Why Fashion Still Loves the ’90s—and What to Do About It

0:05This is The Run Through. I'm Nicole Phelps. It's our 10 year anniversary here at Vogue Runway. And looking back to that August 2015 time, we were talking about the 1990s. Sarah Mower wrote about the enduring influence of Helmut Lang. Lynn Yeager penned an ode to grunge. And I interviewed Camilla Nickerson, who was the stylist on the very influential music video Freedom 90 by George Michael. And it struck me that we are still talking about the 90s 10 years later, which is why I brought Luke Leach and Mark Holgate, my colleagues at Vogue, onto the podcast today to discuss the phenomenon. Why can't we get over the 90s?

0:51Mark Holgate and Luke Leach, my first question is, why do the 90s remain trendy? I mean, for me, I think it's two things. I think in part it feels like the last decade where fashion was, in a sense the wrong word, but it's the kind of one I'm going to use. But I think we were pre-conglomerate, pre-megabrand, pre-globalization, pre-just the vastness of the industry now. The 90s, it was just kind of in some ways smaller, a little bit more kind of eclectic and individualistic in some ways, I think. I mean, I started working in the 90s in the industry in the mid 90s. And it just felt like it was a kind of smaller kind of time.

1:45And I think probably people look back and they see the beginnings of some celebrities coming into fashion, but it was still very much an era of the models. I think we also saw designers really being super kind of creative in this very individualistic kind of free way. I mean, it wasn't about marketing. It wasn't about strategy. It was all based on instinct and personality. And whether that's true or not, but I think people see or perceive there to be a kind of freedom in that decade. And I think it was also the last decade really where there was no social media, there was no real internet, there was no real websites around fashion.

2:23I mean, I started looking at First View, which was the kind of runway service that I started using in 2000. And I literally was looking at it on dial-up on the modem. It took like nine hours for like one runway show to download, which when you compare to the speed of Vogue runway now, it's kind of incredible. It's like, well, you know, nine seconds. and it just felt like a smaller, more closed kind of world. And I think people look back with a certain kind of fondness or nostalgia or longing to kind of go back to. And that's just my take. Sorry, rather long-winded take. Luke, do you have a take?

2:58Well, I want to have a take on Mark's take because I completely see through what he's been saying that in a way, a lot of what we experience as modern contemporary fashion, was in a way formed in the 90s, established in the 90s. So it was at the end of that decade that the conglomerates started to form in a serious way, that Gucci found its power and then became this center of gravity around which the other houses in that group coalesced at the end of the 90s and the early 2000s. And LVMH had already started to form. But before then, it had been really an industry of independents who now some of them, the ones that mostly predate around 1995, have grown into huge multi-billion companies in themselves.

3:52So I think that we maybe go back to the 90s in fashion often simply because in a way we're slightly repeating ourselves. And those were like the teenage years of modern fashion. and maybe modern fashion is itself in a form of middle age and having a midlife crisis at the moment but that's maybe for another podcast but I think that's one of many reasons I think there are broader cultural reasons as well and and I think a key one Mark also touched upon which is that I think there's a broader nostalgia for this moment that was the last moment that has the mystery of not being digital. There was the Celine show by Hedy Slemagne, Spring Summer 2020, where he partnered with the artist David Kramer, who I think is a New Yorker.

4:45And he had these brilliant artworks that I really loved in the show. And one of them said, I have nostalgia for something I probably cannot remember on it. And I think this feeling of having almost having missed out on a slightly more, almost an innocent age, but in fashion-wise, before it was conglomerate and institutionalized. And more broadly, when kind of we were unobserved, it changed the way we live. And I think there's maybe an unconscious nostalgia for all of that. I have a very strong nostalgia for it. I think partly because like both of you, I came up in that moment. It was my first taste of fashion in person, you know, crashing a Marc Jacobs show, being there in person.

