Wars of Past, Not Present, Inspire Fashion

From The Associated Press:

The fashion legacy of World War I includes trench coats and shorter skirts. World War II popularized sportswear, strong shoulders and nipped waists. Vietnam inspired protest-driven Army green and fatigues.

Wartime has heralded strong periods of American style, yet the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq seem to be barely a blip on the radar of the fashion community. There’s been an uptick in camouflage prints and, a few seasons back, a mini boom of the kind of epaulettes typical of military jackets — but those styles were around before the current conflicts, and they’ll probably circle back again when they are resolved.

These wars, which began in 2001 and 2003, respectively, “have not been impactful,” at least not in obvious ways, says Kathleen Campbell, a fashion historian affiliated with the Goldstein Museum of Design at the University of Minnesota. That minimal effect might be because they are not global wars dominating the conversation in the same sense as the World Wars, nor have there been huge public protests even if they’re considered unpopular by some.

However, she adds, when history judges this period with a long-view perspective, an influence — possibly the use of scarves and/or layers like the ones used in those regions to protect against weather extremes — might emerge. “I think we’re too close to analyze the effects now. It’s much easier to see in retrospect.”

There was no such time lag, though, during World War II, which changed the way Americans dressed forever.

The article points to both the rationing of materials and a desire to display patriotism during WWII as factors in its concurrent reflections in popular style, but I think that the difference in how news and information was disseminated back then played a large role as well.

Both World Wars had a outpouring of support from the general public that was perpetuated by the then media. Nowadays opposition to war is as readily voiced as support, and we are unable to romanticize our current conflicts like our past ones, which even through the lens and distance of history seems more clear cut and morally unambiguous.

Photo credit: Associated Press