Retro/Weirdo

You might have noticed that I'm reading some Vonnegut. Listen: what would have given anyone that idea? The novel of the week is Timequake, in which Vonnegut, Kilgore Trout, and the whole world have to go through the nineties twice. Something like this had occured to me even before I got the book from the library yesterday, as fashionable people on the streets of Chicago moved from the seventies to the eighties.

You can't miss the faded jeans, the mohawks, and even the occasional neon leg warmer walking around Hyde Park. I know that the seventies preceded the current fad, because I recently bought a lot of t-shirts on sale that were yellow or blue with retro bands of black around the collar and sleeves. Before the seventies came the sixties. There have been at least two complete cycles of the styles of 1960-1989 in my living memory. A girl I had a crush on in middle school wore bell bottoms.

But why does the cycle start at 1960? This is the thing I noticed recently: there's a porous barrier that floats between 1920 and 1959. Fashions from after the barrier are retro, anything from before is just weird. Sunglasses that go from dark on top to clear at the bottom? Retro. Top hat? Weirdo.

A closed loop of styles has been repeating itself since the early nineties. This conveniently removes free will when setting trends, but it also requires a never-ending series of periodic updates to wardrobes. Cha-ching! Here is my theory: the loop seems to be defined by those styles that appear without comment in the movies that we watch. Those t-shirts I bought? "Boogie Nights." Slicked-back hair on over-monied jerks downtown? "Wall Street."

My theory also explains two outliers. First: we have occasional flashes back to the forties. This is either because of all the noir and war movies that are still watchable, or because of the style and mood of "Blade Runner." On the other hand, a few years back my brother got for Christmas (and wore happily) a knit cap with a short bill and a sort of squat, cylindrical construction– a hip, knit version of the kepi hats worn by various militaries through history. Where would it occur to my brother that something from the Civil War would be stylish? Ask Arch Stanton.