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 like a, a very unstructured like undershirt that a man or a woman [00:06:00] would wear.

Simone: That's something that's really easy to sew at home. And like all the outer parts that were more structured were like sort of cutouts of clothing that would often just be sewn together. Like the different parts were sewn together and you would sew yourself into your outfit or lace yourself into your outfit.

Simone: And this was all stuff that people made at home. Often with homespun cloth. And so things are more structured, the way that they work is more structured. And then as you go to more manufactured clothing, you move to these different styles that are really made possible by new forms of technology. New types of looms, new types of fabric.

Simone: You can see, like, when wool takes over from linen in popularity, things start to change. You can see this from region to region as well, and how that influences fashion. And when you look at, for example, Chinese and Japanese fashion, because the fabrics they're using are so different, They look really different and it's not because oh, you know, we have these incredibly different standards.

Simone: You do see some universal things. Like fashions often emphasize gender dimorphic elements of men and women. That's fine. And they often also emphasize whatever seems to be expensive because you're trying to find wealth.[00:07:00] But The, the fabric that's available in an economy is going to dictate what those fashions look like.

Simone: And a lot of the differences are based on what's available. So of course, it makes sense that as we enter this globalized world, we're going to see a huge effect in homogenization of fashion, both over time and across regions, because. We're starting to use the same supply chains, the same fabrics, the same everything.

Simone: And so you're not going to see meaningful variation.

Malcolm: A great example of this that you're talking about is early in comic books. Today when we look at those characters, we like, they look like they're in underwear. Right? Like in early comic books but what was actually being highlighted in those early comic books is that they were wearing elastic and nylon, which were two seen as very like sci fi and advanced technologies that were brand new technologies at the time.

Malcolm: And so to us, it just looks like normal underwear, but to them, they're like, look at this tight fitting, form fitting clothing. It's so advanced. And yeah, so I think that we [00:08:00] Often underestimate how new many of these technologies are. And so what you're really arguing is the change in fashion was down three was downstream of the industrialization of society.

Malcolm: And society was still in many ways industrializing until we reached true globalization. And that in today's world, if we're talking about fashion trends, what we should really be thinking about is online avatars and stuff like that. And that's where we are going to most likely see the most interesting fashion trends, because that's where technology is advancing the most.

Malcolm: And in many ways we actually do. So, let's think here, you know, obviously furries, you could consider sort of like a fashion trend almost was an online environment, but remember when there was the Do you know the way? Oh God. That's great. Was it an online environment? Do people know the way? How did the full thing go? .

Simone: Was it Uganda?

Malcolm: Yeah. It was like. But [00:09:00] everybody would wear these knuckles. From Sonic and Knuckles. But deformed knuckles. Skins when they were in VR environments and interacting with each other. And this became like a thing. And then you would get different fashions for your profile photos.

Malcolm: So a big example here, if we're talking about like expensive fashions was when people would buy NFTs of, those early like Crypto Pugs, right? Or what's it called? Lazy Monkeys? What do they call them? Oh

Simone: Bored Apes.

Malcolm: Yes! Homeless Monkeys is what I was thinking. Anyway, Bored Apes. So, Bored Apes, right?

Malcolm: And those aren't really tied to any historic fashion event. And yet they were totally unique to their time period and tied to technology. Very interesting point. Sorry, I just had these realizations as you were talking about this.

Simone: Well, you could argue that the meaningful advances in technology that we have seen since the 90s involve things like smartwatches.

Simone: Maybe, I don't know, I was going to [00:10:00] say more of like advanced versions of tattoos, but they're still so unusual. Maybe it's going to be neural implants. Maybe it's going to be More advanced tattoos once they actually come out like actually when when I that one of the most unique fashion differentiators in sci fi that I've read across multiple books now is animated tattoos Because I think it's really hard to describe someone's fashion in a way that to a reader will feel futuristic And I think that's because we sort of ended up in this like hyper optimized world that just doesn't feel that unique.

Simone: You wanna

Malcolm: throw people off, this is what I suggest you do some going forwards. Hmm. You need to get a little bit of like metal technology stuff that makes it look like you have a brain implant and then just glue it on your head before you go to circle them, and tell people that you have an implant here.

Malcolm: And don't believe it. They'll be like, oh, they, they know people who could give them input. Be like, it's experimental. We can't really talk about the

Simone: group that did it, especially for shave a patch of my head and glue it in. Like really go all the

Malcolm: way. Oh yeah. You got to really go

Simone: all the [00:11:00] way and be like, yeah, that's money.

Simone: Extra points. If it has some, like we can get put a little like led lights in it. So Oh, you

Malcolm: want to have some fluid, like flowing through it?

