The Fashion Void

Some slightly unhinged musings on my lack of personal style.

There’s a scene in Spongebob Squarepants where Squidward, after locking himself in the Krusty Krab freezer for an immeasurable length of time, emerges to find that time and space have collapsed into each other and all that’s left is a white void. This is what it has felt like for me to try and engage with fashion in the post-lockdown world.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the 20 year trend cycle recently because I think it’s been killed by the internet. The 20 year cycle refers to the rule that things need 20 years to come back into fashion (think the 70’s nostalgia in the 90’s). With the Indie Sleaze revival finally kicking off (and thus ending the 4 years of sartorial blue balls since it was first called in 2021) we’ve skipped an entire era of fashion between that and Y2K. But we haven’t really ignored the mid/late 2000’s, they’re there in the skinny glasses trend and last year’s ballet flats. It’s just that while that’s happening, I’m also seeing people begin to wear thick, square, Rayband glasses. The very glasses that came to symbolize the entire millennial generation. And just as I’ve come to peace with the co-existence of both of these trends, this past week my social media feeds were over-run with Coachella content. Not just coverage of this year’s festival, but also a wave of nostalgia for festivals past. The girlies on TikTok have declared 2015-2017 peak Coachella - to which I’m compelled to say “stop that!”

I’ve always understood that a part of aging would be seeing the culture that you once participated in, or at least lived through, become degraded into pastiche by younger generations. When my mom laughed at me for wearing tie-dye babydoll dresses in high school, I’m sure some of that was masking the visceral horror of having your memories become retro. She and my father were probably evoking a similar reaction in the hippies of Haight Ashbury when they were waltzing around there circa 1992 (over 20 years since the Summer of Love). I’m not especially possessive over any of these eras that are coming back into fashion. They’re too recent for me to think they aren’t ugly. Things need time to ferment in obscurity before they can be seen as new or exciting. Kendall Jenner in a suede vest from 9 years ago still just looks like Kendall Jenner in a suede vest from 9 years ago. But when I go secondhand shopping lately, I’ll still find myself picking up a piece and considering whether or not it’s going to be cool again. And this mode of thinking, which is so easy to fall into, diverts my attention away from a much more important question: do I like it?

It’s easy to adopt a fake birds-eye-view and look at the goings on of social media as though you were an anthropologist and not yourself a participant. We all know that TikTok has basically murdered the very concept of trends, accelerating their life cycles to the point where something can be called and killed before its even been disseminated to the masses. I scoff any time I see a trend-forecasting TikTok for this very reason. And yet, those very videos will play in the back of my mind whenever I look at clothes. It got to the point where I can’t bring myself to care about fashion.

Last year, my uniform was a navy blue wool sweater, loose jeans, and clogs. That is not normal for me, I am not a minimalist. I know a lot of people are really digging The Row and 90’s era Calvin Klein right now - but when I dress that way I feel like I’m denying something about myself. Growing up, I spent ages each morning picking out my school clothes only to leave the house in an outfit that was likely contributing to my being bullied (think striped capri leggings under plaid board shorts). But now, when I attempt to do some funky pairings (like last summer when I lived in riding boots and athletic shorts) it feels false. It’s not coming from the same place of creative liberation, it’s just formulaic quirkiness.

Maybe this all boils down to something more existential. I’m resistant towards nostalgia because, like my hair greying prematurely, I don’t think living through the same trend twice should happen before a girl turns 30. I’m torn between a capsule wardrobe type of minimalism - which is bound to bore me - and styling my wardrobe like a delusional 12 year old at the risk of looking like I’m trying too hard. And this indecisiveness maybe just points to the fact that as I’m aging into the place where I’m supposed to have some understanding of myself as a woman - I don’t. I guess capitalism has brainwashed me into thinking that having a clear consumer profile is the same as coming of age - but I still think I should be able to walk into a store and pick out what is or isn’t “me”. Instead, I am Squidward calling out into the void.