Historical Influences on Today's Fashion

        Hello Everyone! I'm so sorry I haven't been posting much lately, things have been pretty crazy in my life. Today, I'm going to write about the historical influences on today's fashion, I've always been interested on this subject, and I hope you all are too.

        Throughout the years, fashion designers have taken inspiration of historical dress from previous centuries. Whether it’s specific textiles, or patterns on the fabric, or the style itself, designers everywhere take inspiration and create a more contemporary version for the runway. I’ve had to study this in my classes and I find the inspiration behind some iconic runway fashion particularly interesting. They say that history repeats itself, and this is particularly true with fashion trends, as specific fashion items make a comeback. 

Alexander McQueen is a famous fashion designer known for his wearable art and his designer clothing. In many of his fashion lines, he creates an upgrade from historical fashion (specifically from the Victorian and Romantic Eras) to contemporary pieces that are known on the runway as high fashion. In Autumn of 2008, McQueen created a line that was inspired by the  Directoire Period (1790-1820) of dresses with a straight skirt and a square neckline. Similarly, This type of style is used in every day life with dresses that become popular in the summertime. 

Wedding dress designers are also hugely inspired by historical fashion, mainly in the Crinoline Period (1850-1869) which involved massive skirts that envelop the woman. The same style is often seen on the red carpet by celebrities. The most simple of trends in today’s fashion was inspired by history’s fashionable norms. Such as a single poof strategically placed in the skirt of a wedding dress, or even the neckline. 

        In college, students usually tend to roll out of bed and throw on the first thing they pull out of their closet before class. What’s really interesting to me, however, is that even those clothes have been inspired by history. Yes, college students don’t wear ballgowns or tuxedos to dinner anymore like they used to, but subtle little embellishments that we don’t give a second thought to is based off of what was popular a few hundred years ago. For example, some headbands that we just throw on our head to keep our hair out of the way while we’re taking a test was inspired by Roman headdress.

I have always been a fan of fashion because no matter what a person wears, it showcases their personality. It’s a way to express oneself, even in college when we’re just focused on graduating and getting a degree. Most people overlook what fashion truly means in ones life, when I see fashion, I see history, art, expression, and inspiration. Fashion is even a way to understand history better, and bring back historical influences to the 21st century. 

Thank you for reading my blog, more to come very soon.

x Aspiring Fashionista