Simone: Oh yeah. If it like leaks a little bit, especially if it's a little bloody around the edge.

Malcolm: Yeah. A little bit of leaking blood down the side.

Simone: Yeah. I don't, I don't take my,

Malcolm: It, you know, immunosuppressants sometimes happen, but you know, the price we pay for being able to read your mind.

Simone: Yeah. I wonder. And so prosthetics, I could argue is, is an interesting evolution. Of, of, you could argue fashion though.

Malcolm: Well, yeah. I mean, an interesting thing is some people have become like I don't know if you've heard of this movement, but like people identify as like needing prosthetics, you know, the same way, like people identify as trans, they identify as needing prosthetics, even if they don't.

Malcolm: And, and they actually will go get surgeries to get like limbs removed and stuff so that they then can fit their identity of a disabled person. [00:12:00]

Simone: Yeah. Gosh, but what is, I'm really actually curious now. What is the next meaningful, and remember like Google glasses, you know, when they first

Malcolm: came out.

Malcolm: Transness as a change

Simone: in. Technology driven change in fashion. Yes. Yeah, I guess when you can't. You can't change fashion anymore. You can change your gender which is meaningful. In, in Ian Banks Culture series, by the way it was very normal for humans to change their gender for ten years, and then change back, and then change their gender again, because they'd like to be able to have a baby, and gestate it, and then change back.

Simone: 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 [00:13:00] 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. Another thing that I recall

Malcolm: I genuinely think if you talk about the sustainable cultures that are going to survive, they're going to be much more likely to cast systems.

Simone: I don't know, man. I, I, I don't know. I, I think, honestly fine, change your gender. A post gender world. To me is way better. And that feels like a post gender world, just like switching it out when you feel like it,

Malcolm: but a cast system was baby farms is also a post gender world

Simone: because women aren't having an exploitative.

Simone: And I don't like it. No, it sounds, you don't

Malcolm: like it, but it would be, this is the thing. You don't like it likely due to genetic predilections. We could select that that was out of people who come from the farm. God.

Simone: Oh God. Yeah. But, but you probably wouldn't need to. I mean, it's not we've bred chickens who love being in battery cages.

Simone: It's not like we've bred cows that love being in, you know, very constrained

Malcolm: environments that we've done that. [00:14:00] So yeah, it's like a major problem with, with chickens that are supposed to be free range is that they open the cages and they just never leave. It's a very cheap way to raise free range chickens.

Malcolm: And

Simone: we

Malcolm: have chicken breeds that are very free rangey and then we have other chicken breeds that are just kind of witless and I think we actually have some of those chickens. You know, one of the breeds we have, you're always complaining about how witless they are and how they just want to sit in their thing all

Simone: day.

Simone: They are very dumb. They are extremely dumb birds. But I love them. It's fine. I think another element of fashion driven by technology that will change significantly. Is plastic surgery. I think we are already seeing the effects of it. Maybe filters plus plastic surgery. Like you can also see people significantly altering the way that they look using filters online.

Simone: But then in addition to that, plastic surgery definitely is going to change, you know, what we can do with our bodies. And in Scott Westerfeld's Ugly series, which is a teen dystopian sci fi series what many people do is they'll get [00:15:00] surgery to get anime eyes. They will look significantly weirdly different.

Simone: So maybe that's sort of the final frontier is just, it's not, it's not gender modification per se. It's all forms of body

modification.

Malcolm: Well, it might be another way to word. This is in the online sphere, our primary presence to other people, the primary way we're interacting with other people is through avatars and there'll be , less pressure for individual fashion to evolve.

Simone: Could be. Yeah. COVID. In some ways felt like it killed fashion in some ways felt like it accelerated it. I don't want to think but yeah, I mean and is it just fashion? Or or have global supply chains therefore also homogenized? Many other elements of society.

Malcolm: well, I think they have, but yeah, I mean, I think that the, the dominant, it could also be, you said that the dominant cultural group has so much more power now than it's ever had historically.

Malcolm: And it's very interested in preventing anything from evolving or changing, like power is [00:16:00] consolidating. Around a very inefficient system that I think the masses realize is inefficient and stupid and they want to end and they They lack the power to change it. Don't worry. We'll handle it for you guys.

Malcolm: We'll change it We'll fix it. It'll be handled soon. Don't worry. These, these, these people in power are at least as witless as they appear on TV.

Simone: Yeah, hmm. I wonder,

Simone: hold on, I lost my thought. Holy, now, I had like a little, a little stroke where I just completely forgot. Who I am. I am Simone Collins. I am having a conversation with my husband, Malcolm Collins. What, what am I here for? We were talking about fashion? No, yeah, yes. What was, what's going to change what is going to change, or what will stop changing.

