Alternate Fashion

Marc Pasquin

Marc Pasquin

I don't usualy think that much about fashion (and the way I dress is testament to that) but it occured to me that the way people is rarely touched upon unless its in the "soldiers with modern firearm and antique ethnic dress" type.

Even if an ATL would have a POD in the early 20th century, so many fashion trends have gone through that you would assume that *some* differences would have occured in that TL comtemporary clothes.

Has anyone in their timeline given any thought to what differences, even minor ones, might have cropped up due to the divergence ? Alternatively, are there some general trends that might stop/be allowed to continue if not for a specific set of circumstances ?
 

NKVD

Butterflying away World War II might result in the continuation of flapper fashion and, overall, popularity of short hair styles for women.
 

Kriegdämmerung

It seems to be assumed that, if India remains either a substantial part of the world's history (a la Gurkani Alam), or for some reason a continuing part of a various empire, their fashion will fuse with Western ideals...
 
Petike

Petike

Well, a lot of legendary perfumes like Channel No° 5 could not be developed or be developed/named differently. The same goes for clothes: Women would maybe wear tahitis instead of bikinis, etc.

Also, some fads may not catch on and the more relaxed clothing of women during Britain's Georgian period could stay more complicated and opulent. On the other hand, we might see simpler fashions continue in a world without an OTL-style Victorian age.
 
The Professor

The Professor

Western ties descend from the Croatian Mercenary cravats (hence the name) from the Napoleonic wars.
Butterfly those and they might not be adapted, thus collars might not be added to shirts - perhaps we end up with formal cuff ties replacing cuff links.
There's a whole series of images on Wikipedia (Commons IIRC) showing western fashion through the centuries from about 1400.
 
Petike

Petike

The Professor said:
Western ties descend from the Croatian Mercenary cravats (hence the name) from the Napoleonic wars.
Butterfly those and they might not be adapted, thus collars might not be added to shirts - perhaps we end up with formal cuff ties replacing cuff links.
There's a whole series of images on Wikipedia (Commons IIRC) showing western fashion through the centuries from about 1400.
Click to expand...

Yeah, those are good ones ! :)

Would-be rapper teens would probably not dress in baggy clothes that much if rap had developed among people in a different social/economic situation. I heard that early home-brewn rap started popping up in many poor Afroamerican neighbourhoods/ghettos where there was a lot of younger people wearing clothes donated via local charities - guess what, they were mostly overtly spacious or baggy. Not completely sure whether this piece of trivia is entirely true or whether it's more of a misconception/urban legend...
 

TheSevenLeggedFallyDowner

Change the design of gas masks in World War One or avoid chemical warfare altogether and you would butterfly away a large part of the popularity of the toothbrush moustache. On the other hand, get rid of Hitler and it might very well still be in style.
 
iori

iori

In the 20th century atleast alot of fashions are'nt necessarily new as much as they are reworking of an existing base fashon.

For example, tight jeans; they were very fashionable among guys in the 50's then went out of style then came back shotly in the 80's then went out of style again until around 2004 with the advent of Skinny Jeans, and really tight pants in general (regardless of the material) have remained nearly consistently popular.

The above is of course only an example, their are other general fashions that have become popular in different forms multiple times.
 

Max Sinister

Banned
My mother once said that the minnesang in medieval western Europe really took off when the tailors (or women making clothes) learned how to make form-fitting clothes.
 

Treppe

No WWI -> Trenchcoats never come into fashion and Humphrey Bogart and the occassional Gestapo bogeyman have to wear other coats.
 
Petike

Petike

This might be a mistake, but I've read that the famous long pointy-tipped shoes worn by filthy rich medieval nobles were actually first invented in Poland, but the French soon replicated them en masse as a fad that soon grew out of their borders as well and took the credit instead of the Poles (among whom the fad only caught on when it returned to Poland via France several decades later). Can anyone confirm this ?
 
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