End of Fashion

Oscar Wilde, while wearing a pair of happy pants and a pork pie hat said that fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. I see this as a good thing, enabling new ideas, styles and designers to emerge and showcase their talents. So what is fashion? I need to be warm while I wait for the train, but I also want to find a fabric and colour that encapsulates who I am as a person. I want to adorn myself with garments and symbols that will show others which tribe I am from, my loves, and my beliefs. This may facilitate attraction, in a similar way to a peacock presenting coloured plumage for your viewing pleasure.


With all the millions of creative people in the world why, please tell me are huge numbers of people getting around in thin black "drain pipe" jeans and Ray Ban "Wayfarer" sunglasses. We have been there and done that! I am not getting that gear on again unless it is to reminisce, while watching Ferris Bueller’s day off, the first Star Wars, The Breakfast Club, and anything featuring a young Matthew Broderick.

Ok generation Y, you are probably on the train now reading this article, your fringe covering one eye, wayfarers tucked into your skinny jeans, get out your portable social media device and Google image search "1970's fashion" now have a good long hard look in the mirror sunshine. Get onto Skype with someone and discuss originality, load up eBay and bid for some creativity, shuffle your iPod to a song by End of Fashion, twitter that you have a clue to your five followers and put together a new and original outfit!




I am going to make a prediction now that the next violent fashion regurgitation is going to be the horrific pastel and sports jacket combination found on Don Johnson in any episode of Miami Vice, circa 1984. I can see the gaudy peach and lime green storm clouds off in the distance. You won't need to stand on the shoulder pads of giants to see the plethora of revived outfits at this years Spring Racing Carnival. This breaking news just in - retrospection is not creating a new fashion. So this is a call to all the young, the creative, the artists, to the youth of today. Get out and dye the colour, style and passion of your time into the fabrics and beads that adorn your body. Catch delicately in a butterfly net the energy, creation and discovery that lives only in this moment in time, the crest of this wave you ride, and weave the essence into an expression of self. I have a little tip this time - don't start your search for inspiration in an op shop.
Maybe there comes a time in every generation where the cutting edge is no longer appropriate and you feel silly and resent those wearing it. Perhaps my rant relates purely to the fact that my generation x, thirty-something ass is getting old and I can no longer fit into any of my drainpipes, stovepipes, cigarette pants, pencil pants, skinny pants or skinnies. Oh the tragedy!

Jonathan Nolan