Short Stuff: The Style Cycle

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Lisa, tell them about our new show. We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie To Me. I'm Lexi Juanio, we're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa de Julio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my food days, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of new shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hamza, and I'm Martin, and we're the hosts of Out of Character. The funniest podcast in the entire world. I like that. It's a good way to promote ourselves. We are two funny guys having fun and enjoying ourselves. And we just know how to have fun, unlike anyone else. If you guys like fun conversations, hot takes, what else? Not too hot, just kind of loop warm takes to get your mind thinking a little bit. Listen to Out of Character on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and I'm super stressed out. Jerry's there too, and she's sitting in for Dave, and this is short stuff. That's right. About the style cycle, thanks to Popular Science, Sartorial Magazine. Baraco.com, and not BaracoBama.com, but Baraco.com, and Earth.com for this information. So the style cycle, if you haven't guessed already, refers to that idea that fashion styles come back and invoke again to use a fashion term. Every 20-ish years, I always thought it was more like 30, but I think 20's what most people say. And it's always been this anecdotal observation that most people agree on, but I think recently, I didn't see when the study was conducted, but some researchers from Northwestern University came up with a very clever way to actually study it to see if it's a thing. And they found, like, yes, it is indeed a thing that fashion exists basically on 20-year cycles, and that fashion designers are very, very lazy by year 20. And they just reach back and start over again. Yeah, they did quite a few things for the study. They analyzed 37,000 images of women's clothing, so this is for women's style, from 1869 forward. And this was a big deal, like this was presented at the American Physical Society Global Physics Summit in Denver. And they didn't just look at pictures, right? They had all those 37,000 images, but that wasn't good enough. No, they found a bunch of runway images from over the decades. They found sewing patterns from the commercial pattern archive at the University of Rhode Island. So they assembled a ton of images, and then this is what they did that was so clever. They used data points, starting with the distance from the eye to the neckline, the neckline to the waist, and the waist to the hemline at the bottom of, like, say, address, I think they just studied dresses exclusively. And so, because now they had, like, data points, they were able to quantify this, like, how far the neckline plunged or how far it came up. And so they were able to watch it over time, and what they saw when they drew each thing in a flipbook, it took them forever. And then they flipped through it. You could see, like, the neckline going up and down. You could see the hemline going up and down. And it was about on a 20-year cycle that it did these things, that it repeated swung back and forth. I'm going to say something that will not surprise you or anyone else listening. My brother used to do flipbooks when we were a kid. Was he good? Yeah, they were good. They were, like, stick figure thing. Well, that's not true. A lot of them were stick figures, like, I remember very distinctly a flipbook, and, of course, I would just eat the stuff up and do my own poor versions afterwards. But, like, I remember a stick figure, pole balter, like, running down and pole-volting. But then, like, my brother was a really good artist. He would, I don't know why, but for a certain period in his younger years, he was drawing, like, war stuff, and people getting blown to bits. Like, a flipbook of a hand grenade, like, blowing a guy into pieces. Yeah, very interesting. This is for such a peaceful guy. For sure. Anyway, just flipbook memory. I love, I went to go make one the other day, and I was, like, forget this. This is going to be hard and take a lot of time that I don't have. So much respect to your brother for that. Yeah, mine were pretty jumpy. So, this idea of fashion is that people want to, they want to fit in, but they also want to have their own style. And this also idea with designers that once something becomes too widespread, that designers are done with it, basically. So, it's sort of a give and take idea. It is. So, say that, like, mom jeans were a new thing in, like, the 2010s, right? Yeah. They were actually from the 80s and 90s, but to the 2010s, they were, like, brand new, and they were quite revolutionary. And daring that somebody would try to rock mom jeans, because they've always been looked at as just, like, sprumpy, right? Mom jeans became so prevalent that you could not find women's jeans that weren't essentially mom's jeans in some way, shape, or form. And then eventually the designers are like, well, we're bored with this. I want to come up with something else. So, they do something else, right? That's essentially what you're saying. What this is saying is that the something else they do is jump back 20 years again. Right. And they pull from that, and now all of a sudden, I've just been waiting for parachute pants to come back in, but they won't do it. Yeah. That seems to be one that has resisted. For sure. And I can kind of understand why, but what I'm saying is it's like the designers, they come up with new things. But essentially what they're doing is it's like that Shakespeare quote, there's nothing new under the sun. That really applies to fashion design. Yeah, for sure. Should we take a break? Yes, because I'm getting worked up. All right. We'll be right back. Lisa, we should tell them about our new show. Oh my god, Lexi, we have a new podcast. I'm Lexi, you want to wear two best friends 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa Julio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. I'm not going to get any work I'm fighting. That is wild. I learned that about you today. And I've always got something to say. If man were just honest about this, there would be so much more peace in the world. We're going to talk about dating, relationships, beauty, getting older, and a little wiser. We're best friends, but we don't always agree. Because you told us how accommodating you are. Obviously, I would do what I think I could do to fight the fight, but there's only so much fight I can fight. Don't lie to me, don't lie to me, don't lie to me, don't lie to me, don't lie to me, lie. