Early Installment Weirdness / Fashion

• Before the concept of mass-production in the Industrial Revolution, articles of clothing were sewn by hand, usually in the home of the person who would wear them.
• Before 1800, shoes were not distinguishable from left or right.
• If one thinks of 19th century Western fashion in general as "Victorian", think again. While Queen Victoria's reign is quite a long runner, the first 37 years of the 1800s sported high-waisted muslin dresses for women, and jockey-inspired dandy suits for men. And not all Victorian fashions for women sported bustles. The fashion silhouettes during the first years of Queen Victoria's reign consisted of off-shoulder poofy sleeves and ankle-length (such a scandal!) skirts supported by petticoats or horsehair crinolines and overly decorated with lace and flowers. And the colour palette was pastel.
• Coco Chanel's franchise originally sold hats for women before experimenting on clothes, perfumes, and other accessories while her rival, Elsa Schiaparelli, didn't have that surrealist chic in her early designs.
• Fashion statements during the dawn of a decade can still have carryovers from the last decade before progressing to its own new style after a year or two or so.
  • Fashions in 1910 consisted of a sharp suit with high collars for men, and wide-brimmed Merry Widow hats and a Gibson Girl-esque silhouette for women. These were gradually phased out over the next year.
  • Fashions during the early 1920s for women had tunic-like tops, longer skirts and wider hats, and for men, an hourglass-shaped jacket with slimmer pants.
  • Fashions for women during the first years of The '30s still had a stovepipe silhouette, albeit with a higher waistline and a more feminine and more flary appearance due to the effects of the bias-cut.
  • Fashions in 1940 had a few traces of 1930s silhouettes in it, whether the bias-cut effect or Art Deco accessories. It wasn't until the invasion of France and the implementation of rationing made the clothes more subdued and more "hard chic" robust in form.
  • Teen fashions in the early 1950s were distinguishable from the styles of the adults. That said, early 50s fashions still had some shoulder pads in it and had a richer palette from rose pink to grey to dark red to navy blue to cream.
  • Fashions during the early 1960s had slim dresses with tight knee-length skirts for women and neutral toned suits for men. Think of Mad Men.
  • Fashions in 1970 had bright psychedelic space-age prints, miniskirts reaching the crotch, and had sharp silhouettes. Plus, the fashion statements were a bit uniform and collectivist (skirt lengths should be like this, suit colors should be like that, polyester pants are a no-no). It wasn't until the next year that styles went more down-to-earth, and more individualistic.
  • Fashions in 1980 were still clinging to late 1970s styles while it was experimenting on power dressing and sharp, business-minded looks. And it wasn't even neon-colored.
  • Fashions in 1990 still had neon prints in their still wide-shouldered shirts and jackets. Plaid flannel at that time was mostly worn by lumberjacks and a few individuals in Seattle.
  • Fashion trends during the first three years of the 2000s pressed on the the casual "New Millennium" fashions that was imposed during the late 1990s.
  • Early 2010s fashion trends seem to be a transition of late 2000s casual styles, while also sporting the hipstery, slim, sharp look that would define the rest of the decade.
  • Fashion norms of The 20th Century in general definitely changed in just a span of a hundred years. A hundred years ago, the fashionable men once walked the streets with a felt hat, a three-piece suit, kid gloves, and shiny patent leather shoes, carrying a cane and often sporting a pocket watch. The women walked with poise while donning giant hats, longer hair styled in updos, long gloves, no makeup, and tight corsets worn inside very long dresses that covered from chin to toe.
• Even non-Western fashion has cases of Early-Installment Weirdness. The national costumes we see today also took development from decades or centuries of change, and are even subject to the change of silhouettes and patterns during the course of The 20th Century .
  • One instance is the qipao. They were only a recent invention and has its origins from Manchu clothing, and even so, the changing silhouette of the qipao◊ echoes that of the change in Western silhouettes.