Style and Fashion - En Francais - and In Your Head

For those of my readers who don't have so much background in costume and the history of fashion, the single concept to know about the evolution of style as far back as we can even find evidence for the use of garments is:  the silhouette.  Silhouette is the atomic measure, the elemental baseline, the building block on which everything in human costuming is built.  Yes, EVERYTHING - I include all you who are scoffing, saying to yourselves "I don't dress for fashion."

You might not - but you are unmistakably a member of the century, the society, the world in which we live right now.  No amount of resisting affectation can change that all possible clothing has its effect.  There's no way out of it.  We're not all at one place in the current spectrum - but none among us is going to be mistaken for an Elizabethan, pre-Christian Etruscan, or Neanderthal.

For that matter, as to the MOST fashion, fad, trend, or style-conscious:  you're here and now as well, no matter how you express your participation in it.  The seven inch heels are going out of style at this point, but they're still ubiquitous.  The maxi dresses are going to be passe' in five minutes (and I will cry), but they're still a part of all this, along with you and me and the rebelliously unhip.  Right along with the hideously unflattering box-pleats-over-the-pelvis look and Mad Men and Downton Abbey vintage and (lord give me strength) sagged jeans, men's pleated-front khakis, and popped collars.



The vid here is a very good way to get a remarkably wide view of this point, and can help in understanding how silhouette forms the basis of clothing across cultures and eras.  If I mention bustles, most people would be able to come up with a mental image of a woman in 19th-century dress.  LATE 19th-century, specifically.  "Men in tights" brings to mind European clothing generally from the medieval era, not Han imperial court dress nor "American" pre-Columbian peoples.  You know these things, too.

Enjoy the vid.  And I bet you could have named every silhouette for its decade ...