|
Trendspotting: It's A Mad MOD World
New York Fashion Week Fall 2003
By: Mari Davis
(Photos Gruber-FWD)
Click here to view slideshow.
DALLAS, Feb 27, 2003/ FW/ --- The decade was the 1960s, and Britain was finally getting
over the post World War II blues.
A young designer named Mary Quant, after creating an exclusive collection for JCPenney (1957)
was awarded the Internationl Fashion Award (1958) by the Sunday Times in London. Mary Quant's rise
to fame was just beginning.
Though the mini-skirt was first seen with the flapper during the roaring 1920s, it was Mary
Quant who reintroduced as the 'ultra-short miniskirt' which shocked the establishment because
'respectable' ladies wore skirts at knee length. And MOD was born.
'Mod' is short for 'modern' and was embraced by the teens of the 1960s. It was not just fashion,
it was a lifestyle. It was a form of 'identification' for the teens who were coming of age,
and who will become the first wave of the 'baby boomers.'
They did not experience World War II, nor the depression. The song 'My Generation' of The Who,
became their anthem - 'Don't try to dig what we all say, Not trying to cause a big sensation,
Just talking 'bout my generation.' And that defined the Mod generation.
Mod has two parts - the first half which were composed of working class youths who wore
'desert boots', parkas, impeccably tailored slim suits and their hair were cut short. Their
status symbol - riding Vespa scooters, (Vespa scooters is also undergoing a revival in 2003.)
The second half are those who like rock & roll (compared to the other half who liked jazz music
and the newly formed mod bands - The Who). This other half of the mod generation wore jeans
and leather jackets, the anthema of their other half.
The mad mod world of day-glo and psychedelic colors was an evolution from these two groups.
Op-art and geometrical shapes became part of fashion. The mini-skirt reached thigh-high in
1965. And Mary Quant became the charteuse of this sexually explosive era.
It was Andre Courreges who brought mod fashion on the runways, and gave it a sci-fi spin.
It was the 1960s - decade of the Sputnik, and the Apollo missions, the first time man
walked on the moon.
It was exuberant times, life was good and the world was celebrating.
If you go back 30 years, the same exuberance was happening during the 1920s. The first world
war just ended, the skyscrapers were being built in New York, and Wall Street was experiencing
a bull market.
Roughly thirty years had passed since mod ended. Is it coincidence that the rise of the mini-skirt
happens every 30 years?
A recent survey by Taubman Centers Inc., owner and/or manager of 30 premier shopping centers
in 13 states used the hemline indicator to measure consumer optimism by asking 1,000 shoppers
nationwide where they think skirt lengths will be this spring based on their projections for
the economy
An overwhelming 48% said that better economic times will hit America by spring, based on
skirt lengths.
The 1920s (with the flapper mini) and 1960s (with ultra-short mini) were affluent times.
With MOD coming out as the strongest trend in New York, (and later London) indicative that
the bear in Wall Street finally hibernate?
I hope so! And if it so, then we can congratulate Tommy Hilfiger, Marc Jacobs and Richard
Tyler for their prescience.
|
