Following Women's Fashion Trends
How Not to Be a Slave to Fashion & How to Avoid the Trend Traps
Women’s fashion trends come and go and some are more tricky than others. From this season’s baggy Babygro-style jumpsuits, giant ruffles, big bows, volumnous skirts, maternity-style smocks, and jodhpurs.
Keep your head and do not be overpowered by strong fashion trends. Use them cleverly to update a classic outfit, and mix some on-trend pieces with more traditional ones.
Fashion Trends 2008
We have seen boho and luxe, romantic and transparent, tribal and painterly prints. If you believe all you read, then green is the new black, or is it white, yellow, purple or pink? In the accessories department we have seen waist-suffocating corset belts, and an overwhelming trend in heel art, and a clamor for anything Grecian.
Bags and Shoes
Tough totes litter the high-streets, with their chunky hardware, and bags and clutches have become supersized to cope with our modern everyday lifestyles.
The rise of the celebrity It bag in 2005 has created a passion for purses like never before .Getting the latest A-lister look, with a leather saddle bag, clutch or tote has transformed us from a nation of must-haves to lust-haves. Similarly designer shoes have become more covetable (with influences like Sex and the City), re-worked into so many different styles that it is impossible to choose; from the ferocious gladiator to the peep-toe pump, the satin sandal or the bejeweled ballet flat. Shoe boots that have been renamed so many times since last season; whether you call them booties, shoots, shoe or ankle-boots, they are likely to stay for a while.
The Trend Cycle
Fashion trends typically run in 20-year cycles, according to Imogen Edwards-Jones, in her fashion exposé, Fashion Babylon. Seen-it-all before ‘60s, ‘70’s and ‘80s outfits are cunningly reworked, reinvented and repackaged. From modified ‘60s smocks to ‘80s Dallas-style power suits and ‘70s boho trends.
Fashion is Not for the Faint-Hearted
If you are 20-something then you can afford to take advantage of all the fast-fashion that comes your way. You are at the age when you can try very tricky trends and get away with them. You can be fearless in your quest for fashion-forward pieces, which have recently become so affordable in the high-street (with stores like Primark, H&M, Top Shop etc), and such a mind boggling choice, with fashion possibilities that your mum never had.
However, once we enter our 30s it requires a bit more courage, and the determination not to be swayed by too many fashion trends. By the time we reach our 40s and 50s our hemlines or sleeve-lengths should be a little longer, and we need to be more ruthless when it comes to wearing what suits us, to avoid the risk of becoming mutton dressed as lamb. This means thinking, color, cut and style and investing in pieces which although fashionable, do not make it seem that we are trying to hard to be just that!
Classic Fashion Trends
There are however, many trends which are worth investing in, whatever you age. The maxi dress, for example, is versatile, comfortable and likely to be revived again and again. There are classic trends like the current white shirt, or nautical look. Romantic tea dresses and 'the 50s prom dress will never go away, nor will classic shifts, flared jeans, blazers or aviator sunglasses.
The best of today’s trends are elegant and feminine, with a strong ‘40s and '50s feel. This screams glamour more than just up-to-the-minute fashion, and so lends itself to a longer-life span, transcending a few seasons.
Positive Fashion Trends
One positive trend is for ethical and sustainable fashion. One which looks set to grow as more fashion labels offer a fair trade option to their product list ,and include pieces made from organic cotton, hemp and bamboo. It has also become trendy to swap rather than shop, recycling rather than buying fashionable pieces. This included holding swishing parties, using swapping-websites and participating in innovative events like Visa Swap, which takes place in London during June/July 2008.
Buying vintage has also come to the fore in recent seasons in our quest for the individual and unique. The “inspired by” concept has become so overdone, with millions of woman looking like celebrity clones, that there is now an understandable move towards wearing pieces which are not likely to be seen elsewhere.
How to Avoid the Trend Trap
Bucking fashion trends requires a woman to be self assured and confident in her own skin. It requires an eye for the stylish rather than just the fashionable; to wear what suits you rather than just what is on-trend.
It may also require oodles of patience in your quest for the right garment, as we live in an age where, at the merest hint of a new trend, high-street stores become awash with those garments, and anything sane or more traditional is likely to have be relegated to the back!
Women's fashion has been cleverly reworked in an effort to make us part with more cash. In that respect, as Liz Jones points out it in her Daily Mail article “Sorry Mariella, but Fashion has Become Far from Trivial, of 26th May 2008, fashion has become greedy, repetitive and uninspired, and (almost) “every single segment of it has been after your hard-earned cash.”
The Power of Fashion
Yet the world without fashion would be a depressing place. Women need fashion just as much as men need fast cars. We need to feel glamorous, stylish and confident ,and nothing can do that more than a great little black dress and a look-at-me pair of stilettos slimming our silhouette and making us walk tall. And if they happen to be something from Dior and Jimmy Choo, then so much the better!
If you invest in something you really love and it boosts your confidence and makes you feel like a million dollars, then that is the power of fashion. You may well decide it's worth every cent, be it tricky trend or not!
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