Short Stuff: The Style Cycle

Why do clothing styles get stale and then come back into fashion? Listen in to find out. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:20Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck, and I'm super stressed out. Jerry's there too, and she's sitting in for Dave, and this is short stuff.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  That's right, about the style cycle, thanks to Popular Science, Sartorial Magazine, baracko.com, and not barackobama.com, but baracko.com and earth.com for this information.

• 1:41Josh Clark?

  So the style cycle, if you haven't guessed already, refers to that idea that fashion styles come back in vogue again, to use a fashion term, every 20-ish years? I always thought it was more like 30, but I think 20 is what most people say. And it's always been this anecdotal observation that most people agree on, but I think recently, I didn't see when the study was conducted, but some researchers from Northwestern University came up with a very clever way to actually study it to see if it's a thing. And they found like, yes, it is indeed a thing that fashion exists basically on 20-year cycles and that fashion designers are very, very lazy by year 20.

• 2:25Josh Clark?

  They just reach back and start over again.

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they did quite a few things for the study. They analyzed 37,000 images of women's clothing, so this is for women's style, from 1869 forward. And this was a big deal. Like this was presented at the American Physical Society Global Physics Summit in Denver. And they didn't just look at pictures, right? They, they had all those 37,000 images, but that wasn't good enough.

• 2:51Josh Clark?

  No, they found a bunch of runway images from over the decades. They found sewing patterns from the Commercial Pattern Archive at the University of Rhode Island. So they assembled a ton of images. And then, this is what they did that was so clever. They, they used data points, starting with the distance from the eye to the neckline, the neckline to the, to the waist.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:18Josh Clark?

  And the waist to the hemline at the bottom of like, say, a dress. I think they just studied dresses exclusively. And so, because now they had like, data points, they were able to quantify this, like how far the neckline plunged, or how far it came up. And so they were able to watch it over time. And what they saw when they drew each thing in a flip book, it took them forever. And then they flipped through it, you could see like the neckline going up and down. You could see the hemline going up and down. And it was about on a 20-year cycle that it did these things, that it repeated, swung back and forth.

• 3:56Speaker 01

  I'm gonna say something that'll not surprise you or anyone else listening. My brother used to do flip books when we were a kid.

• 4:02Josh Clark?

  Man, was he good?

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were good. They were like stick figure thing. Well, that's not true. A lot of them were stick figures, like, I remember very distinctly a flip book, and of course, I would just eat the stuff up and do my own poor versions afterwards. But like, I remember a stick figure pole vaulter, like running down and pole vaulting. But then, like, my brother was a really good artist. He would, I don't know why, but for a certain period in his younger years, he was drawing like, like war stuff and people getting blown to bits, like a flip book of a hand grenade, like blowing a guy into pieces. Yeah, very interesting, for such a peaceful guy.

• 4:38Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Anyway, that, yeah, just flip book memory.

• 4:42Josh Clark?

  I love, I went to go make one the other day, and I was like, forget this. This is gonna be hard and take a lot of time that I don't have. So much, much respect to your brother for that.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, mine were pretty jumpy. So this idea of fashion is that people wanna, they wanna fit in, but they also wanna have their own style. And this also idea with designers, that once something becomes too widespread, that designers are done with it, basically. So it's sort of a give and take idea.

• 5:16Josh Clark?

  It is. So, so say that like, mom jeans were a new thing in like, the 2010s, right?

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:24Josh Clark?

  They were actually from the 80s and 90s, but to the 2010s, they were like, brand new, and they were quite revolutionary and daring that somebody would try to rock mom jeans, because they've always been looked at as just like, scrumpy, right? Mom jeans became so prevalent that you could not find women's jeans that weren't essentially mom's jeans in some way, shape, or form. And then eventually, the designers are like, we're bored with this, I wanna come up with something else. So they do something else, right? That's essentially what you're saying. What this is saying is that the something else they do is jump back 20 years again.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:02Josh Clark?

  And they pull from that. And now, all of a sudden, I've just been waiting for parachute pants to come back in, but they won't do it.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, that seems to be one that has resisted.

• 6:13Josh Clark?

  For sure. And I can kind of understand why, but what I'm saying is, is like, the designers, they come up with new things, but essentially what they're doing is, it's like that Shakespeare quote, "There's nothing new under the sun." That really applies to fashion design.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. Should we take a break?

• 6:31Josh Clark?

  Yes, cuz I'm getting worked up.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  All right, we'll be right back.

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• 9:02Speaker 01

  Okay, we're back, everybody. And this 20-year rule does have sort of data points that support it at this point because of that study. But they're thinking that that 20-year may be shorter and shorter as we move along. Because starting at a certain point, you know, the five stages, which is you introduce a style, there's a rise, obviously, a peak, then a decline, then it becomes obsolete. But it seems like that cycle is speeding up now, kind of at the rate of people's attention spans, almost, with the internet, it seems like.

• 9:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Like, social media's had a huge, huge effect on this because you can see other people's style, and if other people like that style, they'll pick up that style, and then all of a sudden, there's a trend on TikTok, right? That in and of itself isn't necessarily harmful. It's that fast fashion, like, say, H&M. Well, they have people whose job it is is to troll social media, to look for trends. And then H&M designs clothes according to those trends as fast as they can and gets them out to stores. And the reason they want to do it as fast as they can is because these, what are called microtrends, come in and out in the blink of an eye. So you want to be able to figure out exactly how many you need to make of a thing because

• 10:19Josh Clark?

  you know it's not going to be around very long, and you want to get it out to stores as fast as you can.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think one of the ideas is that a microtrend may thwart this 20-year cycle because it doesn't become a really big, huge, widespread thing for a length of time.

