RETRO REHASH

Throwback glamour is fashion's new calling card, as evidenced by runway re-releases in the past several years. Could the turn of the new millennium be informing a new decade of style?

- Words: BENJAMIN WONG

One of the most common axioms that Internet fashion pundits enjoy recycling to no end is that trends rarely are inventive; fashion is in fact, cyclical. There is a reason why it has grown to become overworn, bordering on hackneyed. The credence in it is irrefutable when designers themselves are often self-referential to no end, drawing from a fount of archival material typecast by a design vocabulary articulated by predecessors.

Originality isn't dead, of course. God forbid. But while we can commit an entire essay on the discourse of reheating your proverbial nachos, something can also be said about not fixing a good thing if it isn't broken. Familiarity doesn't necessarily have to evoke derivation, for one.

This is especially true of runaway successes in the realm of handbags, which often take pride of place as a fashion label's most visible commodity. While one can mistake the cut of a jacket or the drape of a dress, there rarely ever is confusion between say for instance, a Classic Double Flap with a LouLou Puffer. Whether pinched underneath an arm, slung across the body or hanging off a slender elbow, one only requires an elementary fluency of style to identify a designer purse at first glance.