EDIT: I sent this out right before I heard about the SCOTUS draft opinion on overturning Roe V. Wade, and would like to state for the record that I hope along with the lace and velvet of the 70s that the whole “federal government protecting and affirming the right to bodily autonomy” also returns to fashion.
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After reading this article about the imminent vibe shift, I was resigned to a future as one of the Left Behind, in my Red Wing boots, still hung up on art deco and biodynamic wine or whatever. (I mean…I do love irony though. So if we get more of that with the coming social tectonic readjustment, bring it on.)
I didn’t get the Fashion of the Youths, which reminded me viscerally of all the Matrix-era rave gear me and my middle school friends used to covet during our Computer Science class. We were supposed to be learning typing from the assistant librarian but instead we did a lot of aspirational shopping for neon mesh tanks and clip-on cyberpunk hair extensions.
Then everything changed when I watched Our Flag Means Death. Admittedly, there is a dearth of cyberpunk hair extensions, but…something about this show, in combination with the slowly moving monster that is the New Big Novel Project, flipped a switch in my brain about the vibe shift. (I mean, it also flipped a lot of other switches, like the one that turned my brain into a whining monotone television test screen while I tried in disbelief to process what I had just experienced. But that is for another newsletter.)
Anyway. The new book is a loose contemporary retelling of Tam Lin, which has had really fun adaptations previously, notably (for the purposes of this newsletter) Delia Sherman’s “Cotillion,” (set in 1969) and Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin (set in the 70s).
Because, isn’t this vibe shift arguably 1970s inflected in some aspects of its maximalism? I mean, all those zoomers in their bellbottoms! And the vibes of the 70s are so much about folk influence and romanticism and lace and velvet that I was like “wait, I can do this.”
Because as a teen, I also spent a LOT of time 1. pretending I was a pirate and 2. trying to see/find/get taken away by fairies. Probably like…much later into my teenage years than I should admit in this newsletter.
Fairies and pirates are nothing if not folky, romantic, lacy, and draped in velvet. At least, in the popular imagination. I have done all of the homework for this latest development in the zeitgeist!
So if we’re doing this who ~*~*vibe shift~*~* thing, bring it. New style inspos include Joan Baez and Bob Dylan dressing alike on the Rolling Thunder Review Tour, as well as Lord Byron, Fairport Convention, living history events, and Renaissance Faires. I will be listening to The Owl Service and Anaïs Mitchell’s Child Ballads on repeat. I have pulled a bunch of stuff out of my neglected “for costume parties” storage bins and put it into my closet for daily wear. I have texted my mom about a pair of her old boots I used to rock daily in high school, and asked her to ship them to me.
Doesn’t mean I’m giving up my Red Wings entirely, though. It’s hard to garden in pirate boots.