Trend Report 98- The Nostalgia Trend

In our ever accelerating times, keeping ahead of the latest breaking news and trends from the world’s of fashion, music, film, art, tech, activism, is a time consuming daily challenge ? Sure the information is all out there, but it is a time consuming ordeal to scan all the necessary sources. As Darwin said survival depends on how quickly you can adapt.

The future belongs to those who prepare today.

In this PODCAST I am going to explore the irresistible pull that the Nostalgia force has, and I am going to look at it working in two very disparate playing fields that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. That of Politics and Fashion.

 

Firstly, lets look at Politics.

Make the world great again!’ thunder the prophets, the religious fanatics, despots and con men alike, they know our yearning for things to go back to the way they used to be,  to ’the good ole days’ an imagined kinder gentler time. But in reality it is more a case of people not being able to deal with the rate of change and adapt which appears to morph into their view of an unjust reality.

And so, with a paradoxical mix of pride and self-loathing, humanity tells the same story again and again, about the fallen present and a potential return to paradise past – to an idyllic golden age, the Cunningham’s and Happy Days , Confucius’s beloved Zhou dynasty, the Hindu Satya Yuga, the Garden of Eden, grandpa’s garden, grandma’s kitchen, – when we were authentic and pure, God’s children, loving families, off-the-grid, on the farm, keeping promises, respecting elders, healthy and happy – back to ‘the good old days’.

Longing for the past is generally referred to as nostalgia – a gentle, tender feeling that might make these stories seem like nothing more than harmless sentimentality. But it is crucial to distinguish between wistful memories of grandma’s kitchen and belief in a prior state of cultural perfection. The latter form of nostalgia currently serves as the ideological foundation for political movements like everything from Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” to Greece’s Golden Dawn, which calls for a return to Hellenic glory via radical right wing nationalism, and ISIS, which waxes rhapsodic about a distorted Islamic golden age.

This alone should serve to make us warier of nostalgia’s dark side, which, I fear, is badly underestimated, and wreaks havoc not only in politics but also medicine and anthropology. Far from being harmless, ‘the good old days’ is a virulent falsehood that infects those whose intellectual defences have been weakened by fear and insecurity. Which explains how half of America sees douchebag Donald Trump as their saviour.

Fear and insecurity is easily weaponised by power-hungry propagandists who seek to replace nuanced discourse with patriotic platitudes, and diverse ideologies with homogeneous tribal nationalism: Trump, Brexit, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler, the Ku Klux Klan; notice any similarities here ?

In its endless incarnations this myth has shackled people’s thoughts and actions to the promise of a fiction, facilitating evil on all scales, from everyday racism to the greatest human rights catastrophes of the 20th century. Faced as we are with yet another global epidemic of golden age rhetoric, the time has come to inoculate ourselves against the good old days once and for all.

Sentimentality fuels a desire to bring the past into the present, especially with respect to one’s formative years.

But Nostalgia can be a tricky little minx.

As a sentimental yearning for happiness felt in a past place, time or situation, nostalgia can help us revisit the energy, feelings and glow of warm memories and positive, heart-tingling times. On the flip side, it’s easy to get stuck in the past if you aren’t careful, always comparing the present to a “heavily edited” highlight reel.

The media and businesses also rely heavily on the pull of nostalgia to keep us transfixed in this type of energy. We rehash the past, consume based on emotional urges and stay in the “dream” rather than stepping into the present / future.

Let’s step away from Politics and Nationalism and look at how the more benign marketing and fashion industries uses this yearning for the past’s “Good Ole Days’ with some ‘retro’ fashion.

Fashion

When I lived in New York, it was pretty easy to jump over the pond to London, and each time I was in London I had to make my way to a fashion institution , it was Lloyd Johnson’s  fashion boutique called “La Rocka! and Johnson’s The Modern Outfitters” of Kings Road in Chelsea.

“Lloyd Johnson’s clothes were everyday costume and wearing them empowered you, made you feel as strong as the more famous people who wore them, from George Michael, Keith Richards, Lux Interior and Tom Waits to Blondie and The Specials.”

