Is fashion starting to get interesting again?

[GarlicGrace]

It's been as boring as hell for years. Choose between straight lines in a limited palette of solid colours or droopy floral numbers. Lately we've had the exciting additional option of stripes, in combinations from the limited palette.

I'm leaving out the 'sexy' (tight) and 'classy' (beige) side-tracks as they will always exist, changing only slightly with each passing year. The S&B board used to groan under the weight of 'classy' with a smattering of 'sexy' and a surfeit of tediously comfortable stretch jersey. Suddenly, it's all changing!

I should probably note that, old and financially challenged as I am (with the body shape of a large carboard box), I'm wearing mostly straight-line stripy garments in comfortable fabrics. This doesn't stop me wanting fashion to Do Fashion, though ... and it looks like it may have restarted! Whoopee!

I've been up all night clicking fascinating links on here, then following through. Here are five images from my open tabs - and there's so much more! It's all so INTERESTING!

Now I have been up all night, I'm going to post & run. Further comments & showcases welcome, whether from Mumsnet fashionistas (current or superannuated like me) or those who think new stuff is just weird.

There's definitely a change from beige/comfy/practical in the air. Because that's what fashion does, change. But we'll see what has the cerulean jumper/floral midi effect and trickles down the 'high street'.

Hmm … I probably provided three of the links to your photos, @GarlicGrace.

Tbh, for myself, (as opposed to all the wonderful things my mother wore in the fifties and sixties) I haven’t known English fashion to be boring since the early seventies. And we had Top of the Pops then so could dress vicariously through Mark Bolan and the Bay City Rollers. (Ha! Nowadays little girls taking male pop stars as style icons would be forced to ‘question their gender identity’. So while real life clothes were a bit dull we were at least allowed to wear them without being pilloried on SM.)

After that, EU membership and cheap flights exploded the way we did everything (I came home from a mid-70s school exchange to Germany demanding a duvet). And that included getting dressed. It’s been fabulous since then.

Oh I hope so, I’m so bored!

I hope so, I hate the tasteful beige look that has been in for what feels like years.

I thought it was because i'm now old & Ive seen everything cycled around already in my youth. I used to live for my clothes/fashion but don't really even like shopping anymore, everything is so homogenous & I feel like there was more variety when I was young. Now it seems there is only one trend each time so everyone just wears the same thing.

Theees always quirky stuff. I only like the pink blouse and the 70’s inspired shot.

The rest are…….. well not my choice anyway!

I wore an emerald green A line mini skirt with a ruffled pink blouse in 1974 and thought I was the bees knees. My Highland Scottish village youth club disco wasn’t ready for it though, I was side-eyed and sniggered at mercilessly by the local cool girl crowd. None of this relevant to your question, the picture just triggered the memory of the outfit and how much I loved it.

These are all very much not my taste, so I hope not! I do hope the Little House on the Prairie trend dies.

I can see the beige/black/cream tasteful boring neutrals hanging around a bit longer. It’s just so easy for influencers who have money but no actual style to flog things to their followers when they don’t have to make any actual effort. All they have to do is browse the new in at cos/Arket/h&m/Zara and voila, a boring but fashionable outfit.

I think it’s getting interesting too .. I wonder if it’s the recession and it forces people to be more creative in their dressing.
I know when I was a student in the 80’s that relative poverty made me more adventurous.. each garment had to be several things.

OMG, there is nothing worse than puffed sleeves and ruffles on everything!

@happyshineyperson I don't really use insta/influencers but felt i needed some fashion inspo. Everyone I looked at was wearing a black tank with jeans & black sandals or linen trousers with a shirt. I was like how is this inspiration?! I want exiting, actual real fashion! I know how to wear my basics & as you say it's just wearing top to toe Cos, Arket etc

I really hate extra embellishments with no real purpose, like ruffles on sleeves. I would rather be boring.

