A Hat for Thought

Fashion trends are the most fickle of all trends: plume sauce-braised pork belly will live longer on the menus of trendy restaurants than leather body suits will hang in the windows of American Apparel. One reason, food is more of a personal experience, hate or love decision based on our automatic assessments of the message sent out by our taste buds. Clothing choices on the other hand, rely too heavily on the opinions of our fab friends. You’ve got to step outside of your comfort zone and be brave enough to rock the leopard print tutu that you saw Kate Moss wearing in this Month’s issue of Vanity Fair, to live up to the latest standards of cool.

And even then, fabsters like Ms. Moss aren’t the most accurate representation of what looks good on everyone. It really is difficult to gage what fashion trends are in, and what clothing pieces you should probably just burn.

But maybe there is some value in this fickleness.

Fashion trends are a great place to experiment (even if your tutu attempts go horribly wrong). For women, the world of fashion has historically been an access point to expressions of individuality. Even today, women employ the ever-changing trends of fashion to assert their presence in the male-dominated public sphere.

For example, girls and young women have recently been rocking the backwards baseball cap. Different patterns, colours and logos give a female twist to this typically male accessory. Without reading too much into a fashion trend that probably won't even last as long as your overly priced serving of plum sauce-braised pork belly, it's worth considering the larger implication of this style choice. 

It goes along with a growing number of androgynous fashion choices that speak towards a coming together of masculine and feminine style. And even if this trend dies out quickly, it's important to note that the backwards baseball cap played a role in altering the way we think of these two gender binaries.  

In the end, fickle fashion trends have more impact than Miley Cyrus' new sledge hammer accessory, and are worth the second look if you manage to catch a glimpse before they zoom by on a wrecking ball.