From the early 1900s to today, women’s fashion has undergone countless changes and adaptations. Through the ebbs and flows of fashion movements, women found their own unique personal styles. While there are set styles of clothing, individuals personalize and make each style their own. Many clothing styles developed and evolved to reach their current state. Fashion has a place in many people’s hearts and shows itself in day-to-day life. Fashion is adaptive, and throughout history fashion has been used for self-expression, communication, and even rebellion. While fashion changes constantly, the main styles seem to hold true to their original intentions. Check out this guide on the different types of clothing styles and their brief histories.
Bohemian
The bohemian clothing style is peaking in popularity today. From celebrity styles to the ever-growing world of music festivals, it’s sure to be an in look this year. Once the boho clothing style first emerged, it never truly faded. It is one of the most, if not the most, adaptable clothing styles. From its humble beginnings in Paris after the French Revolution, bohemian clothing stood for the artistic other. Artists after the French Revolution found themselves poor and short of work. After the war people did not have the excessive wealth that used to drive and sponsor artistic careers. This is rumored to be the origin of the term “starving artist,” since the artists were struggling to feed themselves and their families for the first time since the emergence of the bourgeois. The artists began dressing in any scraps of clothing they could find. It developed into a way to incorporate art into their style since many had to take up other trades and leave the arts behind.
Through years of development, adaptation, and new influences, the women’s bohemian clothing style flourished into a style of nonconformity, boldness, and rebellion. Even though the original intent of the style was simply to add art to an unfortunate necessity, the style began to symbolize rebellion and freedom. Even though artists were no longer able to make their living as artists, they refused to conform and give up; they now expressed their art through their fashion.
Today, the style reflects influences of the French Romantic era, the American hippie era, and bohemian and gypsy styles. Through adaptations of boho and the more mainstream boho-chic, this remains one of the most popular and customizable styles of clothing.
Glamour
Glamour is a style that finds its place in every era. Luxury pieces are always coveted. The extent to which glamour informs the mainstream is entirely dictated by the economic state at the moment. For example, the 1920s leaned heavily into the glamour trend, highlighting flashy outfits and fashionable displays of wealth. When the Great Depression hit, glamour was no longer expected in fashion. Though glamour’s endurance depends on the means of society, the desire for glamour is never truly extinguished. Flashy jewelry, sparkly clothing, and extravagant prices exemplify what glamour stands for. It’s a celebration of the luxuries in life, success, and wealth.
Glamour manifests in eveningwear mostly and originated with the early recording of societies. Today, glamour is celebrated in popular culture even during a time when minimalism is trending. Celebrities and high-profile events are some of the most recognizable examples of glamour style in the world today.
Grunge
The grunge style started as a music type and developed into an entire movement, seeping into the fashion and attitudes within a certain subculture. It first emerged in the mid-1980s. In the ’80s, music took a turn from disco to rock filled with angsty lyricism and distorted guitar. As the music world evolved into a new era, so did fashion. The sentiment of not caring about trends ironically turned into the biggest trend of the era.
Grunge style is a mixture of rocker chic and bohemian. It draws its leather and studded influences from rockers. Leather boots, tights, and leather jackets rule when it comes to dressing grunge. From the bohemian style trend, grunge embraces the attitude of society’s outcasts. Unlike the bohemians, who rejected society in turn for an artistic and loving subculture, grunge keep the societal rejection but replaces the loving subculture with angst. This takes the subculture and converts it into more of an anti-culture.
Grunge is still alive in subcultures today but has returned to its original purpose of staying out of the mainstream. Today, it holds a sense of nostalgia for those who lived though the ’80s and ’90s and a sense of old-school rebellion for younger generations.
Streetstyle
Streetstyle is one of the fastest growing trends today. As one of the newest clothing styles to emerge, it began in the 1970s and took over mainstream fashion slowly as clothing expectations adapted with society. Streetstyle draws mainly from hip hop with influences from skateboarders. This clothing style recently gained popularity with celebrities. The influence of athleisure mixed with sport style, hip hop trends, and a growing societal push for a move from formalwear is what helped streetstyle explode onto the radar.
Its origins began in New York and California. In 1970s California, there was an emerging subculture of skateboarders wearing clothing that didn’t conform to the day’s style. A decade later another subculture, hip hop, was forming its own nonconformist style in New York. These two styles collided in the ’90s to create what is now known as streetstyle. Streetstyle celebrates entrepreneurship as one of the first clothing styles to welcome outsiders into the fashion industry and even celebrating the destruction of the typical fashion gatekeepers. Small clothing designers began producing T-shirts, sneakers, and other streetwear. Eventually these brands grew rapidly in popularity and began partnering with high-fashion brands, skyrocketing this style into the mainstream.
Today, there is speculation whether the trend is dying down or here to stay. Regardless, the push for a more comfortable style is a welcome change that seems to be embraced by the youth of America.