There's always been quirky stuff. I don't wear corporate tailored clothes any more but for a good 20 years my work skirts and jackets were complicated, highly structured pieces from a shop in Amsterdam. (Pauw) Some of the pieces came with instructions. I'm actually a bit sad that in recent years they've toned it down.

I love the Alémais outfits.

It’s still so boring!

My DM says that everyone but especially younger women look the same.

Right now it’s cargo trousers and utilitarian fashion as well as crop tops, cropped jeans and bum bags over the shoulder.

Exactly! It feels like inspiration (via insta, Pinterest, whatever - I don’t include TikTok as I’m too old!) is either beige boringness or too “wacky and high end” a la Anna Dello Russo, Leandra Cohen, Giovanna Battaglia and those with huge budgets for colourful designer clothes. Where are the people who dress interestingly (but without being “French” or qUiRkY)?

I've not found them! 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well, I love a ruffle! I love the 70s inspired dress as well- a less exaggerated version of that would look great!

To be fair I see things I like most seasons in the catwalk shows, it's when the buyers and then the influencers get in on the game that things start going tits up.

The high street has been boring and uninspiring for at least four years. The tent like dresses are easy and cheap to produce. Many designers had amazing collections during Covid. Chloe autumn/winter 2021 was probably one of my favourites. It's the high street that's rubbish.

Ha, @CapaciousHag, I came home from a 70s school exchange demanding a duvet, too 😂 Thanks for your cheering links!

Maybe the pandemic did somehow force-feed the creative spirit. At the top end, it was certainly nice to see how fashion houses altered their presentations, showing models outside in the real world; telling stories. And you're right. @Mercurial123, there was a lot more fresh thinking in the collections too.

I know high fashion's always got interesting things to show but it's been a while since new ideas were available at street level. I thoroughly enjoyed myself in the early 80s in particular, when some of my outfits literally stopped traffic! Not in a "beautiful/sexy" way, I hasten to add: just because people hadn't seen anything like it. Young people are missing out on that range of opportunities for fun, experimental self expression, and I'll be excited for it to come back.

Love your youth club story, @ilovecherries. You were so avant-garde, you're almost a time traveller!

I think there will be a return to volume. We've had 20+ years of women's clothing being fitted or tight. Historically, volume first shows up in the sleeves and I got that right [polishes fashionista badge] but didn't predict 3 years of tiered skirts drooping all over the place. It's a cheap way of adding more fabric, but it's boring. Ruffles are an encouraging step towards more adventurous construction with layers & draping - I can see some of that in the high street now, and definitely a lot more colour.

Fingers crossed!

I’ve been embracing volume for most of my life - it’s only lately that fashion has caught up. As a student it was vintage men’s dress shirts and tweed coats, then with my first graduate jobs a huge Burberry raincoat, at least three sizes too big. In some ways those things maybe worked better than more recent, deliberately designed to be oversized buys. My vast quilted Camiel Fortgens coat gets in the way; my outstandingly pretty big puffy Kowtow dress doesn’t seem to agree with my constitution, lovely as it is. I would still rush straight to the Cecilie Bahnsen mothership if the world suddenly tilted and I needed a wedding dress, though.

The rest of MN isn’t so keen, obvs. Some benighted idiot (who could that be?) posted links to a couple of oversized t shirt dresses recently - and was swiftly accused of residing under a bridge surrounded by empty bottles of cheap gin.

Was the deleted post the one that linked to a glorious MN S&B thread with stacks of links to designers? It's a great thread! Here it is again, with a loud note that this is NOT a 'thread about a thread' just in case.

This board is Style & Beauty, not Fashion Analysis. It's really nice to find threads about Fashion, though:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/style_and_beauty/4753001-can-we-talk-about-clothing-brands-and-target-demographics?page=10

This board is Style & Beauty, not Fashion Analysis. It's really nice to find threads about Fashion, though:

That thread, which was one of the most interesting threads I've read, was more an analysis of the demographics of what appeals and what the aims of picking a particular style than an analysis of fashion. I'm not sure what is wrong however with an analysis of fashion.