Simone: So what I think is really interesting about this concept with fashion, but then also like more broadly, is that we think... I think we're, we're in this [00:17:00] mindset of Oh, we're now in this world where everything's accelerating. Like we, we are already in the singularity. Things have already changed past a point of no return.

Simone: Smartphones and the internet have revolutionized so much. So you get this impression that Oh no, no, no. We're in this period of constant flux. And in many ways we are right in terms of the technology that we're being introduced to, it is, it is game changing. But then it's something that I've never really explored mentally before is this Okay.

Simone: Well, that has happened. While all this has happened, technology and globalization have also slowed down the rate of change. Almost like they're locking us into a current mode that is optimal per current global supply chains and the internet. What do you think? Was it sort of a big hurry up but stop kind of situation that we're in now?

Simone: Well,

Malcolm: yeah. I mean, I do think that many supply chains have been optimized. I, I agree that we're, we're entering a point where you look at I mean, look at the way I'm dressed. Like it's a polo, right? Like it's about as much of a degradation as you can have from the [00:18:00] idea of a full button down shirt where it has all the ease, but still some semblance of button down is.

Malcolm: So it has some semblance of being a, yeah. Outfit, you know, glasses, right? Like I guess you could have contacts, which are more, but they scare me to put it in. I don't know, maybe there's contact, but don't scare people to put in, but I don't like touching my eye. So I think you couldn't make any of the things we're wearing.

Malcolm: I got my elastic jeans. I've got my form fitting yellow boots that I wear because. Kids can spot me easily and they match the kids and they like that. Like all of the aspects of what I'm wearing, I just don't think could be made any... Simpler without losing some tie to what we consider formality because you're always going to judge some clothes as informal and some clothes as formal.

Malcolm: And so, you know, I think today the way we see formal clothes is, oh, collar must be formal to some extent, right? [00:19:00] I could go to a t shirt, but then a t shirt would informality that. Yeah, there's just no differentiation. You

Simone: could argue that Star Trek uniforms are basically just at leisure, but they denote formality because they denote like military rank.

Simone: So you could argue that something like a, a caste system or sanctuary laws would then be able to dictate formality in a post. Structured clothing era. Well, what

Malcolm: are NFTs if not a form of sumptuary law? So sumptuary laws are about gatekeeping. Well, when any, everyone can purchase basically anything, right.

Malcolm: Which is where we are in society right now. I can purchase things that look basically like Louis Vuitton at a very inexpensive price because there is no longer any gatekeeping around that. Right. So.

Malcolm: NFTs allow you to gatekeep access to social status signalers that cost an enormous [00:20:00] amount. So you can, you can, you can show true, I guess, financial waste or, or, or, or possibility for financial yeah.

Simone: Yeah. It's a gatekeeping thing. What else do you think is most meaningfully not changed? I mean, I, I like this concept because when you first told me that fashion has not changed since the 90s, I'm like, no I've watched like a million commentators who talk about all the different, but yeah, meaningfully, structurally, fabric wise, we're not really seeing that much differentiation.

Simone: So I agree with you, but I'm curious is there some other area in which we actually feel like we've been changing a lot, but we've not?

Malcolm: Maybe oh, well, you can think in terms of celebrities. So this is an interesting thing. Okay. That celebrities, there haven't really been new celebrities that have risen in the past 15 years or so. There haven't. You, you, if you were in the nineties, it was one boy band and then three years later it was another boy band and then three years later it was another boy band you just went through cycles of, of who was famous at the [00:21:00] time.

Malcolm: You would have, you know, one pop star, one pop star, one pop star, you just cycled, ch ch ch ch ch. Today, movie stars too, you know, you look at who are the top movie stars today. If I ask even a young person to name the top movie stars today. Many of them are going to be movie stars that would have been famous movie stars in the 90s.

Simone: Yeah. Now there's all this discussion of using AI to just make them look younger again or continue using. Keep them forever. Right. Even if they die. Yeah.

Malcolm: Why have we not had new movie stars arise? What, I mean, I actually had a cousin who was really trying to like make himself happen for a while. And a neighbor when I was young, who actually probably was the closest thing to a new movie star before he blew up his wife.

Malcolm: It was Armie Hammer with the neighbor when I was younger and the cousin was, was Miles Fisher who worked really hard to try to build himself into a star. It actually has done very well in business since then. He now runs or is on the board of some big AI company he started. Hey, I love that my, my family is competent, even when they spend their whole life in [00:22:00] acting.

