CMCstudent, Jameson

“The producers in a culture have nowhere to turn but to the past: the imitation of dead styles.” This quote by Jameson can be seen through the trends of fashion. A recent fashion trend, overlarge shirts paired with leggings incorporated the style of the 80’s. However even leggings were not a new thing is the 80’s, they date back until at least the colonial time. I recollection I have from when I was younger was when bellbottoms were all the rage. Since I didn’t too much about styles other than what were in the store I didn’t realize that I was wearing something that was being worn by my parents! I remember when my father saw me wearing them and told me that this style that I thought was so cool, was not a new one. He explained it was the style of the 70’s and were all the rage back then too. He continued on only to tell me how he used to wear them, this horrified me. I could not imagine men in such attire! The 70’s bellbottom pants were worn by both men and women. The men did not think it was weird to wear the pants; they were men’s pants, even if they did happen to be the same style the women wore. Looking back I see it was a normalization of the ideology of what the 70’s style was. It is not just bellbottom pants that are imitation of something that has already been introduced, but as we learned earlier this semester things are constantly being reinvented opposed to invent. Even in the fashion of Avant Gard where one strives to do things that have never been seen, the designers must pull their ideas from somewhere. It becomes common to turn to the past for suggestion of reinvention.