Not too long ago, criticism of fashion came out that everything seems to be stuck, like we can’t get past the 90s. Some said that the 80s never left just that the silhouette got narrower. It’s hard to argue with that kind of argument when one has lived through those decades and saw first-hand the level of pioneering creativity that went into the clothes in those decades.

Looking at the collections for Resort 2013 is like reliving the post 80s creativity where designers struggled with uniqueness versus survival. And with the global economic circumstances more tenuous that in the 90s one cannot blame designers for making wearable clothes. The problem is that they start to resemble each other, albeit with tiny differentiations that have to be experienced firsthand. And that was a similar problem in the 90s that spelled the death knell for many labels that produced beautiful wearable clothes that could not be distinguished from their competition. After a while, what is the incentive for the buying public to shop when they can’t tell the difference either?

There are brighter colours screaming for your attention and yet the shapes are essentially classics. There are new variations of the same things we have seen not just within the last year but also from collections during the 90s themselves. In fact, Marc Jacobs practically recycled his looks from that decade for his Marc by Marc Jacobs collection. But was it done in jest?

There are subtleties in some of the collections that I will get to next round, but since most of what’s being presented are repeats of what has been recently in the runways (and really from the 90s), I encourage you to look through my archives this week. After all, if circumstances are still present and the collections are in a holding pattern then what I said before should suffice for now.