Why Did Fashion Stop Changing?

Malcolm and Simone have an insightful discussion about why fashion has changed so little since the 1990s, unlike the dramatic shifts seen in previous decades.

Simone argues this stagnation stems from supply chain optimization and globalization, which have homogenized clothing production and limited variation. She cites how historical fashion shifts correlated with advances in materials and manufacturing capabilities. Now we've reached an equilibrium where most clothing uses the same global supply chains.

They extend this idea to ponder other areas where change may have slowed, like scientific advances, celebrity culture, and content creation. Malcolm suggests fewer new stars emerge because media consolidation limits breakout opportunities.

Overall they conclude that despite feeling accelerated, technological progress has also locked society into certain optimized systems that resist innovation. However, they see potential for fashion to evolve again through augmented realities, prosthetics, and body modification.

Simone: [00:00:00] It was something that you would actually change fashion. And most people would have switched around several times. It was unusual to have not changed your gender in this... In this like post singularity culture, which is, I don't know. I mean, I, Ian Banks is a very prescient author, so

Malcolm: you never know.

Malcolm: I think types of flightiness will be among the populations that are bred out of our species.

Simone: I don't know, man, because in this world, men could turn into women and have babies. So, their fertility rate might be pretty good

Would you like to know more?

Simone: Hello, Malcolm. Hello,

Malcolm: Simone. I was on Facebook this morning and she always needs me to find something to mentally challenge her every day or engage her. And so this is my task today. As I said before, my life is the framing device of Arabian Nights. If I don't find something interesting to talk to her about every day, I'm so, [00:01:00] today it was this meme that's been going around.

Malcolm: That if you look at how much fashions, cars, build, like architecture changed from like the 50s to the 60s. The 60s to the 70s, the 70s to the 80s, the 80s to the 90s. It was really dramatic. Like you look at an 80s outfit versus the 90s and these were common, you know, like common outfits.

Malcolm: If you in the nineties dressed in an outfit that was common in the eighties, people would think you. We're like in a Halloween costume. However, if you look at the, the entire period of the 2000s and to some extent, the later 90s, so 1995 till today, almost nothing has changed. If you looked at footage of a street, like a random corner in New York, other than all the s**t there now, because cities are beginning to fall apart you would, Not see that much, like you wouldn't be able to tell when it took place outside of like the size of people's phones and this is really [00:02:00] fascinating and so the question was, why is it that I can wear an outfit from like 2002 and I can go to a party in it today and everyone would be like, yeah, that's like just a totally normal outfit.

Malcolm: Why did things stop changing? And the default answer, and this was the answer that I came to originally, because I saw the video, I might have been primed in it, but it's also what I was thinking, is it was the rise of the internet. The rise of the internet just made communication so ubiquitous. There was no reason for things to change anymore, and it became harder for things to change, because it was easier to access sort of any content from that moment till the beginning of the internet.

Malcolm: And Simone goes, no, the answer is obvious to me. And I actually think you might be right. So do you want to go into it?

Simone: Yeah, I'm almost certain that the lack of meaningful change in fashion is a change in basically globalization, manufacturing and global supply chains, which [00:03:00] has sort of led to an optimization of clothing creation.

Simone: That has led to this sort of convergence in fashions where things aren't meaningfully changing. In other words, the primary driver of distinct fashions in the past wasn't fashion itself. It wasn't like, you know, trends or stuff that people thought was pretty. It was more like the way that clothing was manufactured.

Simone: Now, of course there were like weird sumptuary laws in the past that would sort of dictate who was allowed to know what. Describe a sumptuary law. A sumptuary law is basically a law saying if you're not rich. You're not allowed to do, or wear, or own this thing. So this one would be the color purple, for example.

Simone: The color purple really long shoes had sumptuary laws associated with it. I think there were some foods that had sumptuary laws. Ermine the, the fabric that you typically associate with lining a royal person's cloak things like that. So that might dictate fashion a little bit. But,

Malcolm: I pushed back on her when you said this first.

Malcolm: And I said, no, that's not true. I was like, [00:04:00] look, you've got random things in the 70s where I'm thinking of what's popular then bell bottoms or something. How could that possibly fit into your explanation? And you're like,

Simone: So actually bell bottoms totally makes sense. So, if you've ever worn a pair of vintage jeans and I've done so recently, you're going to be like, Holy s**t.

Simone: Like I cannot move in these. They are extremely stiff. Like the fabric we are, we are not wearing jeans. Now we are wearing leggings. Now let's be perfectly honest with ourselves and bell bottoms really makes sense, like structurally. And as jeans, when you're talking about actual old fashioned denim, which is stiff enough to flare out.

Simone: Bell bottoms today would look a lot more like sort of wilted angels trumpets than they would look like actual

Malcolm: elastic sewn into the

Simone: denim. Yeah, there's yeah, there is, our, our denim is interwoven with elastic to the, to the point where it doesn't really work that way anymore. And I think partially that's because it's cheaper.

Simone: Partially that's because it's more comfortable. Partially that's because we're fatter. But when you look at [00:05:00] history and how clothing was made, it was totally like the way clothing was made, that would dictate. So when you look and as you know, since I'm pregnant now, I'm like trying to find a way where I can stay warm in our house that we typically like to unheat in the winter while also like being a lot larger than I normally am.

Simone: And I decided that I was going to go to sort of Renaissance styles to do it because

Malcolm: Oh, I, I've got to put some

Simone: pictures up. There isn't any flattering, actual maternity clothing that's good for cold weather that looks decent. And so instead what I'm gonna do is wear like a ton of under like long underwear.

Simone: They look like journals. Yeah. Well, there's a corset and then you're, you're wearing like a long underdress, you have a skirt. There's all these layers, but like everything, not

Malcolm: tight corset. It's like a structure thing.

Simone: Yeah. It's, it's a, yeah. It's, it's a, it's a sonar sort of structured shirt. But when you look at the pieces of this, these old patterns what you typically have is a chemise, which is