i-D

I felt a strange pang during the Balmain spring/summer 09 show in Paris: I must have some skin-tight, stonewashed jeans.
It was a strange pang to me because these days my reaction to clothing is rarely based on trend. It’s more likely to be because of a love of a particular garment or the admiration of a certain designer, rather than because I’ve seen a trend to which I want to aspire. Yet at Balmain this pang was strong, and I knew how to sate it: American Apparel. There I went the next lunchtime and found their skin-tight stonewashed blue jeans in a size 34. When you start widening out, skin-tight really shouldn’t be the answer.
Although some parts of fashion still cling onto the idea of trend, I don’t think many have thought that way for some while. There are a whole heap of reasons: the decade recycling of the ‘90s has led us to a point where a number of looks can all be in fashion at exactly the same time; the number of catwalk, cruise, resort and commercial collections expected per year from a designer mean consistency of a particular trend message is impossible; consumer taste has become so sophisticated that fashion can no longer be prescriptive; and fashion itself caters for such a broad spectrum of age, from pre-teen to pensioner, that an all-encompassing ‘trend’ is futile.
Some of these reasons are welcome, some troubling. Our collective willingness to experiment with fashion (all in ones! Carrot-leg trousers! Wet-look leggings!) is an extraordinary sight, and hopefully will continue. The liberation from all-encompassing trends has allowed designers with guts to strike out on their own path, be it audacious or understated, and hone their skills without worrying about keeping up with the pack. Fashion has become both broader, and much more accessible, and these can only be good things.
More troubling is the effect of commercial collections on fashion as a whole. The catwalk is still the pinnacle– without it, the individual designers couldn’t show off their wares at their best. But for most brands, what is shown on the catwalk rarely goes into stores, and if it does, it’ll be in limited amounts or be modified in some way to be more sellable. What fills the racks instead are the commercial collections, which at most labels are a weird blur of these things called cruise, resort, pre-fall and whatever. These ranges repeat styles that are known to have sold, so that what is on offer rarely changes to any noticeable degree. While waters on the catwalk are choppy and changeable, back in stores all is placid and in danger of turning stagnant. A commercial collection is more likely to post a more solid financial return, but it won’t push anything forward.
Here is the problem: designers are distracted from their best work to sign off yet another version of some frock of which they were once proud but which has now become a watered-down standard; they have less time to concentrate on their best work and, as the commercial collections take more of a precedence, their catwalk shows loose some of their power because they are churning out so many other designs which blur the message.
There is clearly a counter argument, which would probably be that the speed of consumerism is such that customers demand new products more often than just the twice-seasonal drops; that brands need to sell basics as well as pieces with drama; and that profits have got to come from somewhere. To which you can reply the following: right now, where are the customers that are demanding anything? Financial conditions seem to show that more people want less at the moment. Yes there need to be basics but they should never be boring. And profit: doesn’t it now seem clear that the expansionist business models of globalisation and mass store openings are unsustainable?
It might be masochistic, but I find the financial stuff we’re going through at the moment thrilling. I imagine that if you’re a reader of i-D, then commercial collections are of little interest to you – you will want the meat from the catwalk. It might be naïve, but hopefully what will come out of all this is a desire for difference rather than repeating the same old same old. Hence the most exciting collections of the new season, which were shown just as the stock markets took their scary plunges last September and October, were the ones with a wilful individuality, like the one shown by Balmain. And because it’s these designers that are standing out the strongest, trends will feel less and less of interest. It’s the designs themselves that matter.
One final thought on trends. You cannot underestimate the role of American Apparel itself in all this. It’s been the biggest new entry into the affordable clothing market so far this century, and yet much of its core stock is exactly the same as on the day it opened. Although it hasn’t unleashed itself fully in the UK yet, it is approaching the omnipresence in London that it has across America. It creates its own trends, like its gold leggings or disco pants, but doesn’t feel the need to suddenly steer in another direction. There is a consistency, a slowness, and an understanding that its customers will buy basics from it, and then add the finishing touches themselves from thrift stores or whatever they’ve made for themselves. It’s a very post-trend way of living, and it’s the behaviour pattern of those who will grow to become the customers of luxury brands. Because of this, luxury brands should start taking notice.