5:35I felt like I had found my place in the world. And the sample sales, I brought this up on the podcast before, the sample sales at the news where you could buy your Martin Margiela sweaters for$75 and Helmut Lang pants for less than$100. They set some sort of template in me, the architectural proof that this is what looks good to me. And 25 years later, almost 30 years later, it still is the foundation. And I judge everything sort of on what I learned in the 90s. I mean, it's true. I mean, in the 90s, there were so many, to your point, look, I mean, kind of independence. And then also to your point, Nicole, these strong independent voices came out, you know, these strong creative voices from Helmut to Margiela, Muccia Prada, Tom Ford at Gucci, McQueen, Galeano, Hussain Chaline, I mean, Marc Jacobs.

6:32There was just this long line of names of people that really had something to say and said it in such a kind of emphatic and empowering and kind of interesting way in that decade. When you think of 90s fashion, what are we talking about when we say 90s fashion? For me, I have to make a terrible confession. I didn't crash any shows in the 90s. I wasn't a fashion kid. I didn't start working in the industry really until the end of the 2000s. You're an Aravist. I'm an Aravist. I'm a mid-career divergent from other things. So I experienced it just as a normal guy. But in London at that time where I was living, there was a deep sense of integration that I saw, you know, reading British titles like ID and the Face.

7:26and Sky and even music magazines like Mixmag, many other titles, Melody Maker. Fashion was, whether they were about culture more broadly or about music, fashion was always a part of the conversation. So whether it was talking about Patrick Cox wannabe shoes in the context of certain subcultures or it was talking about casual style, Britpop style, I think that aesthetic was a really formative influence in terms of a strong visual aesthetic that came out of a fashion context and then went across the culture in the UK. I didn't feel that fashion was kind of in its own citadel. It just felt like part of a broader scene to me.

8:14And maybe that was what made it so relevant. I'd started working at British Vogue and had done some internships and things from kind of the mid-ish, late-ish 90s on. So I guess for me, and I think also depends what city you are in, right? So I think you've all had a very different view of the 90s if you were here in New York, perhaps, versus if you were in London or some other part of the world. But for me, it kind of boiled down to, on the one hand, there was the kind of eclecticism and this kind of boho, vintage-y kind of vibe that was exemplified by people going to Portobello Market. It was also, I think, John Galliano.

8:49I think it was people like my former colleague Lucinda Chambers, Marnie, there was this kind of romanticism and slightly kind of frayed bohemian voyage kind of thing going on in London, and this very eclectic thing. And then on the other hand, the thing I was probably more interested in was the slightly more kind of minimal, harder edged, very clean lines of someone like Helmut Lang, who, you know, worshipped, continued to worship, still a mourning that he's not, you know, around designing anymore. And that was really exciting to me the the mix of sportswear tailoring uh it was the beginning of the 90s really was the beginning of sneaker culture as well like i mean it's probably been around a little bit before that too but i remember everyone i mean i can't seem to remember picking up a copy of id that wasn't kind of talking about sneakers in the kind of early mid 90s on also this kind of interest in kind of technology and things like nylon that you obviously saw with people like let's say Quite a kind of, how can I put it?

9:51There was a kind of utilitarian kind of thing kind of going on as well. A lot of the kind of idea of the deification of denim, you know, with APC and then Helmut Lang too. So it was an interesting mix of this more casual thing kind of going on, the bohemian romantic thing. And then, as I say, this much more conceptual idea of fashion from people like Helmut and Mewtcher. As I was preparing for this podcast, I was doing some research and discovered that Helmut Lang has now been out of fashion. He left his brand in 05 for as long as he was in fashion. So he had his brand for about 20 years and now he's been out of fashion for 20 years.

10:32Someone's going to have to hand me some handkerchiefs or something. Me too. Or his phone number. We need to try to get him on this podcast or on the record to talk about his lasting influence. I mean, I have to say, I've not seen him many times since he left. But I would say the last time I saw him, which was a few years ago, he is distinctly uninterested in nostalgia around the 90s. So maybe that's a better thing. Maybe he lived it and exemplified it and won the 90s. And maybe he just, I don't think he's getting interested in looking back. Well, maybe he just spends a lot of time off the Internet.

