Let’s make things clear; I’m not referring to the commoditization of style icons. The fact that GAP has translated Audrey Hepburn’s love of skinny pants and black turtlenecks into grossed-up profit margins and market share is well acknowledged. What bothers me is the commoditization of inspiration. What bothers me is when I read an article and have Mary Kate Olsen tell me that she is inspired by Edie Sedgwick.
It’s one thing to follow the boardroom-dictated trends we see on runways and in magazines. It is another thing to be fed, like feeble rodents, an inspiration. Inspiration is a way of thinking, about a personal connection one establishes with someone/something else – it is about more than a newsboy cap and a striped dress. As much as fashion and style is also about individual thought and expression, I would argue that inspiration suggests something deeper than two people liking Jackie O sunglasses. Fashion is fleeting, while inspiration resonates. Even when a style icon’s moment passes, one is who truly inspired will continue to draw from her the makings of one’s own personal style. It is natural, rather than forced. It is individual, rather than ‘mass’. It is instinctual, rather than meditated.
So to read Mary Kate tell us about her being inspired by Edie Sedgwick, who just happens to be so au-courant via Sienna and Factory Girl, incites, what I think is founded, skepticism in me. To be fair, for all I know, the more elusive Olsen may very well be inspired by Miss Sedgwick. Though was she inspired by the peroxide Warhol muse when she so famously made “dumpster chic” the new cool, circa 2005?
I say let’s call a trend a trend and like trends, Icons have their moments in the spotlight, too. At times, they are the skinny jeans of the fashion world, and at other times they might be the Uggs. In all these phases, one thing they are not, is true inspiration. Transitory interests? Most Likely. Inspiration? I argue otherwise.
So with the 80′s wave hitting the spring/summer runways, will I be surprised if the next Icon just happens to be 80s Dynasty star Linda Evans? Not one bit. But it’s all by coincidence, right?
