OK, so most of us haven’t read The Go-Between, but we all know the past is a foreign country and that they do things differently there. We also know that with Instagram around, we can visit it fairly frequently.
Instagram filters are standard, in a bid to make a picture taken 30 seconds ago look like one taken 30 years ago.The #tbt further encourages retro moments. But if your feed is anything like mine, it’s also increasingly full of archive images from accounts honouring classic silver-screen stars such as welovemarilyn and ms_audreyhepburn, and tributes to other style icons such as janebirkindaily, John F Kennedy, Princess Diana Forever and ... Hillarylooks.
This isn’t just the kind of nostalgia usually reserved for “I Love 1995” programmes with too-animated talking heads: it’s pure fashion. Welovemarilyn is followed by Rihanna and Princess Diana Forever is featured in this month’s Vogue. There’s also the fashion insider accounts, ranging from Dior in the 2000s, dedicated to John Galliano’s work in the decade, or the_____archive, where Nick Logan posts pages of classic style mag The Face. These images form a kind of virtual moodboard, in a world where everyone – not just fashion designers – is after inspiration from the pre-internet past to make the present richer.
TV, a universal “remember that?” linchpin, is big. There’s the cult account Interiors of Murder She Wrote which (yes) shows stills from the 80s show of rooms where Jessica Fletcher hangs out with friends, suspects and shoulderpads. What Fran Wore looks at the outfits worn by Fran Fine, the star of 90s TV show The Nanny, who surprises with a wardrobe of Marc Jacobs, Todd Oldham and Dior worthy of a 90s supermodel. The kingpin of retro TV fashion accounts is Every Outfit on SATC, which does exactly what it says: it catalogues every outfit on the TV show, ranging from Miranda’s very interesting combo of hat, hood and polo neck to Carrie’s still-cool Scholl sandals. Follow immediately.
Looking back is an ingrained standard in culture at the moment. It’s no longer geeky to know the details, it’s a badge of honour – one that can go viral. Stranger Things’ 80s-ness – complete with Winona Ryder – was part of its smash-hit success, one that lead to videos cataloging all the film references and blogs about retro font in the title sequence. Hedi Slimane’s work for Yves Saint Laurent was all retro, with his last collection for the brand faithfully recreating the outfits that might have be worn at an average night at Tramp in 1983. Don’t worry that all of this is regressive. Research in 2013 by the University of Southampton suggested nostalgia is good for you because, according to Dr Constantine Sedikides, it points “optimistically to the future”. Just think about that next time you’re liking a picture of Birkin on the beach at Cannes in the 70s. Thanks to Instagram, you don’t even need to have been there. That warm and fuzzy feeling is available with a lunchtime scroll.
