr

 

flts

Fastsuzy is absolutely right on both counts. Fashion designers simply interpret the times and translate that into fashion. There are many, many examples. Suzy's example of World War I is even more dramatic if you consider World War II. During WWII pleats were prohibited to save fabric, as were cuffs on mens trousers (bet you haven't heard that word in years). There were no double breasted jackets (mens or womans) and military uniforms were tight fitting. After the war all of the designers just happened to dream up baggy clothing, cuffs, pleats and double breasted jackets at the same time.

Hemlines all seem to be the same, studio to studio, colors, lapel widths, tie widths and etc. It's the time and the events.

Most designers who really are creative have a very hard time becoming successful. They are too far out of sync with the general public for their designs to be accepted.

By the way, as far as color goes, in menswear anyway, there used to be a council that would decide what "this years color" was going to be. The decision was published and promoted and most manufacturers would "feature" that color as the key color in their line. It had nothing to do with creativity or design. We stopped following sometime in the late 60s. It really didn't make that much difference to us anyway, we were small manufacturers and we made no qualms about the fact that we were market driven. Whatever color the customers wanted was the color we wanted to make.

In later years the council became less and less important to where they really didn't have much influence at all. By that time the influences came from the movies and t.v. Remember the white polyester suit you had to buy after "Saturday Night Fever". I can't begin to tell you how much polyester (double knit and woven) we sold in the 70s. (There really is no such thing as "double" knit. Knits are knits, period. The word "double" did look good on the label though.)

I've been out of the clothing industry about 13 years now, but I don't think things have changed much. I think the influences come from t.v., music videos and the movies.

There truly isn't anything new under the fashion sun, it just gets recycled a little differently each time.

An aside to all of this is that the other industry that lives and dies on "fashion" or style is the auto industry. Think about it. Lee Iacocca (sp) said that the K-car saved Chrysler. Really it was all the styling that followed. Lee talked quality but delivered fashion, and the customers were happy.

 

Very true! And this is precisely the reason why I will wear my own platform boots but not my mother's.

The same goes with flared jeans - I'll wear those, but I won't wear my Mom's old bellbottoms, even though they are essentially the same.

The fasion industry changes things up ever so slightly so you HAVE to buy new stuff, because more likely than not... those originals will be spotted in a crowd and will become the target of much ridicule. Ah, consumerism is still alive and well.