11:06I think if you spend a lot of time on the Internet, you do develop this sort of permanent nostalgia.

11:19OK, we're going to take a quick break.

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12:02Another thing that I went back to as I was preparing this is this Kurt Anderson essay that was printed in 2011 in Vanity Fair. And he talks about how the Internet has given us instant universal access to every old image and recorded sound. And the future is here, and it's all about dreaming of the past. And I feel like fashion is a little bit in really living through that. And we were always talking about change, change, change. And something has happened in the last 10 years where we talk more about codes and DNA now. And, you know, I thought to that really pivotal year and this whole phenomenon of, you know, the 90s are still here, which was 2018.

12:55And Donatella Versace was honoring the death, the 20-year anniversary of Johnny Versace's death. And she did a re-edition collection. And it was the very same year, just coincidentally, that Marc Jacobs did a 25-year anniversary re-edition of grunge. And these two fashion giants making re-editions sort of, you know, the lingua franca of the moment, I think, has even furthered this phenomenon where we are permanently, not in the past, but sort of aware of the past, negotiating the past. Well, it's hard for me to say because of my age, and I lived a pre-digital life. When I worked at British Vogue, we had two computers where you could actually look at the internet.

13:43I remember trying to watch, with about nine people crowded around a computer screen, trying to watch Helmut Lang's show that was broadcast on the internet. People younger than myself, which are a lot of people, they just see history very differently. There's a kind of flattening out and a kind of that it's all times, all eras, all at once, right? So maybe the 1880s can feel as present and as far away as the 1980s. I think for anyone that hasn't had a kind of pre-digital existence, yesterday just feels like a century ago. And it's a very, very different way of thinking. Everyone talks about being a brand now.

14:19I mean, you know, you and I do the fashion fund and young designers talk about being brands. And they think about the DNA, that phrase that I hate. And I mean, when I was growing up, no one really talked about that. McQueen wasn't talking about it. Hussein Chaline wasn't talking about it. They weren't thinking of themselves as brands. I mean, it's just a very, very different thing. Luke, you have kids. How do they think of the past or the fashion past? Are they interested in it at all? One of them is really interested in it. He's just been in Japan and going into undercover stores and checking out Com and also checking out a lot of labels that I've never heard of, because actually part of this conversation, I think, is really framed by the frame of reference of the three people having it.

15:07So because we, you know, we were there, we can do the whole I was there thing. I think there are a lot of things that happen contemporaneously now that we just don't have the vision, we don't have the ability to see because we're not part of that generation. So I think there's a big caveat with this whole conversation, which is there is sure a lot of stuff going on now. And it's not as if fashion is stuck in a stasis. But it is for sure that fashion does keep, parts of fashion keep referring back to the 90s. There is the thing that will always happen, which is you form your identity through shared points of reference with your contemporaries and peers.

15:44So absolutely, they build obsessions and interests about new designers. And there are several that we review on Vogue Runway that my kids are much more interested in than perhaps necessarily we might see sometimes when we do the top 10, because they're a little bit more niche and a little bit more interesting for a smaller group of people. And I think people are still looking for nicheness. There are so many huge brands with huge marketing potential that can force themselves through sheer commercial heft into the algorithm of what you see. You know, this is another thing about the 90s and the pre-internet, is that there were all of these tribes, different subcultural tribes, and they would develop their own fashion taste.

16:27And I think often now you think with the internet that that doesn't happen anymore, but I think it really does. I think people just kind of gatekeep it quite a lot to try and keep things to themselves. Perhaps this is a narcissistic exercise because going back to 2015, when Sarah Moer wrote about the enduring influence of Helmut Lange, she made this point, this mathematical point, and it touches on what you were just saying, Luke. She asked, why are we seeing 90s references? And all you do is you take the date 2015 and subtract 25, the age of today's rising designers, and result, you're in 1990.

