1920s

Influential designers: Coco Chanel , Jean Patou.

Key features: Women chose easy clothing over cumbersome gowns after World War I. Out went corsets and in came short skirts. Coco Chanel invented the Chanel suit in 1924. Women’s liberation and flapper fashion had a major impact. Bobs, flat chests, red lips, relaxed waistlines and high hemlines were highlights.

1930s

Style icons: Marlene Dietrich and Wallace Simpson.

Influential designers: Madeleine Vionnet and Elsa Schiaparelli.

Key features: Comfortable clothing remained the order of the Thirties and along with that there was a return to old school glamour. Madeleine Vionnet worked on the romantic bias cut while Elsa Schiaparelli dressed Marlene Dietrich in the iconic man’s suit, sparking off a big trend.

1940s

Style icons: Veronica Lake, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret.

Influential designer: Christian Dior.

Key features: The decade was divided. From a de-glam straight line military look complete with berets, to a full and feminine hour-glass look courtesy Dior (picture above), the 1940s were one of the most glamorous decades ever.

1950s

Style icons: Audrey Hepburn, Liz Taylor, Grace Kelly.

Influential designers: Norman Hartnell, Hubert Givenchy and Coco Chanel.

Key features: Coco Chanel came back to business in the 1950s. Her answer to Dior’s New Look was a boxy Chanel tweed jacket suit. Fashion became streamlined in some ways but went full-glam in the other. Hollywood became bigger than ever.

1960s

Style icons: Twiggy , Jackie Kennedy.

Influential designers: Mary Quant, Yves Saint Laurent.

Key features: Skirts became straighter and shorter. Baby doll became the look of the latter half of Sixties. Trapeze and tents were the other important shapes. Fashion became bolder.

1970s

Style icons: Cher, Charlie’s Angels , Bianca Jagger.

Influential designers: Yves Saint Laurent, Vivienne Westwood.

Key features: It was all about disco, flower power, hippie... Everything went — granny blouses, tiny skirts, long maxis and hot pants or flared bellbottoms. Many ethnic influences were seen too. Punk was born.

1980s

Style icons: Madonna , Linda Evans (from Dynasty) and Princess Diana.

Influential designers: Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Donna Karan.

Key features: The film Flashdance played an important role in defining the decade’s look. Fitness and fashion came close. So did grunge and layering. Power dressing also gained importance. Big shoulders, tights, chunky plastic trinkets, innerwear and big hair ruled the years.

A Gauri & Nainika silhouette inspired by the late 1940s

A Seventies inspired spring-summer. A Forties inspired fall-winter. What a time in fashion! But 2008 is hardly the first year that sees looks being borrowed briefly from past eras.

With a growing appetite for new trends and new looks, decades have gradually shrunk to years and years have gradually shrunk to seasons. Change is the only couture constant. The last two years has seen the look go from skinny to flare, Fifties to Sixties, dresses to pantsuits, trapeze to body con and minimal to shimmer. Phew!

When the 1980s ended (and thank god for that), what ended with it was the fashion era. There will be no iconic look to trace back to the 2000s. There will be no hemline special to 2010. There will be no silhouette belonging to the Nineties. All that we are left with are pieces of the past — the flapper fashion of 1920s, the luxe of 1950s, the swinging sexiness of 1970s and the outrageousness of 1980s…

Our current claim to fame? Remix. Remake. Recycle. Revisit. Reinvent. Also known as “inspiration”. t2 explores why the new millennium can never give birth to something uniquely its own...

Pressure

The constant demand for newness is perhaps the biggest pressure of them all. It is not easy to churn out one new line after another, season after season, year after year.
Couturier Sabyasachi Mukherjee feels that the seasons are getting too close to each other, thus making it difficult to deliver something truly novel. “We are forcing ourselves to think. And creativity can never come on command. It just happens. As a result, what we are getting is inspiration, not invention,” he says.

A 1970s-style ensemble by Ranna Gill

The pressure, of course, was always there. Christian Dior, who gave women the ‘New Look’ in 1947, post World War II, is said to have always stressed about delivering a fantastically different and dramatic idea after his historical Corolle collection.
Matters have only become worse, largely due to...

Commerce

The market is flooded, allowing consumers to label hop with no regard for loyalty. So where is the scope to linger with an old look when the competitor is churning out fresh styles by the minute?

