You Spin My Head Round: A Proposed Theory on Fashion Cycles

Rusty

Fashion moves in cycles. This has long been known, and yet many people seem to puzzle over the exact cause.

I have a theory.

I developed this theory after seeing what Miley Cyrus was wearing at the Hunger Games premiere and having a violent flashback to sometime in around 1997. And I thought to myself “Why on earth would Miley Cyrus be raiding Gwen Stefani’s 90’s formal wear? How old was she?”

So I looked it up. Miley Cyrus was (according to the internet) born in 1992. In the late 90s she would have been about elementary school age.


Sometime around that age is when I started noticing pictures of female celebrities in the news, on the magazines at the grocery store, or on TV. They were my way of looking at the way people like me were supposed to look, dress, and act and I’m sure that for most other little girls the same thing happened.

Grunge, anyone?

Could it be that the cycle of fashion is what happens when kids grow up and try to emulate what ‘adults’ were wearing when they were young? That you create these ideas of what “women” wear and then when you get close to that age you set out to wear those things? Maybe Miley fell in love with those mid-riff bearing, Indian inspired designs that were so popular in the late 90s as a little girl and is now wearing them because she’s always wanted to.

Totally 90s.

I know that even though it’s been out of style for a long time, there’s a part of me that wishes I could find properly baggy jeans because I still like the baggy jeans, white tank top, flannel shirt look from the early 90s for days when I don’t have to go anywhere. Or even designers who grow up and begin to replicate the looks that drew them to fashion in the first place.

She's a muscle car away from a Whitesnake video.

So, what do you think? Am I way off base or does this make a little bit of sense? Are there any fashions from your childhood that you idolize?