"[T]he spirits of Americans are hitting record lows. People are becoming desperate to find something--anything--that will make them feel better, to do something to pick themselves up........We forecast that something will be 'Elegance' in its many manifestations. The trend will begin with fashion............a move toward quality and individuality--and will spread through all the creative arts, as the need for beauty trumps the thrill of the thuggish. A strong, do-it-yourself aspect will make up for reduced discretionary income, as personal effort provides the means for affordable sophistication" (Gerald Celente, "Breaking Point: Top Trends 2010").
I'm forecasting that big, bulky, top heavy and scruffy scarves will give way to trim and neat neck gear of finer fabrics.
Moccasins and ballet flats will give way to the penny loafer, and middle-aged men in the entertainment industry will stop with that affected froufy frousle-tousle hair do.
Plaid is in and will continue for several years because it is colorful in a drab world, classic, versatile, individual, and unpretentious. Some may choose plaid for its counterculture connotations and others may choose it for the association with that rebel William Wallace.
Will women return to skirts as every day wear, and men to ties? No. Women will not give up the pants, and men will not don the tie as an every day piece of clothing. It won't happen. Carhartt will happen.
And as a warning, even in the midst of the revival of elegance, poshlost will still thrive, and as usual, those who believe they are being elegant will only exhibit poshlost at its pinnacle. It may take a full body scan to expose who is elegant and who is carrying the element of poshlost. Of course, the truly elegant will not submit to a full body scan.
Poshlost:(Russian) vulgarity, triviality, banality, promiscuity, etc. "[T]he falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever..." (Vladimir Nabokov). "[O]ver concern with class or race, and the journalistic generalities we all know" (Nabokov). "[C]omplacent mediocrity and moral degeneration" (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn).
"Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" (Bogart to Rains, Casablanca)
2 comments:
Everyone once in a while I get a craving to look through fashion magazines when I'm at the bookshop (Sometimes the wedding magazines can be a good source of inspiration as well). I've been noticing the tailored and cleaner styles, the plaids, wools, 1940s skirts, jackets, and oxfords. I love it!
I only hope the rest of the world doesn't decide to start using their moms' old and neglected sewing machines. I like being alone, unique... and possibly successful.
I just made a 1940s skirt from an old pattern last weekend.
And I hope that, in our elegant and individualistic styles we will also look and act as dignified as those who fought for the diginity of their fellow humans during the 1940s and 1950s, i.e. those who defended the Jews, Blacks, gypsies, handicapped, writers, refugees of the Bolsheviks, elders, tobacco users, sugar consumers, the chubby, drinkers of alcohal, drivers, the coffee stimulated, family farmers, breathers, bleeders, livers and lovers of life; and all sinners in need of mercy rather than being offered up as sacrifices upon the alter of the greater "good."
Let us defend all who "like being alone, unique, and successful." I can think of nothing better than a world of such elegant people!
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