Malcolm: And then they're like he used to specialize in pretending to be what's his name? Tom Cruise. He did you've seen the what's the video? It became a meme for a while.

Simone: It was based on

Malcolm: American Psycho, right? Yeah, the American Psycho fake meme thing that was like a music video of that. Yeah.

Malcolm: Anyway. So yeah, some, some, I, I appreciate their competence, but I actually wonder if the ceiling for him breaking out was actually not that he wasn't successful or he didn't have the chops to break out. It was like, it stagnated. Stars were no longer being generated during the period where he was trying to break into that space.

Malcolm: And so why, why is it no longer any new stars? I mean, part of this could be tied to pronatalism. You know, as the aging society, everyone is focused on the last generation. Everyone is focused on the last generation to have kids, right? And as you don't have a huge financial pressure for kids, you can also say this might be tied to streaming services.

Malcolm: Like maybe [00:23:00] nothing really feels like if I look at like the one star group that actually has broken out, it's the cast of Stranger Things. Right. Like they're continuing to move up. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But that was like the one like big breakout I can think

Simone: of. Right. And then you also make a really good point though, about it's not just stars, it's also content that we're doing so many prequels and sequels and using a lot of existing properties.

Simone: So you could argue that story creativity is way down too. Yeah. And is that a supply chain issue? Is that a creativity

Malcolm: issue? No, I mean, we can try to become, also this can apply to us becoming public figures. How do we achieve that? My suspicion is I can only achieve it by pissing people off. I can only achieve it by being controversial.

Malcolm: Because that seems to be the one way you grab public attention now. The people who solidify their power by... Saying what is approved of by society, they are able to do that either because of who their parents are or because of their you know, some sort of [00:24:00] level of ability to publicly disperse an opinion that had accrued to them via you know, moving up in the old system, or it could be like tick tock because they're like a hot girl or something, I suppose.

Malcolm: But unfortunately I have tried my hardest to become a hot girl, but it's just, I can't will myself to do it. Can't go all the way. Can't go all the way. Yeah. Yeah. But maybe we are the next level of attainability. A happy married couple with kids. You know, I, I, as I say, it was, it was the popularity of shows like spy family and stuff like that.

Malcolm: I, it makes me think that that is the new unattainable. Desire in society. Could that be the high status thing? I mean, and trad wives definitely didn't exist as a, as a thing in the nineties, you know, cottage core. And these are things I look at and I, I guess I find very appealing myself, but they existed as.

Malcolm: Vague ideals, but not something that anyone was really striving for

Simone: in the past. You [00:25:00] mean,

or

Malcolm: like now people have a name for being a trad wife in the nineties, being a

Simone: wife. I don't think so. Yeah. It would probably be seen as like more crunchy old woman, hippie ish. You know what I mean? Like only people's mothers who just never left that crunchy hippie phase would be doing it, you know, like homesteading.

Simone: So they

Malcolm: call it like a 1950s wife or an anti feminist or something. Is that what it would have been called?

Simone: I guess. Yeah, I really don't know. But yeah, I'm curious to see what people say in the comments. If they think that other things have really slowed down along with fashion and if the way that Well, scientific

Malcolm: developments have slowed down significantly, but I

Simone: think that's because of the

Malcolm: Well, could it just be that we don't have as many smart people who are able to come up with new ideas anymore?

Malcolm: Or new ideas are

Simone: getting punished with fashion. I know no with fashion. It's so obvious It's it's materials and it's it's methods of production. I mean to a certain extent It's also like societal [00:26:00] expectations around how much clothing you own like in the 1950s We'd already gotten to a point of a little bit more mass production and a lot more ready to wear clothing being sold But it was still something you would tailor and people still made a lot of clothing at home and also the expectation was that you'd spend a lot of money and have Very few garments, whereas now the amount of money that a household spends on clothing is trivially small.

Simone: And most of the clothing that people buy only lasts four or five machine washes, at least if they're women. So, you know, literally, they're just like rags that dissolve. Well, I'm glad that

Malcolm: you don't do that. That's disgusting. It, it

Simone: sucks. Moral,

Malcolm: moral negative.

Simone: Yeah, it's bad. But anyway, yeah, this, this is interesting.

Simone: I don't know if we have like a, a But like clear conclusion or anything, but this is just I'm going to be thinking about this for a long time. So thank you for sharing what you saw on Facebook with me this morning. I love it.

Malcolm: I love you. And I love that you challenged me to try to come up with new ideas or find challenges that we don't understand so that we can explore them together and keep our brains [00:27:00] sharp and growing.

Simone: I love you too, Malcolm. Okay. Next one is a summary. Is that right?

Malcolm: Yes.

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