I’m sure I am not the only person who feels this way. When I look at old styles of clothing, automobiles, etc. they look ridiculous. Oh, sure, they do look dated and from another time. But the strangest thing is, when I see old styles (esp. of automobiles) I can’t help but ask myself, How could these things have ever looked normal?
Is there a name for this phenomenon? And moreover, is there a scientific explanation for why old styles would look so, well, ridiculous now.
Here’s a bet for you: take pictures of everything around you that strikes you as the ultimate in state-of-the-art, ultra-cool, next-to-perfect. Don’t skip a thing: cars, appliances, computer peripherals, cameras, audio gear, sporting goods, clothing, footwear, book covers, movie posters, billboards, menus, company logos, just anything that your eye happens on that strikes you as “too cool for school.”
Have those pictures put into hard copy. Stash them in a safe place and label the storage area with today’s date.
Wait five years. Take them out.
Print out this thread. Compare your comments today with the way things look in five years.
If you find anything you thought (today) was too cool and it still is in five years, then you win the bet. Otherwise, I win.
Another way to do this without having to wait, is pick anything from 1995 that still holds you in awe. Are there such things?
The best thing you can say about change is that everything changes.
We, as highly social animals, are influenced greatly by our social environment and consensus. i.e. Fads, style. Immersed in a specific culture it flavors our sense of aesthetics or even taste. This is similar to asking why there are foods that we Americans love, but other cultures can’t stand the flavor of. And vice versa.
As technology improves, more effort can be put into design. I doubt that anyone thought the Ford Model T was a beautiful and stylish car. If they did, it’s because they had nothing to compare it too (aside from those hideously antiquated horse & buggies). People were just glad to have them. In the 50s, more effort could be put onto design, but there were still a lot of technical things that needed work (safety, efiiciency, etc.). While that still continues today, the refinements are getting so minor that more work can be put into improving the design and aesthetics. I suppose this theory could be boiled down to: Many things today are just plain better than their older, ulgier, counterparts. (e.g. smooth car bodies = superior aerodynamics)
Not everybody like the things, even at the time. When people look back 25 years from now on the PT Cruiser and ask why does it look so ridiculous? We’ll answer: a big percentage of us thought it looked quite ridiculous at the time. (e.g. bellbottoms). You might summarize this one as: There’s no accounting for taste.
I bought my father a slightly outdated cellphone about six years ago. When he goes to the store to buy minutes, a crowd gathers. People start jotting down notes and recording their first impressions of this ancient relic that actually still works! It’s a fuckin’ cellphone! They can’t believe their eyes. It’s about the size of a pack of cigarettes instead of the size of a book of matches.
Darn it, WhyNot beat me to it! I think PT Cruisers are ridiculous looking.
There are many old styles that still look good. Some things look absurd, but if I give any examples, I’m sure someone will come along and disagree with me, so I won’t mention anything specific like, say, leisure suits. The fashion industry brings back old clothing styles regularly. Bridal gowns with styles that date back to the 19th century are still wildly popular.
Some old cars were well-designed and still look good, but there are others that were ugly from the day they were made. Ugly cars are still being made today (for proof, look at the PT Cruiser or the Honda Element or those ugly Cadillacs with the bashed-in trunks).
It is funny how you become accustomed to changing styles. I remember that as a high school student in the 80’s, I thought bell bottom jeans were the most incredibly hideous things I’d ever seen. But then, when they came back into fashion, I got used to them and now think pegged jeans (which are making a come-back) look so wrong.
I don’t know what the reason is but I find that styles from about 20 or 25 years ago look the most dated. Newer than that and I remember when they were actually attractive. Older than that and the style starts to look nostolgic. And the twenty years stays pretty consistent. When That 70’s Show first started airing in 1998, I thought they kids wore the most god awful things (even tho’ I coudl remember them from my childhood). Now, seven years later, I think some of the fashion looks “classic”.
“The same dress is indecent ten years before its time; daring one year before its time; chic in its time; dowdy five years after its time; hideous twenty years after its time; amusing thirty years after its time; romantic one hundred years after its time; beautiful one hundred and fifty years after its time.”
