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The FG Magazine is a digital fashion publication that highlights the artistic and cultural landscape of the international community by engaging with unique individuals and supporting emerging talents.
SUNDAY 4TH AUGUST 2013A BLAST FROM THE PAST
Retro Inspired One-Piece by Laura Urbinati
MILAN, Italy — Retro inspired swimsuits are unquestionably this year’s much sought after trend. From luxury fashion brands to the high-street, stores are embracing the elegance and poise that the 50‘s and 60‘s once offered. Designers leaned on vintage references such as high-waisted Bikinis, retro one pieces and all-white cutouts, to name a few. You might as well have observed that as the dependence on retro design elements and symbols started to become ubiquitous, influencing more and more aspects of the whole design industry, the demand for authentic versions that are true to the past is constantly on the rise.
Retro Inspired One-Piece by Laura Urbinati
Retro Inspired One-Piece by Laura Urbinati
It should be noted though that these current throw-backs in styles are raising many questions. The whole idea of “pin up” is that women at that time were happy to display their curves in a modest way. Accentuating your waist, and by default your hips, were considered symbols of beauty and projected the ideal body image of that era. Keeping that in mind, what is pushing today’s designers to revert to an earlier stage for inspiration? And most importantly, what is driving customers’ eagerness to embrace such trend?
One possibility is that designers are simply suffering from a “designer block” and they are finding their refuge in vintage retreats. However exhausted this argument could sound, it would be somewhat extreme to claim that the whole design industry is lacking creativity. After all, if you observe the way this trend is being rendered and curated, you could grasp, with little effort, that it is screaming creativity.
Consequently, this will shift the argument towards a change in consumer demand. It could be argued that it is the customer who is pushing towards this change. Many might claim that we are becoming, as a society, weary after years of pursuing a skeletal body image, and even more scared of the extreme consequences on women’s physical and mental well being that came along with this pursuance.
There are endless studies and data to justify this reasoning. For instance, research conducted with young Australian people in 2010 on behalf of theNEDC, the National Eating Disorders Collaborations, indicated that 62.8% of the interviewees know up to five individuals who may have an eating disorder. Another possible scenario is that the fashion industry has made people hopelessly ashamed of their bodies which could explain the increased customer demand for conservative styles that offer more coverage.
Retro Inspired One-Piece by Laura Urbinati
According to Denise Greenaway, an Australian psychologist specialising in image-disorders, the return to the more curvaceous, goddess like women, will certainly be welcomed by the majority of women.
As a psychologist working with girls and women with eating disorders, I can vouch for the effect fashion has. While fashion may not create eating disorders per say, it does have a negative impact on ‘recovery’. Many girls are asked if they are models. Receiving positive praise for thinness discourages them from gaining weight. And for obese patients, their depression is exacerbated by fashion which extols thinness as a virtue.
Besides Denise’s reflections on the probability that the retro fashion has resulted from consumer pressure, she emphasises that a lot has to change in the fashion psyche before women can be celebrated for what they are: diverse. A one size fits all approach does not serve them, especially when that one size suits only the smallest fraction of the minority.
COURTESY OF: DENISE GREENAWAY | PHOTOGRAPHY BY: PRESS OFFICE LAURA URBINATI SRL | EDITED BY: ELIZABETH DEHEZA
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