Abandoned Fashion(s)

Abandoned fashion

Sometimes it catches me. A girl wearing black, boot cut hip huggers*, or black ballet pumps with a wrap sweater that there are all these staples pieces which I have abandoned to probably never wear again.

The other day it suddenly occurred to me after lusting over a knee length denim button up skirt that once upon a time as a teenager I thought a denim mini skirt would always be in fashion. Now, no one wears them not even teenage girls trying to impress spot covered boys on the hill in my hometown.

Now we all invest in normcore. Ripped skinnies we think will never date, leather jackets which actually may one day be relegated to the back of the closet where you* hide military inspired jackets and shirts reminiscent of Jack Sparrow in “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

We make promises to our hoarder selves “These will come back around. We had a good time once, no point to chucking them when I can look effortlessly cool in my own vintage!”

More likely you will never wear these things again. Your daughter, son might but to you they will never again quite hold that same fresh vibe. Trends will resurface, polished and altered to fit new body shapes and ideals of beauty. You’ll buy others casts offs for that vintage cool you can’t get anywhere else. You might buy my hip hugging black flared trousers to pair with some futuristic heel and a bandanna and I’ll be purchasing your cast off skirts and leather normcore I missed the first time.

After all, the problem we have, as millennials, is we’ve been spoilt with fast fashion. If it’s not new to us it’s tarnished, old, forgotten like denim mini skirts. Reserved only for the memories of a similar, embarrassing time when you would flirt outrageously and think somehow you looked just as cool as you think you are now.

Abandoned Fashion it seems is all around. (A little like love…actually) because of this I have been thinking a lot about slow fashion. I was recently privileged enough to meet Pioneer, Safia Minney for work and honestly I have been fan girling ever since. I’ll speak more about this at another time but I have been thinking a lot about my relationship to fashion and in this case, abandoned fashion. The pieces you once loved above all else and now … not so much, how our choices change and how that affects the way we consume fashion. How our social attitudes affect our purchasing decisions and ultimately how we let the retail industry dictate to us how to consume fashion.

I’m getting real deep here when all I wanted to say is this. I for sure, still have leather military pieces, I never bought a denim mini skirt and I’m lacking a suitable amount of normcore, so do you think you guys could save yours for me? I’ll probably be looking for it several years from now . . .

#AbandonedFashion

*Because I wrote this on my ipad, this originally said, hip nuggets. I was loathed to correct it, so now you know!

*I hid them, I did! I just can’t say no to a leather military jacket