17:05And so if we did that today, we would see that, you know, it's 20, it's what is 2000? Yes, Y2K, the birth of Indy Sleaze. And of course, the kids downstairs or upstairs, excuse me, on 25 are talking all about Indy Sleaze. And I don't want to talk about Indy Sleaze. That wasn't my moment. and I find it even hard to pick up the references that they see so obviously because that was when they were coming up and coming of age. And to me, I had already, you know, I was already serious and, you know, head down doing my work and experience fashion in a different way, you know. Time is flat and stretching.

17:48Yes, and you just, you don't necessarily know what people are going to kind of look back and be nostalgic for, you know, especially if you were living through it. you know some you do have a because your vantage point is always going to be informed by your lived experience and what you saw and what you liked back then and indie sleaze was not something you know i was really too old for it by that point me too i mean i saw a lot of it happen because i live up the road from camden town and um i mean it was really funny to see but in itself it was like a throwback to early 90s band culture as well um but it was just it became a lot more coalesced and then there were the strokes and it felt like it was a it was a more somehow more modern form of kind of the basically the rock and roll tradition you know to your point nicole about sort of not not relating to what the kids on 25 are talking about sometimes i think we're all like that i've got this very cheesy point that i use often which is that you know the newest thing in fashion is always the people who are interested in it so generations come up and they go, you know, so there will always be an audience in a way for the most enduring fashion stories.

18:55Like what's so fascinating is that it's as the context of the moment and the people come through that happen to be born in that moment of time, you get all of these multiple ingredients. And that just leads to a sort of a formula for what creates whatever is modern. So modernity depends on the nature of society, the nature of broader taste, and the way they collide at a particular moment in time. Well, let's get concrete. What are your favorite memories of the 90s in fashion, Mark Holgate? I think probably a few things, starting in the summer of 93, interning at British Vogue, my first morning, going up in the elevator to the fifth floor of Vogue House in Hanover Square in London, sharing the elevator with Isabella Blow, who was still working at British Vogue at that point.

19:46The subject of a new biopic. Yes. I don't think this scene is going to feature it. I'd be very disappointed if it's not. But she proceeded to strip off in the elevator and I had to help zip up her dress. And that happened between the ground floor and the fifth floor of Oak. So that was a real moment. Seeing my first McQueen show, the Byrds show, in the Bagley Warehouse in King's Cross. It was incredible. I mean, I saw Mr. Pearl, the corsetier, walk the runway in a pencil skirt and probably like a 17-inch waist. And then literally six months later, I was on the London Underground. And he got on this underground train in a little raincoat and suit.

20:26And all I kept thinking was, are you wearing a corset under all of that? Seeing the Hussein show with the furniture, the clothes, well, the furniture turned into clothes. Sadler's Wells was amazing. I mean, it was really a time of kind of, I don't know, like experimentation and transgressiveness and excitement. I think it just had a kind of London was super raw and super exciting. I mean, it hadn't really started to gentrify in the way it would post Tony Blair's first government in 90, what was it, 97, I think. It was really a kind of much raw kind of city and a smaller city in a way. But those are the things that live on in my mind.

21:06I don't have as many fashion-specific memories, but you just mentioning Blair makes me think about the fact that the 90s had the added bonus that it was a golden age in terms of the world, more broadly and geopolitically. It was between Glasnost in 89 and 9-11 at the beginning of the millennium. And yes, there was the Gulf War and there were many huge events that happened, many wonderful events and many terrible events that happened in the 90s. And maybe I remember it wrong and maybe you guys will disagree, but I don't think there was an overwhelming sense of global anxiety to the extent that there possibly was not long after the turn of the millennium.

21:49In fact, the biggest point of anxiety was the millennium itself for many years. We all thought the world was going to end just because there was a date change. I think that created a context and also a rejection of the 80s. There was a sense of freedom, there was a sense of potential, and also there was a rejection of these very Baroque elements, very kind of dynasty hair, big shoulders, greed is good, and all of those 80s tropes. people wanted to put them away. And it was very interesting, this much cleaner, very Helmut Langey sense that came through. So I just think it was a very dynamic decade.

