Our creativity goes through fits and starts, fuelled by our drive for new stimuli and growth while being tempered by our need for security and familiarity. When too much newness happens, it can leave us overstimulated. However, when there isn't enough, we eventually burst with a driving need for more. As well, our consumption culture sets the stage and the technology that provides constant instant stimuli and variety continue this hunger for more. Part of that consumption cycle is to feed our dissatisfaction with too much of the same in order to get us to continue consumption. The various industries of our world centre around this through necessity, vanity, shame and desire in conjunction with creative initiatives that create needs and wants via clever manipulation in what we call marketing to foster growth so that we may have access to more. This drive to have whatsoever is the new incarnation has been taught to us. It is to fill the void of something less tangible and we love it.

Sometimes we catch ourselves when we see the byproducts, such as what this is doing to our fellow man or our environment. When the damage is such that we cannot turn away or live in denial any longer we have dialogue. Our technology has afforded us no excuses regarding awareness of the degree and detail of what we are and what we do, especially these days, and this manifests in the form of media stories of factory conditions and environmental carnage.

Deep down we know that we need to do more but doing so requires a level of change and sacrifice we aren't prepared for. That doesn't stop us from alleviating our conscience from having dialogue, or even making individual change in the hopes it inspires greater change with the hope that we can make improvements. In some ways we are, through the advent of waterless dyeing or recycled materials usage in garment creation in fast fashion, such as what H & M is doing. But this is not the whole of what is happening and we have a long way to go.

In the meantime, we continue our process and push our wares. We are heading into the future, and not everyone is ready to let go of the past just yet. We didn't last century, although there were inroads that we are emulating again as higher, more sophisticated incarnations of similar processes.

When looking at the Art Nouveau period, it merged an appreciation of naturalism in design with a drive towards quality to compensate for the low quality mass production that was preceding it. It came during a period of new technological advancements that were transforming the world. The gentle streamlining of the previous fashions was occurring but the vision was held in place by mindsets of the previous century because those who created the fashions were of that time period. How could they possibly know what the next generation would desire or think? So we had the sporty and progressive Gibson Girl but she still was bound by convention; her Hobble skirt still hobbled her freedom, even if it was stripped of volume and embellishment.

Out twentieth century advancement of dress would take hold in the hands of those who had affinity with the20th century, where its formative years would have little, if any, connection with the prior century. The rebelliousness and rejection of prior conventions lifted us to a new place that has become the foundation of where we are now.

But now a new century and a new millennium is in our hands. Like the Gibson Girl we dress with a streamlined and modern version of what we were. We see this in the new incarnation of couture, and even in the pret-a-porter of the higher labels such as Dior and Chanel. Running shoes, denim and pared down utilitarian variations have become acceptable in the collections as we accept the new modern woman’s place and function in society. And yet we hold on to shapes and cuts of the 20^th century, and there is no shortage of articles in this blog that bring to light how true that is.

Our collections continue to look back. The article “In” Joke For The “In” Crowd ( October 20th 2013) showed our continued attraction towards the 20s as our last reference of rule breaking that ushered in a new century that we refer to currently. Most collections featured a short hem with a drop waist, a hallmark of the 20s. And just as the 90s included Art Nouveau, we see this today. The proliferation of florals and foliage has multiple meanings today regarding inspiration, and the appreciation of naturalism in design, like back then, is referred to now.

Badgley Mischka incorporated some rather Nouveau flourishes in some of their gowns while Brandon Sun laid claim to this period for inspiration, albeit in a more streamlined approach. One gown from Dennis Basso leaned towards the silhouette with a tiered gown while Donna Karan included some design that suggested Klimt. A closing gown form Thom Browne held the aesthetic of Art Nouveau gloriously with religious undertones. Temperley London had florals within the design framework of Art Nouveau while Etro had nits in their patterning. Hints of this could be seen in some pieces at Alberta Ferretti in the degrade tweeds or in the Gibson Girl silhouette of one ensemble. In the most streamlined fashion one jacket at Tom Ford would have satisfied a Gibson Girl.

Some of it is connected to the 90s that fashion has hung onto, some of it is a nod to where we are now, a 2.0 version of leaving the Nouveau for the Deco. But regardless of which decade it honors, it all traces back to our continued connection with a century that we are letting go of. Being that we are still years away from the end of this decade and those who will shape it have yet to get out of junior high, we have yet to truly see how we as a larger culture will define our new century and millennium through dress. We’re getting hints. We just need to watch our century’s version of the Gibson Girl to know what those are.