This century’s hottest fashion trends

By Cole Griffin [Political Bureau Chief]

10. The Jazz Age: The roaring twenties are best known for the birth of jazz, prohibition, and Al Capone. However this was also the age of zoot suits and flapper dresses. That’s right, shorter skirts cut to look like tubes and wide shouldered jackets topped by broad brimmed hats were as freaky as it got. It seemed daring at the time though. Cab Calloway and Tallulah Bankhead were the epitomes of style.

9. The Depression: What do you do when all the money is gone? You starve and go hungry of course. Then you hit the rails searching for work. While not a particularly distinct era of fashion the thirties are notable for bring hobo chic into the mainstream. Threadbare tweed jackets, tattered skirts, folded newspaper stopping the holes in your shoes, and a bindle were all you needed to make the scene. Now all you had to worry about was getting knifed in a boxcar over a can of baked beans.

8. The Second World War: While London felt the blitz and mainland Europe lived in fear under the tyranny of fascism, there was a second war hardly spoken of in History books. That war was between two of the biggest names in high fashion, Hugo Boss and Burberry. Sure, Burberry put in a good effort with its earthy browns and loose fits, but who dressed better than the Nazis? Honestly, these guys dressed so well I would be inclined to acknowledge their innate superiority on first glance. Not to mention their direct influence on an even greater fashion icon: Darth Vader.

7. The Beatniks: While the beatniks are often charicatured in black turtle necks with accompanying berets, the fact is beatnik poetry was accompanied by bohemian fashion. The bohemians, for those of you unfamiliar, dressed as poorly as possible in a direct attack on the idea of fashion. They wore lampshades for headwear and potato sacks for skirts. The reason you never see or hear about this era of fashion is because we are all trying to forget it. Fortunately Jack Kerouac dressed like a biker.

6. The Bikers: Blue jeans, tight tees, leather jackets and brylcreem, brylcreem, brylcreem, was all a cat needed to swing to be cool. The girls wore bobby socks and poodle skirts or, if they were fast, Capri jeans and their boyfriends work shirts. If you were cool and you ever actually ran across a guy who dressed like Archie Andrews, it was a fair move to kick his ass. Elvis was, is, and always shall be the King of this Era.

5. The Mods: Peaking in the early sixties, the mods were an eclectic group with a broadly influenced culture. When you’re thinking of mod icons you’re thinking of Austin Powers, or early pictures of The Who, also those girls in the mini-skirts who pumped their fists and shook their heads wildly. One of the most amazing and lasting contributions of this era was the Bikini, named after the testing sight of the first a-bomb, Bikini Atoll.

4. The Hippies: One day Cary Grant met Timothy Leary and introduced him to a little thing called LSD, around the same time a guy named Bob Dylan offered the Beatles a toke, next thing you know Sgt. Pepper was giving a magical mystery tour and free love reigned. Then a Hell’s Angel stabbed a girl at a Stones show in Altima, next thing you no free love, and all anti-war. Suddenly those long hair freaks weren’t just dressing funny and preaching pipe dreams, they were halting the war effort and bombing the establishment. Bell bottoms were every where, and Jimi Hendrix was the fashion guru.

3. Disco: Leisure suits and bad dancing. John Travolta. That is all.

2. Hip-hop: Track suits appear to be the one enduring mainstay of hip hop culture. As soon as they appear to be out again, some rapper brings them back in. When I think hip hop fashion, I think Adidas. But the fact is hip hop fashion is the most contrived category in the history of fashion, with every other rap star trying to change the game with his own fashion line. Clothing lines like Fubu and whatever the hell Puffy’s thing is called, suck ween and only serve to erect greater divides between us. That’s why true hip hop fashion cannot be pinned down, for it is as ethereal as pure love.

1.Metal:  Tight jeans, leather jackets, or torn plaid shirts and T-shirts swearing allegiance to your favourite metal band. Metal was the first style of dress wherein you were required to wear a rock tee to be cool. Also long hair with crazy volume did not hurt. What’s amazing though is how much influence the old school skid-dogs still have on fashion today. Rock Ts have pervaded every sub-culture, and that whole grunge era was really just a metal era with looser jeans.