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The 90s was without doubt the last time when both fashion and<br />
music united as one single unified culture, and was genuinely<br />
fresh new inventive and exciting! ‘Brit Pop’ had taken off in<br />
a massive way, with cool arty bands like Pulp, Blur, Elastica,<br />
Suede, The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Oasis, kicking<br />
out the jams, with a whole fresh new take on pop culture and<br />
a brilliant visual style, still being copied and recycled today!<br />
The real big new in the 90s though was ‘Clubculture’! With<br />
Techno/Trance music filling the clubs all over Europe and<br />
Ibiza becoming the center of the universe for all who were<br />
young cool stylish and beautiful! The look that became<br />
known as ‘Clubwear’ ruled! And spread around the globe!<br />
Sadly the USA (other than NYC & a few ultra hip young dudes<br />
with their radar plugged in to what was happening!)) rather<br />
missed out in most of this! But it is this ‘look’ (like 70s punk<br />
retro) which is being continually being re-shaped/re-modeled<br />
and re-hashed (just like music) in an increasingly desperate<br />
attempt to inject the current ‘emperors new clothe-ism’ of the<br />
fashion and music industry with a less than believable illusion<br />
of ‘Wow’!<br />
WHY TODAY EVERYBODY IN FASHION<br />
& MUSIC TRIES TO IMITATE THE PAST<br />
RATHER THAN CREATE THE FUTURE!<br />
What has to be remembered is this: It was the ‘Sound’ the<br />
bands/music of all these periods (right up until the end of<br />
the 90s) that inspired designers! NOT the other way round!<br />
Young fashion design students at London’s Central St Martins<br />
and The Royal College Of Art (still today the most prestigious<br />
and influential fashion/design faculties in the world) would<br />
spend their nights in the clubs posing, hanging out, dancing<br />
and seeing bands. Indeed many of the coolest looking and<br />
sounding bands came from art school backgrounds (and still<br />
do). So these young design students would create ideas that<br />
expressed the ‘look’ & the ‘attitude’! So it ALL came from ‘The<br />
Street’ the ‘Subculture’! Not as it is today, from the artless<br />
uniformity of Marketing & Branding, applied from ‘Above’!<br />
What held all this together of course was The<br />
Face Magazine! More than any other publication<br />
then or since (although FF shows definite signs<br />
of moving in this direction I am happy to say!)<br />
The Face had it’s ‘Finger on the Trigger ‘of music<br />
and fashion! It was the ‘Connector’! And global<br />
hipsters would religiously buy their copy of the<br />
magazine each month, knowing that what ever<br />
was featured, was way ahead of the game, totally<br />
‘below the radar’! And nobody else yet knew<br />
about it!<br />
A look at some of the collage of images that<br />
accompany this article will illustrate how cool it<br />
all was, and why today everybody in fashion and<br />
music tries to imitate the past rather than create<br />
the future! However, I like many, who ‘were there’<br />
can sense a change! The ‘codes, signs & signals’<br />
are all there!<br />
It’s about to get exciting and interesting again!<br />
And the next ‘Cultural Revolution’ is just around<br />
the corner! So make sure you get your copy of<br />
FFM each month! And when the train leaves the<br />
station! You might just have a ticket to ride and<br />
survive the ‘Style Wars’!<br />
Life Is Beautiful If You Want It To Be!<br />
We All Create Our Own Karma!<br />
A Happy & Beautiful New Year to You All!<br />
Kick Out The Jams!<br />
Chris Garland<br />
Chris Garland<br />
London, January 2014.
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