GREATEST HITS

Musicians are revisiting their fashion "eras"-and with them, their pasts.

- Tyler McCall

There was a time, not so long ago, when the term "era" brought to mind strictly academic concepts: a scale to measure the Earth's geological time; a system for classifying sweeping events of human history; a theoretical timeline of our known universe.

These days, though, "era" brings to mind different phases in the careers of our most beloved pop stars, distinct album cycles marked by a change in fashion-and for these artists, there's money to be made in revisiting their sartorial pasts. Madonna recently embarked on her greatest-hits Celebration Tour, and Jennifer Lopez subtly nodded to her own past phases leading up to her epic musical film This Is Me...Now: A Love Story. Missy Elliott recently re-created some of her iconic music video looks on Instagram, to the delight of '90s kids everywhere. "People cling to nostalgia," says llana Kaplan, a freelance culture writer and editor. "It creates buzz all over again."