The Cyclical Nature of Fashion
The upcoming 2020 Met Gala Theme as been announced as “About Time: Fashion and Duration.” The theme is based on the 1992 film interpretation of Miranda Woolf’s novel Orlando. The co-chairs for the Gala will be Nicolas Ghesquière, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Meryl Streep, Emma Stone, and Anna Wintour. Curators of the event have stated that the “About Time” theme represents a slowing down of fashion—time ebbing and flowing through fashion.” This is a very fitting theme seeing as how fashion, now more then ever, has taken inspiration from past generations. With this theme, we can surely be expecting incredible, jaw-dropping fashion inspired by the lavish ways of aristocracy in a way that will highlight female power!
This is the scene from Orlando that inspired the “About Time: Fashion and Duration” theme for the 2020 met gala pic.twitter.com/JTZtSLw7sl
— 𝔞𝔟𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔢 (@bxxwie) November 7, 2019
It takes a while for fashion trends to eventually play their coarse, but the cyclical nature of fashion will always prevail. This theme of restored fashion trends is not only prevalent in the upcoming Met Gala theme but also in collections by hundreds of designers globally. More recently, Vogue has captured the “Time-Traveling Fashions of the Spring 2020 Shows.” Designers like Loewe have found inspiration for 1920’s photography, Thom Browne from the illustrious portraitists of Marie Antoinette by Louise Vigée Le Brun, Andreas Kronthaler from a 1759 print Marquie de Pompadour by Franois Boucher, and Alexander McQueen by the fashion of the early 1990s.
Even more inventive, Isabella de Borchgrave has taken the future of fashion to represent these vintage trends in garments made completely out of paper. In an interview with Vogue the artist explains that “Fashioning Art From Paper is a 500-year survey of historical fashion through the artist’s interpretations of pieces in costume institutes around the world; its timing coincides with a big turn of the wheel, a new decade. As such it invites the viewer to take time to reflect on the past in order to better approach the new age.” In this survey the viewer is invited to contemplate the history of fashion and how that pertains to modern life. Interestingly enough, Borchgrave found inspiration from the 1994 exhibition at the Met’s Costume Institute.
These designers all illustrate that trends never die, rather they oscillate in and out of social relevance. Noting and following these trends is very important to the team at Jean-Marc Fray Antiques because just like fashion, the furniture industry reflects the cyclical nature of taste and style. It is crucial to understand these movements so we may provide our customers with pieces that represent trends of the past in a contemporary context.