Architecture, Design and Conservation Danish Portal for Artistic and Scientific Research Aarhus School of Architecture // Design School Kolding // Royal Danish Academy On the Nature of Trends Mackinney-Valentin, Maria Publication date: 2010 Document Version: Early version, also known as pre-print Link to publication Citation for pulished version (APA): Mackinney-Valentin, M. (2010). On the Nature of Trends: A Study of Trend Mechanisms in Contemporary Fashion. The Danish Design School Press. 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Oct. 2021 1 2 3 ON THE NATURE OF TRENDS A Study of Trend Mechanisms in Contemporary Fashion ON THE NATURE OF TRENDS: A Study of Trend Mechanisms in Contemporary Fashion Ph.D. Dissertation at The Danish Design School Maria Mackinney-Valentin, MA Cover design: Stine Jacobsen Cover photo: Sigurd Grünberger Print: Danmarks Designskoles Printcenter Paper: Sponsored by Arctic Paper Danmark A/S Copenhagen, 2010 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE 5 INTRODUCTION – Motivation of the dissertation, the structure 7 of the dissertation and clarification of the methods employed. CHAPTER 1 TERMINOLOGY – Defining fashion, trend, trend 17 mechanism, and style. CHAPTER 2 FASHION SYSTEMS – Definition and historical 33 development of the fashion systems. CHAPTER 3 MAPPING OF TREND THEORY – The Organization 51 of two centuries of trend theory in five positions CHAPTER 4 RETRO CASE– Motivation of the retro trend as the case, 95 period of study, and Eurowoman magazine as empirical material. CHAPTER 5 ANALYSIS – Applying the five positions to the retro 123 trend case in the intensive period. CHAPTER 6 RHIZOMATIC POSITION – Developing the sixth position 187 and the analysis of the extensive period. CONCLUSION – Outcome of the Research, Perspectives for Future 229 Research, and Commercial Potential DANSK RESUME 235 SUMMARY 237 BIBLIOGRAPHY 239 APPENDIX FIGURE 1 and ILLUSTRATIONS 253 5 6 7 8 PREFACE This dissertation is the result of a collective effort. Without the support from some wonderful individuals this would have remained a dream. I am grateful to former Head of Research at The Danish Design School, Thomas Schødt Rasmussen, who was instrumental is securing the funding for the project. I also wish to thank my two wonderful supervisors, Rector at The Danish Design School, Anne-Louise Sommer, and Associate Professor Julie Sommerlund at The Danish Design School, who have backed me all the way with unwavering optimism and persistent encouragement. I also wish to thank my colleagues and the students of The Danish Design School, whose feedback to my research has been truly enlightening – especially Marie Riegels Melchior, who has been incredibly generous with feedback and inspiration from the very beginning to the very end. A warm thanks to my friends and family for always lending an ear and providing perspective. A special thanks to Kerstin, Kasper, Trine, Fie, and Pernille for proofing in the 11th hour, and Stine for designing the beautiful cover. Finally, I am eternally grateful to my son Carl, to my daughter Solveig, and to my gorgeous husband Claus – for everything. Maria Mackinney-Valentin, January 2010 9 10 INTRODUCTION Trends: Wanted dead or alive? Trends in fashion confuse and fascinate. Are trends created or do they create themselves? Do they reflect the surrounding context or are they essentially arbitrary? Are trends about movement or meaning; part of social interaction or simply the oil that helps grease the motor of capitalism? What is the purpose of trend theory: Marketing strategy, politics, ‘contemporary seductiveness,’ sartorial rush, social identity, escaping boredom, or analyzing consumer behavior? Do trends contribute to the survival of the human species? Or worse: Are trends on the verge of extinction? Theories analyzing trend mechanisms might soon become irrelevant if one is to believe the rumors that trends are going out of fashion, killed off by the acceleration of change and the fragmentation caused by decentralization and democratization. The rumors began already in the early 1990s. In summing up the year of fashion in 1990, fashion journalist Woody Hochswender predicted that fashion trends seemed to be moving away from the traditional mechanisms: “The cycles in fashion get shorter and shorter. How many times have the 60’s been revived since the 60’s? They’re never out long enough to be completely out. Soon all the decades will overlap dangerously. Soon everything will simultaneously be out.”1 The doomsday speculations concerning the end of trends proved to be persistent. In 1995, Efrat Tseëlon announced the rise of ”post-fashion” and suggested that trends only refer to themselves and therefore might be said to no longer exist.2 In 1999, Teri Agins, covering the fashion industry for The Wall Street Journal, also declared that the end was near: ”It’s not only the end of the millennium, but the end of fashion as we once knew it.”3 Almost a decade later in ”Fashion for All,”4 fashion writer for The Guardian Jess Cartner-Morley also explores the question of whether trends are going out of 1 ”A Little Nervous Music” in The New York Times, January 1, 1991. Accessed at www.nytimes.com on November 12, 2009. 