The Future Of Fashion

ILLUSTRATIONS BY CHRISTY KARACAS

It might seem presumptuous to make fashion predictions after a decade that saw so few fashion innovations. With the exception of a few extra gadgets, a bit more midriff, and the occasional message scrawled across a sweatpants backside, people in 2009 still look a lot like people in 2000. If the last decade is any indication, we probably won’t be seeing the snazzy gear of

Back to the Future II

any time soon.

But this is looking at fashion with the myopia of modern expectations. The 2010s have already announced themselves as a sharp departure: new president, new economy, new priorities. If anything, a more instructive guide for the new era is the gulf between 1960 and 1970, a decade that began with men in hats and ended with hippie orgies on every street corner. Here are ten predictions for the fashions of the next ten years.

1. EPAULETTES

I’m not talking about the foppery of

Austin Powers

–era London or the hammy power-enhancers of corporate 80s shoulder pads. The epaulettes of the 2010s will be both elegant and authoritative, a surefire boost to America’s flagging morale. As our Great Leader has decreed, the time has come to set aside childish things. Imagine everyone strutting around with the humble confidence of General Grant’s two-star shoulder pads, the majesty of young Robert E. Lee’s shoulder brushes, or the pomp and swagger of Cap’n Crunch’s shoulder muffins. It’s morning in America all over again, and this time it’s personal.

2. BODY RECORDERS

Remember that Dave Chappelle skit about the “home stenographer”? Well, you’ve got about two more years to enjoy life without one. Two years, according to Moore’s Law, is how long it takes to double the storage capacity of a microchip. According to this schedule, 200 gigs will fit comfortably on a slender iPod by 2011. By 2013, you’ll be able to squeeze this storage capacity into an iPod shuffle, and by 2015 it’ll be something the size of a ladybug. Combine your 200 gigs with a tiny camera and microphone, and you’ve got a wearable recorder that can document your entire life—video and audio—for a week straight. If you dial down the input to nannycam-quality video and audio, you can do a month. It’ll take a while for this new device to go mainstream, and in the interim it’ll get christened with one of those regrettable modern nonwords like “blog,” “sexting,” “splorg,” or “prok.”

Perhaps this doesn’t seem like much of a fashion issue, but consider the evolution of Bluetooth. It took one long weekend in 2005 for the Bluetooth Fairy to sweep the land, depositing chunky little headsets in every third person’s earhole. I don’t know about your neighborhood, but where I live this kind of head bling is as much a fashion statement as fat gold chains or propeller beanies. Likewise, next decade’s personal body recorders will slip into mainstream fashion through the pioneering advocacy of jerks and boors. You think it’s rude having the person behind you at the bank yammering away on their Bluetooth? Try having the person behind you recording everything in his or her line of sight, including your own ass.

This issue—privacy—will dictate design. In just a few years, you’ll be able to walk into any Target in America, plop down $39.95, and walk out with a 200-plus-gig body recorder disguised as a shirt button. But at some point, a well-publicized privacy/security breach (women’s restroom? airport?) will force Congress to mandate some sort of recording signifier, similar to how every cell phone in Japan (allegedly) makes an audible “click” when used for photography. My guess is it’ll be a little red blinking light, kind of like the trashy LED lapel pins now sold at dollar stores. Overnight, everyone will have little blinking red lights on their shirts, hats, and shoes (upskirt videography being only one of many scourges loosed by the new technology).

Here’s how it will play out. You’ll good-naturedly bad-mouth your friend’s new Personal Recorder Information Collection Knickknack right up until the day (in June 2016) when you lose one of your epaulettes. Where is it? Don’t panic. All your friend will have to do is give a simple voice command to the recorder’s search engine, and a chipper little computer voice will tell you that you left your epaulette back at the Applebee’s where you both had lunch two hours ago and would you like it to IM the restaurant manager?

Suddenly these devices won’t seem quite so trashy. Two weeks later, you’ll be a convert, and very soon afterward you’ll forget what the world was like when you couldn’t archive and search every conversation, meal, or trip to Petco. For a while you’ll turn it off when you use the john, but eventually you’ll record everything, just like Saint Peter and Santa Claus. With all these blinking little lights everywhere, it’s going to look a lot like Christmas.