James Laver (1899 – 1975) English fashion designer, critic
I’m rather fond of the unique and individualistic looks of yesteryear’s products.
And in cameras… Well, the way the mechancally solved certain problems that are now done with preprogrammed microchips is both fascinating and beautiful.
I sure don’t want to go back to the old stuff in everything, but some products just stand the test of time.
Still, I have a hard time looking at, say, the kind of stovepipe hat Lincoln wore, and imagining how it ever became popular. On the other hand, the gorgeous suit-coats and tailcoats worn by Jefferson and Washington should be still available today, they’re just so wonderful. I suppose one could make one from a reproduction pattern.
I have not hailed the return of the designs of the 70’s. But stuff from the 50’s or 40s I wouldn’t object to. Go figure.
I think the really good stuff sticks. I love the way people dressed in the 1940’s. Men and women. I loved the military uniforms, the ladies dresses, the ladies trousers, the men’s rakish hats. Those people knew how to dress.
And classic styles remain classic, and never really go out of style. The 1957 Corvette or the Porsche 911 have been hailed as beautiful designs since the day they were made, and there was never really a point at which they became out of style. Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture is still great. The Willys jeep. The brown leather jacket for men. Ties have changed from year to year, but seem to move through the same styles repeatedly. Thick ties, thin ties, short ties, long ties… These things come and go, but except for the very extreme exceptions, have never really been totally out of fashion.
It’s the kitch of one era that looks stupid to another. The ‘popular culture’. Disco clothes. Zoot suits. Huge bustles. My guess is that they were popular at their time because they resonated in some way with the people and the culture. Take the cultural context away, and they just look ridiculous in their excess.
In as much as they look ridiculous now, it’s because they’re out of their original context. Broader fashions and trends don’t stand out at the time because they’re nearly ubiquitous, and they creep up in an evolutionary way. They get taken for granted by people who adopt them. They look funny to outsiders at the time, but they look normal to people who are immersed in the style. Like I said a while back in a thread about an extreme contemporary fashion:
Whether it’s zoot-suits, powdered wigs, or bell-bottoms, these fashions really only exist to mark people as “up” on the trends. In order for fashion to be fashion, it has to make bold departures from what has gone before – and that leads to sometimes absurd deviations from what is strictly practical.
When fashions are truly ubiquitous, and not just an extreme subset, we don’t generally think about the ways that they deviate from the practical – we just take it for granted that that’s the way everything looks. Like a fish’s unawareness of the water, if I can descend to cliche.
Sometimes people are jarred into a consciousness of current absurdities. Suppose a bright guy, in the early fifties, had the opportunity to really look at the contemporary styles of the automobiles around him, without just taking them for granted. It might go something like this:
Of course, the mescaline helped.
Myself, I would dress in Edwardian styles if I could get away with it. Yeah, they’re absurd in their own way, but I like 'em. I like bulbous vehicles, too. They look friendly.
Or this for that matter. I will love forever anyone who buys me the latter. (Or rather, makes me an exact repro, because there’s no way this one would fit me.)
The other night they were filming a movie around the cornor from me. (Brooklyn NY)
Along one side of the street there was parked a collection of cars from the late '40s early '50s.
Seeing just them, without their modern counterparts, they looked completly normal. Add to the fact that since this is Brooklyn, it is easy to imagine that the streets looked nearly the same as it does now and it was like a little time machine.
But I don’t think old stuff looks ridiculous. I think what you see are the most exaggerated examples of old styles. Everybody didn’t walk around wearing Zoot Suits. Just those crazy kids.
Let’s not forget that most of us have an instinctively negative reaction to styles and trends associated with older, living relatives (parents or grandparents). After all, when you’re young and forming your own tastes, your parents are the people who Know Nothing, and your grandparents are just Old.
In keeping with Jayrot’s first theory expressed upthread, those of us who are well socialized usually carry some of these prejudices into adulthood. Likewise, an unusual interest in an earlier time can often indicate that a person is not socially well adjusted. (I know I’m not!)
