Why the “20 Year Rule” in fashion is BS

Ahhh, the famous 20 year rule. Those in fashion have heard these string of words used in countless explanatory blogs, vlogs, and other forms of fashion analysis to reason why a particular trend occurs. “Every 20 years trends come back…so that’s why we see y2k!” Ahhh, the confirmation bias. Let me say this loud and clear: THE 20 YEAR RULE IS ABSOLUTELY NOT A RULE. IT’S A FAILED THEORY AT BEST… sorry for the caps, but this moment of passion deserves full attention.

Listen, I get it. Trends can be hard to understand. Why are they happening? Who is wearing it? How long will it last? Allow me to introduce namedfashion lessons (it will be consistently updated with new lessons, as blog posts continue).

Fashion Lesson 001: Fashion moves after an idea. 

The more time has passed, the more perspective we have, and the clearer it is to embrace ideas of the past.

Clarifying the differences between trends and fashion is a natural next question, which leads into my second and third lesson:

Fashion Lesson 002: Fashion is identity. 

Fashion is the way we present ourselves to the world. It’s our identity, full of symbolic value.

Trends live within fashion. They can be visible or not — depending on where the style tribe is at in their heroes journey (identity experience).

Fashion Lesson 003: Trends are a group identity experience.

We all belong to various style tribes, or social groups with a distinctive collective style. Styles tribes go through the “heroes journey” (or identity experiences), which can be symbolically identified in trends.

In simple terms, when a group is going through it (evolving in some way)— it’s seen in trends. Sometimes the trend even stays! This is only if it’s seen as saying something important about the group that it was not before (more on this in another blog post)…

This deeper understanding of trends, allows us to see how they function. It is nothing that can be predicted in a time, period, or location as time and space are constantly evolving. Technology is making things faster, and global integration is changing our surroundings. Maybe this is why some have already started noticing “unexplainable” trend cycles that break the 20 year rule…