22:27And it really often, I think I didn't appreciate it when I was living it, to be honest. No. Ditto. You don't miss it till it's gone. No, you really don't. But in terms of fashion memories, I think it's just having that sense that, you know, I would go into Browns on South Malton Street. I, you know, remember being quite obsessed with Westwood, but that was almost as a result of punk. So it felt like it was a pre-90s thing to me because I'd been aware of her even as a very early teen in London in the late 80s. Living in Camden, small shops, micro trends, sneakers, jeans with a 90s flair, I will never forget.

23:06That 90s flair that never is one of the things that I keep seeing coming back over and over again. And I always have this debate when I'm looking at a show, is that a 70s flair or a 90s and the difference is huge um in terms of what the designer is really signifying and um and signaling and at the beginning of you know really me working in fashion which was not that long ago like in 2010 or so it was all about the 70s so you know i'd see a million different 70s references because in that decade people like versace and cavalli or it's a you know italian fashion there was a lot of and in menswear there was a lot of 70s references and i think the 90s have really kind of ossified itself as the defining decade of our time in terms of nostalgia.

23:51Speaking of 90s flares, they were a good moment for women designers in New York. I was a young New Yorker and spending my money on Daryl K low-rise pants and Cadyone Adeli pants. Yes. And, you know, I guess maybe it goes to what you were saying, Luke, that it was a moment of independence before the conglomerates defined the way the fashion system works. And so young emerging designers could really get a foothold and really define the look of a city. I think it's interesting. New York in the 90s is something that probably because of Larry Clark and Clary Sevene's arrival and Cattie Onodelli, Daryl Kay.

24:44I mean, I can certainly tell you in the offices of British Vogue in the later 90s, I mean, these designers were of much interest. Mark Jacobs, too, who was, you know, people are obsessed with. I was obsessed with, you know, you couldn't find the clothes except, I think, in one boutique in Knightsbridge called Alamode, and that was it. They had like three sweaters and maybe a coat. But, you know, there was a kind of deep fascination with him. And then also the success of Donna Karan and DKNY. I mean, that just felt like such a cool urban vision of New York. So, you know, even though we're in London with a lot going on.

25:20I would say there was a lot of looking to New York, to things like Milkfed, to Sophia Coppola, and then also Carolyn Bessette Kennedy in this very clean, streamlined, super chic mix of Calvin, Yoji Yamamoto, blonde hair, red lip, flat shoes, jeans. I mean, it was like a complete distillation of late 90s style that I think everyone was obsessed with wherever you were. But particularly, I will say, in London, that was a reference point for a lot of people. I think we're really onto something. The 90s are a really big thing. Huge. Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and JFK Jr. are going to be the talk of the culture.

26:05I mean, they already are with these pictures from the making of the new Ryan Murphy series trickling out. And, you know, she is a woman who women today look to with a kind of, gosh, she's taken on such a mystique. Her aura is so, so powerful. And I guess it's because, well, I mean, it's a very sad story, but there are also just, there's a few images, and because there's just a few of them, they become iconic. Iconized, right? I mean, I think that's also, she probably never gave an interview or ever talked. I mean, she was working for Calvin Klein. Our colleague, Virginia Smith, worked with her, really liked her.

26:48you know Calvin clearly understandably loved her and but she never said very much and you know as far as I remember she never talked so she was the embodiment of that time and that city and that look and that whole ethos and and again it's it's a kind of pre-instagram pre-social media era I mean if she'd been around today you know we're very very different situation

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28:01Let's turn to this September and what's going to happen. I mean, do you expect more 90s? What are you thinking about what's going to happen with all of these debuts? I feel a great sense of empathy for all the designers who've got debuts because I think there's so much scrutiny both in industry and consumer scrutiny of the inner workings of the fashion industry now that people treat the comings and goings of designers a bit like the way that football fans treat the comings and goings of managers in the game. So I think that there's a lot of casual interest and a lot of casual and often quite cruel scrutiny that comes from outside the actual closest sort of circles of the diagram.