Archive Report
Archive Report
Wide Diversity of Current Fashions
Fashions in clothing, it is said, reflect the spirit of the times. Political commentators and sociologists describe the United States today as confused and divided; Americans, they add, suffer from an identity crisis and yearn for leadership as they rebel against it. All these observations apply equally well to the current chaotic state of fashion. Rudi Gernreich, the West Coast designer who introduced the topless bathing suit, goes so far as to assert that “fashion will go out of fashion.”1 For long-haired, jeans-clad young people, it already has.
Much of the trouble stems from the fact that the fashion industry is accustomed to dictating changes in clothing styles to a meekly submissive public. In recent years, though, the public has mutinied. ...