Talented designers function like a canary in the mine: they act as a translator of the collective unconscious. When Marc Jacobs staged his most recent Spring 2008 collection in reverse - opening with his final bow, followed by the final look (#56) & then the rest of the run-of-show in descending order - he sent out look after look with underthings peeking out through transparent layers. Consciously or not, he was tapping into a major theme of our time: what lies beneath the surface of things.
Every epoch has a dominant science," prominent futurist
Watts Wacker once told
Fashiontribes in a pop culture article appearing in the Fashiontribes Downtown Doll e-zine. "In the industrial age it was chemistry, the dominant science in the information age was physics and the dominant science in the post-information age will be biology.” While the 19th century focused on chemistry via mass-scale production, & the 20th century saw space travel & a man walk on the moon for the first time during the age of physics - the new millenium welcomed the decoding of the human genome and continues to explore the inner space that falls within the realm of biology as the dominant organizing principle of society today.
Escapism also translated to an ongoing vein of nostalgia with retro trend of old-school Hollywood glamour including high-waisted pin-up girl shorts & looks, shimmery sequin-covered garments for day, disco ball shiny silver dresses, full length gowns from the glam pre-war Art Deco period, and the continuation of the ankle/floor length day dress (unfortunately also known as the "patio", "hostess" & worst of all, the "maxi" dress & desperately in need of a much cooler moniker). While black is always the new black, what's interesting is how much of it was being shown for spring. Less interesting was the amount of white (this being the warm weather collection, after all), however the predominance of black & white mixtures and prints proved an interesting offshoot. Naturally, spring Easter Egg pastels made a strong showing, as well as Skittles-bright primary colors and exuberantly loud & cheery color mixes of vibrant reds, blinding yellows, and blues of any & every shade. [
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