• 10:34Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  So it's, we're probably looking at a situation where a TikTok microtrend isn't going to come back in 20 years because it never even fully registered as a genuine, like, big trend.

• 10:46Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. The problem is, is the closer and closer we get to a trend reaching back to maybe the day before, when it happens that a trend comes into existence and then comes into existence again as a retro thing on the same day, the universe will collapse in on itself.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  That's right. You mentioned fast fashion. This stat is sort of disturbing, but we produce about 80 billion pieces of clothes a year, and that is a 400% increase from 20 years ago.

• 11:22Josh Clark?

  That's really rough.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and like, it was, it used to be very easy to see, like, a 70s look, an 80s look, and it's just becoming harder and harder to pinpoint, like, certainly, like, a decade's worth of look.

• 11:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah, this article points out the indie sleaze aesthetic, which is essentially what the brat summer aesthetic was based on.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:45Josh Clark?

  And the indie sleaze aesthetic only went away from, like, you know, like, 10, 10 or so years before, which is way faster than the 20-year rule. I also saw it argued by fashion bloggers that the indie sleaze revamp was totally made up by overworked, like, people who have to troll social media to find new trends, that they just made that up, that that was a thing again, and that actually made it a thing. It brought it into existence. Who knows? But I think that means you have to take that, that particular example with a grain of salt, because it may or may not prove that things are speeding up too much. I think the other evidence supports it, but that particular trend doesn't necessarily.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree. And, you know, nostalgia drives a certain amount of this. When a new generation comes along, they, a lot of times with its, you know, music or movies and in fashion, they'll look back a couple of decades. But sometimes it comes back in a different form.

• 12:45Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Like, like, the, like, bell bottoms might come back as bootcut jeans or something like that. So, like, it's sort of an homage, but not exactly the same thing as it was a couple of decades ago.

• 12:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I saw culottes are back in, is that correct?

• 13:01Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 13:03Josh Clark?

  Were they ever in before? I know people wore them, but I don't know that anyone considered them in.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know.

• 13:08Josh Clark?

  I'm interested.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  You're asking the wrong guy.

• 13:11Josh Clark?

  Some, some things that have come back, like, most decidedly, apparently 90s minimalism is back. And that is, I don't know that's the best descriptor for it, because I went and looked it up, and I get what they're saying, like, it's like, kind of basic tees and maybe, like, cargo pants and just kind of like, like, low, low attempt at, like, dressing, essentially.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:35Josh Clark?

  I guess that's back in.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think the whole 80s and 90s, I am, maybe shamefully or not, into wearing, like, good clothes when I play golf, and like, golf fashion. And there's a trend now, there was a trend in golf where, like, you know, like, tighter pants and shirts and things like that.

• 13:55Josh Clark?

  Yep.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  But now it's going back to the, like, baggy pleated trousers and stuff like that.

• 14:00Josh Clark?

  Oh, really?

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Like, this real, real 80s look.

• 14:02Josh Clark?

  Dockers?

• 14:03Speaker 01

  I don't know about dockers, like, but, like, double pleats even.

• 14:07Josh Clark?

  Wow. Apparently denim on denim, the Canadian tuxedo is in. And I've got a little bit of trivia for you. Did you know that Bing Crosby invented the Canadian tuxedo, not on purpose, but he showed up at a Vancouver hotel wearing a Canadian tuxedo and was turned away?

• 14:29Speaker 01

  No way.

• 14:30Josh Clark?

  Even though he was already Bing Crosby. They were like, you can't wear that.

• 14:33Speaker 01

  Is that why it became the Canadian tuxedo?

• 14:36Josh Clark?

  I think so, yeah.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Huh. Are you pulling my leg with all this?

• 14:39Josh Clark?

  No, I swear I'm not. That is for real.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Because that'd be a weird one.

• 14:43Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  Who could it be? Chuck'll never doubt Bing Crosby.

• 14:47Josh Clark?

  Yeah, no, it does, it does stink of one of my jokes, but it's true this time.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Apparently, animal prints are coming back in fashion, too.

• 14:55Josh Clark?

  Sure, but have they ever really gone out?

• 14:57Speaker 01

  No, again, don't ask me.

• 15:00Josh Clark?

  And then some things do come back, lots of stuff does. A lot of stuff doesn't. Like, apparently, in the early aughts, people were wearing all sorts of nutso neon stuff.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:14Josh Clark?

  I miss that trend. It looks like a kind of a raver thing, I guess. But it wasn't, like, really in when I was raving, so I think it just, you know, kind of came after that. They're predicting that that's not going to come back, and I can kind of see it.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that, there's a certain 80s neon thing, puffy neon thing, that I don't think I ever really, truly saw come back.

• 15:38Josh Clark?

  Remember the hyper-colored ones, like, the thermal color? Like, you'd put your hand on your shirt and it'd leave, like, a red handprint or something?

• 15:47Speaker 01

  That was a thing for five minutes.

• 15:48Josh Clark?

  It was, it was very cool, though. I never had one of those.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  No, me neither.

• 15:52Josh Clark?

  Or jams? Did you wear jams?

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, for sure.

• 15:55Josh Clark?

  My mom made all of my jams, so I had a bunch of different jams.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Oh, that's nice.

• 15:59Josh Clark?

  I thought so, too.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  My mom made a lot of my clothes, too.

• 16:02Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Because we couldn't afford things from stores.

• 16:06Josh Clark?

  There you go. Whatever the reason, it was still sweet of your mom to not just put a potato sack on you or something, you know?

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, and yours.

• 16:13Josh Clark?

  Same, yeah. Well, since we just both shouted out our moms fondly, then I think, obviously, Chuck Short Stuff is out.

• 16:22Speaker 06

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