And often they lure you with lower prices. And that basically goes against the DNA of iconic decades where luxury was an important factor. When you are cutting costs, quality is bound to suffer.

Sabya believes that competitive price points have a definite role to play in the death of fashion era. “Anything creative can never be a business. Fashion traditionally had high idealism and little commerce. Now the idealism quotient has gone down and commerce rules the game.”

GeNext feels no differently. Calcutta-based designer Kallol Datta feels that nothing is awe-inspiring anymore. “The historic decades and their pioneers believed more in philosophy, not so much in a look. But now, driven by numbers, designers want to dictate looks, not create them. We have lots of dictators, no creators.”

Globalisation

There’s a lot more exposure these days, feels fashion designer Narendra Kumar, eating away at the consumer attention span. “There are too many designers, options, trends,” he says. There is so much more information being passed around with a flick of the remote, a click of the mouse. “Earlier, fashion news was passed around twice a month. Nowadays, there’s sharing every day, often twice a day,” adds Narendra.

Kallol agrees that fashion has transcended borders. So while we were happy to wear a look for a prolonged period in the past, till something really radical came about, quick penetration of fashion has ruled that out. People want a change and, in a flash, they have it.

As Sabya sums up: “An average human sleeve length is 23 inches. It has been pleated, tucked, cut, billowed, ruched… There is no point being ridiculous for the sake of being creative. Who wants to look like a turkey?”

And though many do try to look different for the sake of it, most would rather look good, even if it means living off the past.

Desi style icons

1930s

DEVIKA RANI

Though India hadn’t really woken up to a style scene as early as the 1930s, Devika Rani, born Devika Rani Chaudhuri Roerich, was the unofficial face of fashion in the country. Often called the first lady of the Indian screen, Devika Rani was well ahead of her time. Did you know that she did a four-minute long kissing scene with Himanshu Rai in Karma? Now, that’s some tashan!

1940s

SURAIYA

Singer, actress and style icon, Suraiya Jamaal Sheikh was Hindi cinema’s most popular face during the 1940s and early 1950s. Her roles in Pyar Ki Jeet (1948), Badi Bahen (1949) and Dillagi (1949) made her a raging superstar — her fan following so strong that it has been compared to the Rajesh Khanna craze. Suraiya’s status as style icon was further strengthened by the migration of competitors Noor Jehan and Khursheed to Pakistan, post-Partition.

1950s

MADHUBALA

Born Mumtaz Begum Jehan Dehlavi, Madhubala is still considered the face of Indian beauty and grace. The trio of Nargis, Meena Kumari and Madhubala set the screen on fire during the 1950s. India had attained Independence and the masses were ready for their initiation into fashion. Madhubala balanced two images — she could be the typical Indian beauty with all her Indianness, she could be very Western, very cool, and yes, sexy. She was known for her well-tailored dresses and three-quarter pants and romantic curls and was often compared to Marilyn Monroe.

1960s

ASHA PAREKH

The bouffant, the stretched eyeliner, the super tight churidar-kurta... The 1960s were easily the most stylish years of Indian fashion, epitomised by Asha Parekh. Dil Deke Dekho opposite Shammi Kapoor made her a big name overnight but she had her share of competition during her stint as superstar. She shared the spotlight with the likes of Sadhana, Nutan, Babita, Saira Banu and Waheeda Rehman. The latter half of the decade saw the rise of Sharmila Tagore. All stunning, all stylish.

1970s

ZEENAT AMAN

Zeenie Baby represented the Swinging Seventies like no one else. Her body language, attitude and Western style sensibilities made her the glamour icon that she was. She tapped the pulse of the moment accurately, be it her chance role in Dev Anand’s Hare Rama Hare Krishna or Don. Her career moves were a guiding light to Parveen Babi and Tina Munim and her fashion sense became the look book for scores of Indians.

1980s

SRIDEVI

If 1980s were a fashion nightmare the world over, the Indian scene was hardly different — loud and OTT. Sridevi was the most stylish star of the decade. Her blockbuster films Tohfa, Nagina, Mr India, Chandni and Chaalbaaz made her a fashionable figure. She evolved her look consistently through the decade, moving from her thunder thigh days in Himmatwala to the chiffon-and-pearl look of Chandni.

Shradha Agarwal
What is your favourite decade of fashion? Tell t2@abpmail.com