3. BLACK-FRAME GLASSES

I know you think these came and went with “emo” culture, but black-frame glasses will indeed define the fashions of the 2010s. Remember when the pundits declared rap dead in 1985, after

Krush Groove

? Same deal here.

This one is actually more of a pet peeve than a prediction. I have no doubt that the week after I finally get Lasik (2011? 2014? It’s

expensive

!), everyone and their grandmother will turn up looking like Buddy Holly, Drew Carey, Henry Kissinger, or any other celebrity I have been unfairly compared to as punishment for ever having classy taste in eyewear. TOBAL (there oughta be a law).

4. ASSVERTISEMENTS

There can’t be anything shocking about this one. After years of Juicy Couture tracksuit pants and Victoria’s Secret hot pants and countless other ass-writing knockoffs, is it any surprise that advertisers of the near future will view the human caboose as prime commercial real estate? MIT Media Lab has already pioneered something called “flexible display technology” to broadcast video ads on jackets and shirts. Asses are but a short leap away. Plus, there’s a financial incentive to this particular fashion trend. Say you earn four-tenths of a penny for every obnoxious Viagra ad your bum flashes at passing pedestrians. That’s still nearly 50 cents an hour. Do even two hours of walking a day, and you’ve paid half a utility bill every month. Can you and your ass afford

not

to advertise?

BONUS:

The blinking pixels keep your rear warm in cold climates.

DOWNSIDE:

You are still very much a creep if you stare at anyone else’s ass ad.

5. MAYAN CAL-UNDERWEAR

Get it? Yeah: The joke actually has less staying power than the time it takes to read/say it. And yet this will be one of the most phenomenal trends in fashion history, single-handedly reviving the American and Icelandic economies. The pre-December 2012 draw will rely on humor as a means of defusing a collective terror of cosmic annihilation. But even after 2012, this will remain a hot seller, far outpacing the leftover Y2K merch from a dozen years earlier (unless, of course, Quetzalcoatl or whoever rises from his ocean slumber and devours the planet… the crystal ball is a bit hazy on this one).

6. TONSURES

I’m well aware that every fashion forecast for the last century has included the tonsure—that carefully groomed bald spot of all monks—as its gag prediction. But I have a good feeling about this decade. It’s time. America is finally ready.

Oddly, this haircut will follow the compressed timeline of every punk hairdo known to man. Get a monk cut in ’11 and you might get monk-bashed just walking down the street. Get one in ’13 and the worst you’ll face is indifference. By the time you step into a bank in 2016, even the middle-aged teller ladies will have the tops of their heads shaved. Yawn.

7. LEG EXTENSIONS

What would you do with powerful, toned, majestic five-foot legs? This is going to be a real question soon, so start thinking. More than affordable tattoo removal (2013), tattoo-removal-by-internet (2016), or temporary face enlargement (2017), leg extensions will come to define both the medical advancements and the fashion innovations of the decade. Think of the clothes you’ll wear! Think of the long, luxurious leggings, the 33 x 58 button-fly jeans, the impossibly high boots! Think of towering over your coworkers and in-laws, your epaulettes glinting! My Lord, you’re pretty!

8. CAMO GOES MAINSTREAM

I’m not going to waste your time by spending even another sentence on this one.

9. RAGS, TRASH-BAG PONCHOS, TEARS

Saturday Night Fever

was to fashions of the late 1970s as Cormac McCarthy’s

The Road

will be to fashions of the late 2010s. Remember what Tom Ridge said about duct tape? It’s all true. Spoiler alert: rogue mega-storms, Super Cholera, dirty, dirty bombs.

10. THE RETURN OF MEN’S HATS

This brief, sad nod to pre-Camelot stability will say more about the insecurities of the American male circa 2015 than about the fashions of the age. Dressing up in a snappy fedora is a nice way to stave off the blues, but when you’re in charge of gathering rocks to fight off the cannibals from the neighboring apartment complex, you’ll need to factor “practicality” and “mobility” into the mix.