2 The Masque of Femininity, 124. 3 The End of Fashion, 6. 4 The Guardian, October 9, 2007. 11 fashion. Covering the s/s 2008 fashion shows in Paris, she concludes that after 90 shows there was not a trend in sight: ”Don’t expect key looks next season.”5 The year after, fashion writer Erin Magner does a three-piece feature for the trend agency JC Report6 entitled “The Death of Trends” in which she suggests that the apocalyptical predictions might in fact be coming true. She explores what she calls the changing face of fashion trends where the notion of seasons has given way to a ‘24-hour fashion news cycle.’ As Magner states: “When it comes to fashion in 2008 the only prevailing trend is that there are no prevailing trends. From excess to minimalism, free-spirited ingénue to tailored sophisticate—and everything in between—designers are mining just about every culture, decade and mood to create a distinctly ‘anything-goes’ aesthetic.”7 The condition of trend mechanisms according to this ‘anything goes’ paradigm seems to be close to impossible. To support her argument, she quotes Ben Whyman, writer and lecturer at London College of Fashion for saying: “It’s always been difficult to define an era’s trends without generalizing, but nowadays, it’s difficult to even define what a trend is.”8 The point of departure of the dissertation is to define trend mechanisms in the Noughties9 when doom and anarchy rather than coral and denim seem to be predictions for next seasons’ trends. The question then is whether this development is the end of trends – or the beginning of understanding the trend mechanisms in a new way. Because, the notion of ‘anything goes’ and the prospect of a ‘24-hour fashion news cycle’ or ‘seasonless cycles’10 severely challenges the concept of temporal gaps that are assumed in the organization of the majority of trend theory – between new and old, in and out, inception and demise, innovators and laggards. This suggestion of the elimination of time lags raises the possibility that a different approach, a spatial one, might be included in the existing body of trend theory in which the focus on 5 The Guardian, October 9, 2007. 6 JC Report is a web-based trend agency with 50,000 subscribers, www.jcreport.com. 7 ”The Death of Trends: Part II” August 11, 2008. 8 ”The Death of Trends, Part 1” August 15, 2008. 9 I.e. the first decade of the 21st century. 10 Deluxe, 316. 12 dimensions, expansions, mutations, and variation may correspond better to contemporary trend mechanisms than temporal organization and ‘ceaseless revolution.’11 One of the implications in this addition is that trends move slowly rather than rapidly, which should hopefully save trends from their imminent doom. Structure and methodology The method employed in this dissertation draws on iterative processes and loosely on Sandra Harding’s notion of “strong objectivity” with focus on multidisciplinary. However, method is also a theme in itself in the development of the Rhizomatic Position in Chapter 6, which attempts to offer inspiration for a new method for describing trends and trend mechanisms as well as possibly understanding contemporary consumer behaviour. I have chosen to integrate the presentation of the structure of the dissertation with the concerns of method to sharpen the focus as well as show the integration of these aspects. Chapter 1: Terminology is concerned with clarifying and developing the terminology of trend studies within a historical framework, which allows for a more precise and comprehensive analysis of trends. The chapter is as such an attempt to consolidate the field of trend studies by foregrounding trend as the operational term rather than fashion, which tends to be the preferred term in the theory on fashion change. Though there are trends in everything from pets to politics, I have chosen to look at trends in fashion because the trend mechanisms are very clear in both the production and practice of fashion due to especially social, cultural, seductive, and economic factors.