Back in the early 1980s, the world was not exactly a bright and shining place. Thatcherism in the U.K. and Reaganomics in the U.S. were controversial policies at best, there was high unemployment, a constant threat of nuclear holocaust, and proxy wars being waged around the globe. The youth of both Britain and America were not high on optimism. But it was this grim environment that gave birth to post punk, New Wave, and skate culture—three styles that have become startlingly relevant again.
Take a spin through the runway collections of the recently wrapped New York Fashion Week: Men's and it quickly becomes clear that more than a few designers have dusted off their old Joy Division albums. The grim specter of Trump's administration has cast a shadow over the world similar to what all those punks, post-punks, and New Romantics were rebelling against back in the '80s. If anything, these days seem even darker.
Collections this past week from designers like Raf Simons, Thaddeus O'Neil, Steve Aoki of Dim Mak, and Joshua Cooper and Laurence Chandler of Rochambeau have all had shades of Ian Curtis, Morrissey, Joe Strummer, Adam Ant, and Christian Hosoi.
"I didn't want to go punk in its typical aesthetic but I liked the idea of going there and its attitude," Raf Simons told Raf Simons told Esquire after his show after his show. "From very early on and specifically when everything turned around in this country in terms of what was happening, I really felt like I want to do something where this group of people that would possibly wear that, they have a reaction against what's happening."
The difference this time around is that, rather than blaze an entirely new and unseen path, the style of the moment is referencing the past. It speaks a language that is both new and old, which suggests that, given the unease of the moment, there is both a need for protest, for a fight, and also a need for comfort, for nostalgia. It's looking back at difficult period in Western history, but a history in which we know the outcome.
This moment, however, is a blank slate. We have no idea how it will all shake out. And while there is a need to cry out, there is also a need to be reminded of a narrative in which things turn out okay.
Fashion is always a reflection of its time. And right now our time is a mishmash of the unknown and the unsettlingly familiar. It's like we've heard this song before, but we can't quite place who is singing it. Given what we've just seen at New York Fashion Week, it's probably the voice of Ian Curtis.
