Pre-fall is the bridge between summer and fall collections. It is the anti-resort; a place to insert fresh wearable staples into the stores while allowing a modest insertion of new style hints. All collections involve nudging the consumer into a new style direction and pre-fall has the potential to generate some buzz, especially when a more established or even merely a matured collection offers a change in the fashion conversation.

The conversation, however, seems to be more like two friends wistfully retracing their "best of' memories as the predominant influences come from reruns. If there is something positive to say from this, it's that at least the retro revisits are moving forward ...from the 80s towards the 90s (again).

The issue that most editors have been deservedly groaning about for a while is that the design world seems to be stuck, bouncing back like a needle skipping on a record to replayed ideas. There are a few purposes for this, and it's not new news. Innovation results from dissecting existing ideas and recombining them into new forms. From this, the designer can find new combinations and take us into new territory. Christian Dior did this. His “New Look” wasn't new at all as much as as a reconstitution of prior design sources from days gone by when excess was the norm. Those hip pads and nipped wasp waists weren't a new invention, but were Elizabethan while the hemlines, textiles, and streamlined expression were the modern touches to bring these ideas into the 20^th century. Jean Paul Gaultier is another designer who owes a great deal towards reconstituting the past. During his heydays in the 80s he freely spoke of this as the source for his creative process. It continues today. A few years ago, Micheal van der Hamm heavily inspired designers with his Frankenstein approach to mixing elements sourced from various decades to create new forms and textile combinations, something that gave designers new possibilities for the last few seasons.

Designers continue to look towards the past to pull ideas the public has forgotten about. For all the information at our fingertips, much of it is online and not in our minds. Our memory retention has altered in the face of having easy information access and studies, something confirmed via studies at Harvard university and penned by researchers in Scientific American when examining memory processes versus our use of Google. We have accepted the cloud as our supplementary memory dump, thus inadvertently training the mind to depend less on itself to store information. And there is hardly a need when we know our memories and information are a click away. being aware of that, designers can bring back ideas and resell them to a market that will see them as fresh when they're knowledge of fashion history is spotty. And looking back at 20th fashion that is nothing new either. And that's the other reason. If mining existing ideas and recombining them is a doorway to wards innovating our future, the path along the way is easier than creating from scratch. It's a bit of creative laziness coupled with serendipity of fashion ignorance. Formulaic as it is, it's economically efficient and as fashion is a business you can't blame a designer for maximizing their valuable time by creatively cutting corners. from time to time. In our age, the unfortunate reality is that borrowing ideas isn't frowned upon as long as it's not blatant. The bottom line ultimately matters.

Now we are leaning towards the modern and yet we still need the past. Consumers still aren't as excited about a future that is accelerating forth more rapidly that we are able to process. The very things we read and hear about such as biotech. AI and robotics are fast becoming commercial realities. The fashion industry is mating with the tech industry and is expected to have the population further integrated into our electronic age. And contrasting this is more established bespoke and artisenal approaches to fashion, news of younger generations switching off, voiced resentment of being too attached to this electronic world while older generations worry about seeing innovation create ourselves out of usefulness and into permanent unemployment.

Of course the media thrives on fear. In Toronto, Canada, advertising agency St. John recently caught attention from steering their campaigns towards fear-based, finding  this more effective. It seems the one thing we do listen to is fear-based messaging; their international acclaim certainly proved that. So fashion needs the past to hold our hands. The familiarity connects us with memories and unifies us as we reminisce. That brings the third reason: reaching back makes us feel good because it's familiar, and we tend to run to memories when the future looks uncertain. Not everyone is as excited about innovation, especially when our role in it isn't as clearly defined as our potential exclusion of ourselves in it is.

The last time we were willing to ponder our future in the face of impending technological transformation was in the 90s. The internet was coming into being, the experimentation with technical fibers that Japan brought forth in the 80s was taking a turn towards the fantastic, the cell phone moved from an exclusive and cumbersome pricy brick to an affordable hand-held item that initiated a realization that technology can transform our lives by freeing us from being tethered to a wall to communicate. Simple as that may seem, the possibilities of the future seemed exciting once the public had a taste of how tech could make our lives easier.

All this science was hard to ignore and fashion responded by taking inspiration from everything tech as well as everything scientific. The easiest association for the general public when it came to everything connected with science? Labs. And at the forefront of connecting fashion's body conscious minimalism and 70s narrow-silhouetted retro exploration with this embrace of the future was one of the most major influencers of fashion in the 90s: Helmut Lang.

His clean cuts stick with us today as the last reference we have to a clean view of what 21st modernity was to represent and impacted fashion immensely. And with tech touted as the long-term marriage partner of fashion and a whole generation of 90s designers at their seasoned prime, well...you can't swing a cat without finding this aspect of the 90s tapped into, such as at Akris, Bottega Veneta, Fendi, Helmut Lang (of course; they own the look), ICB, Pringle of Scotland, Rag & Bone, Reed Krakoff, Sea, Sonia by Sonia Rykiel, T by Alexander Wang, and TSE.

The only problem with this mad rush towards this familiar retro path is congestion: too much traffic on a vision revisit will invite another repeat of the 90s that was spoken of in prior articles, especially when continued news of the economy is reinforcing an uneasiness that may not bode well for houses whose wares are too similar and too easily imitated. News of manufacturing slowdowns, inventory surpluses, deflation to move stock, rumours of another tech bubble ready to burst, hyperinflated rents creating business closures and retail transformations that have yet to find a footing in the face of optimistic retail results and easing of unemployment all contribute to a confusing unease of uncertainty. And anyone from the 90s can tell you how economic downturns affected fashion last time. With even more design businesses competing for luxury and fast fashion able to more effectively provide better quality duplication, the competition amidst today's uncertainties, exasperated by changes in the manufacturing and retail landscape coupled with our equivalent of a tech-centric industrial revolution may mean that all the pajama ease, structured armour, and Memory Lane connections may not be enough to insulate us from repeating the past in more than in design inspiration.

Our saving grace? Everything comes in waves. And the tech that may take away our once-valued ways of life inevitably make way for new approaches that we eventually adapt to and thrive in. We're not a hopeless lot. Sometimes we just have a hard time coping with change. And when we're really ready for it and have a better idea about our place in the future, fashion will let us know by cutting the apron strings to the past. or at least allow us to accept new combinations that are less familiar. Isn't that at least hopeful?

So take it all in stride. The calmest assurance I had in the 90s from a dear old friend in Chicago who writes for music said it well and has it right: it all works out in the end. With that, my wish for you have the merriest of Christmases to you and your loved ones.