Change Is The Only Constant: The Dawn Of Our New Cultural Era

Across the menswear Spring/Summer ’22 season, designers have explored how our relationship with dress has evolved as it attempts to indulge in a new, still undefined cultural era poised by abrupt changes as a result of the pandemic — which poses the question: what is fashion’s place in our lives today?

- Manfred Lu

The fashion presentations are a visible expression of social identity. Pieces of fabrics stitched, materialised for a particular function and eventually absorbed into someone’s life — the historical insistence on this pillar displays various critical economic, social, and cultural moments in our history. Few examples support this theory; corsets were abandoned with the invention of bicycles, the dissemination of the female contraceptive birth control pill gave rise to the mini skirt, and the Vietnam War progressed fashion decades ahead. What belies this totalising reality are moments of crisis where the same indicators became less immediate. The experience of a recession in 1991 was thought to bring back Depression-era sensibilities, where scarcity of wealth meant less excess and more purposeful choices. Instead, a newly formed desire for conceptual and famously fabulous clothes rose to popularity by the likes of designers in the UK challenging the practice of fashion and its intentions. This is where the history lesson ends and post-modern counter-culture begins — a phenomenon that still applies as we weather the pandemic more than two years in.