This thread caused me to wonder if there are any future fashion trends that are so absurd as to be safe from occurring in the future. To the now-middle-aged generation, the cool thing was to wear pants tight enough to proclaim one’s religion, but now the trend has gone to the other extreme. I watch kids wearing hip-hop fashions and I say (to myself, of course) “Is that even safe? Looks like you’d get tangled up easily, and forget about operating machinery with all that flapping material. Where’s his waist anyway? Does he have a crotch? That heavy-set fellow’s thighs must be rubbing against each other constantly–how can he stand that?” etc, exactly as my parents must have wondered about my painted on pants in the 1960s.
I’ve speculated that, in order to get a rise out of me, my teenagers (now 19 and 15) would have to go much further than merely piercing themselves, and I told them that, to be truly shocking, they would need to insert a piece of wood or bone clean through some body part, which neither of them has taken me up on so far. What’s your nominee for some future fashion trend designed to appall the baggy-pants generation? How far, IOW, will their kids have to go to make these baggy-pants kids exclaim, “Wow, that’s so ugly, and so unsafe, and so unsanitary…”?
I’ve recently noticed in music videos a shift towards fin de siecle decadence. Lots of pouty effeminate types wearing make-up and satin. Yet in some rap videos, camoflage is still cool, possibly because of the war in Iraq.
While that may be our immediate future, I’m still waiting for capes to come back. One day I’ll fling one over my shoulder and stride jauntily down the street.
Actually, thinking about it, wouldn’t we all go biotech like the kids in William Gibson’s Neuromancer, or Wolverine, and have useful/deadly but fashionable implants and that sort of thing?
I saw a “news report” a while ago abut clothing made with fiber optics or some shit, I don’t know from science… but the clothing would essentially light up, glow, shimmer. This would be in ways that didn’t look tacky like you are wearing neon but rather like you have a holy aura around you.
My guess is that in a generation or two, it will be “cool” to wear your pants the way old people typically do. Really tight, pulled all the way up to the chest, with the cuffs hovering barely an inch or two below the knees.
Does anyone else remember that guy in The Diamond Age who hd nanotech inserts in his eyes, and someone hacked into them, and he killed himself after enduring several months of constant commercials? Somehow this thread reminds me of him.
A friend says we’re going to be patiently asking our teenagers, “Bobby, are you sure you want to permanently colour yourself blue?”
Every age has had ridiculous and possibly unsafe fashions. I for one hope we don’t see a resurgence in hair-powdering and lead makeup.
Yeah, electroluminescent fabric. I figure the next step is LCD fabric that could show video clips on a dress or suit. Unsatisfied with wearing prominent labels, folks could wear actual ads for Dolce & Gabbana or Calvin Klein.
I figure that to shock the tattooed and pierced generations, our kids are going to have to grow their armpit hair out long and braid bells into it to give me the same reaction my parents have to my piercings. Also, dye it glow in the dark colors.
Judging from movies and comic strips of the 1930s and 1940s, people in the future will wear robes or jumpsuits with capes, with headbands as accessories. Just look at Things to Come or the old Superman or Flash Gordon strips.
The capes would be dramatic, as long as they weren’t required.
Wolf teeth implants.
“Active tattoos” that form moving images.
Facial scarification, to the point you look like a Gila monster.
Implanted LCDs.
Breasts. On men ( from a John Varley book ).
Implanted symbiotic greenery.
A wide variety of biological modifications, from “furries” who really are anthropmorphic animals, to bizarre sexual modifications I won’t go into.
Implanted firefly genes, for that healthy glow.
Massive, deliberately inhuman cybernetic replacement/additions to the body.
Actually, the trend of Generation Y is that they shock their parents in how little they rebel. I predict vests, sweaters and heavy wool slacks to come back into fashion.
The trick to fashion is to see what little kids are doing now. Multicolored, glittery nailpolish went from being a cheap product to being found in mainstream brands when the little girls that had grown up on it grew up to where they might actually buy mainstream brands. I think the reason why girls today can’t seem to cover their navels is that they all grew up on Ariel and Jasmine, not Aurora and Cinderella.