Lloyd Johnson began selling clothes from Kensington Market in 1967, under the moniker The Heavy Metal Kids, which later became Cockle and Johnson (a dig at Jermyn Street), before finally Johnson & Johnson. His King’s Road outpost, Johnsons The Modern Outfitters, opened in 1978 and went through to about 2000. To say it was legendary is not doing justice to it’s impact on culture and fashion.

Lloyd went to Hastings Art School so he understood visual impact; the clothes were like mini-collections, beautifully displayed.

If he did Rocker, there was every part of the apparel – great skull-and-bones t-shirts, jackets, trousers, boots in gold or with silver caps. If he did Mod it was from the original designs in lovely mohairs with Bluebeat hats and suede brogues, checkerboard ties and tab-collared shirts.

The staff were glamorous but very friendly – nobody was trying to ‘be cool’ which is, of course the uncoolest thing – and the music being played was always spot-on: rare garage classics, weird voodoo instrumentals. It was like being a member of a club, which is why I think, lots of rebels and misfit types like myself were drawn to it.

An era without stylists, a visit to Johnsons meant you’d be shoulder-to-shoulder with the day’s definitive musicians going through the racks: Elvis Costello, Billy Idol, Chrissie Hynde, Madness. “And then you’d see them wearing the clothes that night on Top Of The Pops or on their record sleeves.

Part of Lloyd Johnson’s astuteness was the fact he created 12 different lines, each reflecting a different facet of the art of rock dress. La Rocka! was catalysed by rockabilly, Beat-Beat beatnik and Mex-Tex an interpretation of “really extravagant cowboy clothing. Lots of fringes.

When I think of Johnson’s strong feelings of Nostalgia well up with me.

Fashion is always plundering the past, just as one Season’s Collections seem obsessed with wearables from a futuristic dystopian nightmare world, you can bet that the next season will be full of retro looks. And if you dot believe me, just google “nostalgic fashion” or “retro fashion”.

Whether it’s Politics or fashion, nostalgia connects with us, it’s the reason why we all collectively paused our daily activities to watch the new Lion King trailer when it launched, the reason why we waited in anticipation for Ariana Grande’s Mean Girls inspired video and why songs from your childhood will always be better than the ‘trash they play today’.

These days, with the political and social landscape being as it is, it can seem that there are more things that divides us than brings us together but one thing that we all share despite our style, age, gender or ethnicity is nostalgia. Nostalgia is a sentimental longing for the past that continues to make everything, including fashion, circular.

When speaking about fashion’s obsession with the past, Jessica Regan, assistant curator for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, she stated that: “We can sit far back in the history of fashion — back to the early 19th century, which was a period of rapid industry and change — and see nostalgia for a preindustrial past, based on romantic notions of chivalry.”

Whilst fashion’s love for nostalgia is surely nothing new it has been ever more present in the last few years.

Just over a year ago, the original supermodels assembled for Versace’s Spring Summer 2018 show in tribute to the late Gianni Versace. Gucci’s Cruise 2018 show paid homage to 80s designer and bootlegger Dapper Dan and beloved 90s brand Juicy Couture re-emerged this year during New York Fashion Week’s Fall 2018 season. The digital age in which we live has given us unparalleled access to images from years gone by which easily allows designers to draw inspiration form the past with one simple click. But this ease of reference is not the main reason why the glasses we look through to the past with are oh so rosy. It happens to be more about what is happening in the brain.

We now know that there are psychological benefits of nostalgic thinking. Nostalgia protects and fosters good mental health. After engaging in nostalgia inducing activities research has shown that people experience higher self-esteem, are more optimistic, feel less lonely and more socially connected, are more creative and can even feel… cosier. So with the endless positive impacts of nostalgia, it’s understandable why creatives, marketers, and fashion designers look back to go forward.

What are some common examples of how you get stuck on the nostalgia of the past? Do you focus on a lifestyle, person or specific age range? Do you think it has something to do with the feeling of promise, rather than being with in the reality of the present?