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, I don't really care. I'm Hamza, and I'm Martin, and we're the host of Out of Character. It's a podcast. I know there's a lot of them going around, but why should you listen hours? Well, we're only the best podcast in the entire world, and we talk about pretty much everything under the sun. For example, music we're listening to, underground music, trending music, drama in music worlds. Yes, sometimes we even talk about just everyday mundane situations in our lives, like the cool Uber driver we just had. Or the food we just say that is surprisingly delicious. Or we'll talk about the Medgalla and the looks that they wore. Are they awesome? Are they trendy? Come find out. That's our opinion matters. And so does yours. And this is a place where all of our minds can come together and connect. So what are you waiting for? Come connect with us. Listen Out of Character from Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Pods, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back everybody, and this 20 year rule does have sort of data points that support it at this point because of that study. But they're thinking that that 20 year may be shorter and shorter as we move along. Because starting at a certain point, you know, the five stages, which is you introduce a style, there's a rise obviously, a peak, then a decline, then it becomes obsolete. But it seems like that cycle is speeding up now. Kind of at the rate of people's attention spans almost with the internet it seems like. Yeah, like social media has had a huge huge effect on this because you can see other people's style. And if other people like that style, they'll pick up that style and then all of a sudden there's a trend on TikTok. Right? That in and of itself isn't necessarily harmful. It's that fast fashion, like say, H&M. Well, they have people whose job it is is to troll social media to look for trends. And then H&M designs clothes according to those trends as fast as they can and gets them out to stores. And the reason they want to do it as fast as they can. is because these were called micro trends come in and out in the blink of an eye. So you wanna be able to figure out exactly how many you need to make of a thing because you know it's not going to be around very long and you wanna get it out to stores as fast as you can. - Yeah, and I think one of the ideas is that a micro trend may thwart this 20 year cycle because it doesn't become a really big, huge widespread thing for a length of time. - Right. - So it's, we're probably looking in a situation where a TikTok micro trend isn't gonna come back in 20 years because it never even fully registered as a genuine big trend. - Right, exactly. The problem is, is the closer and closer we get to a trend reaching back to maybe the day before when it happens that a trend comes into existence and then comes into existence again as a retro thing. On the same day the universe will collapse and not itself. - That's right, you mentioned fast fashion. This stat is sort of disturbing but we produce about 80 billion pieces of clothes a year and that is a 400% increase from 20 years ago. - That's really rough. - Yeah, and like it was, it used to be very easy to see like a 70s look and 80s look and it's just becoming harder and harder to pinpoint like certainly like a decade's worth of look. - Yeah, this article points out the Indy Sleeze aesthetic which is essentially what the Brat Summer aesthetic was based on and the Indy Sleeze aesthetic only went away from like 10 or so years before which is way faster than the 20 year rule. I also saw it argued by fashion bloggers that the Indy Sleeze revamp was totally made up by overworked like people who have to trawl social media to find new trends that they just made that up that that was a thing again and that actually made it a thing, it brought it into existence. Who knows? But I think that means you have to take that particular example with a grain of salt because it may or may not prove that things are speeding up too much. I think the other evidence supports it but that particular trend doesn't necessarily. - Yeah, I agree. And nostalgia drives a certain amount of this. When a new generation comes along, they a lot of times with its music or movies and in fashion they'll look back a couple of decades but sometimes it comes back in a different form. Like the bell bottoms might come back as boot cut jeans or something like that. So it's sort of an homage but not exactly the same thing as it was a couple of decades ago. - Yeah, I saw cool lots are back in, is that correct? - I don't know. - Were they ever in before? I know people wore them but I don't know that anyone considered them in. - Yeah, I don't know. - I'm interested. - You're asking the wrong guy. - Some things that have come back like most decidedly apparently 90s minimalism is back. And that is, I don't know, it's the best descriptor for it 'cause I went and looked it up and I get what they're saying like it's kind of basic tease and maybe like cargo pants and just kind of like low attempt at dressing essentially. - Yeah. - I guess that's back in. - Yeah, I mean, I think the whole '80s and '90s, I am maybe shamefully or not into wearing like good clothes when I play golf and like golf fashion. And there's a trend now that was a trend in golf where like tighter pants and shirts and things like that. But now it's going back to the like baggy pleated trousers and stuff like that, like this real '80s look. - Dockers? - I don't know about dockers like, but like double pleats even. - Wow. Apparently denim on denim, the Canadian tuxedo is here. And I've got a little bit of trivia for you. Did you know that Bing Crosby invented the Canadian tuxedo not on purpose, but he showed up at a Vancouver hotel wearing a Canadian tuxedo and was turned away. Even though he was already Bing Crosby, they're like, you can't wear that. - Is that why it became the Canadian tuxedo? - I think so, yeah. - Huh. Are you pulling my leg with all this? - No, I swear I'm not, that is for real. 'Cause that'd be a weird one. Who could it be? Chuck will never doubt Bing Crosby. - No, it does stink of one of my jokes, but it's true this time. - Apparently animal prints are coming back in fashion too. - Sure. - But have they ever really gone out? - No, again, don't ask me. - And then some things do come back, lots of stuff does. A lot of stuff doesn't, like apparently in the early aughts, people were wearing all sorts of nuts, so neon stuff. - Oh yeah. - It looks like a kind of a ravor thing, I guess. But it wasn't like really in when I was raving, so I think it just kind of came after that. They're predicting that that's not gonna come back. And I can kind of see it. - Yeah, there's a certain '80s neon thing, puffy neon thing, that I don't think I ever really truly saw come back. - Remember the hyper colored ones? Like the thermal color, like you put your hand on your shirt and you'd leave it on your hand frame or something? - That was a thing for five minutes. It was, it was very cool though. I never had one of those. - No, me neither. - Or jams, did you wear jams? - Oh yeah, for sure. - My mom made all of my jams, so I had a bunch of different jams. - Oh, that's nice. - I thought so too. - My mom made a lot of my clothes too. - Nice. - Because we could an afford things from stores. - There you go, whatever the reason it was still sweet of your mom did not just put a potato sack on you or something, and yours. - Same, yeah. - Why, since we just both shouted out our moms fondly, then I think obviously Chuck Short stuff is out. (upbeat music) - Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. 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