Nostalgia is Denial (Midnight in Paris Spoiler Alert)

One person's golden age is another's dreadfully boring present. The golden age, to the protagonist in “Midnight in Paris”, which he enjoyably bumped into, exists in the exciting Gatsby-like parties in the 20’s where he meets the Fitzgerald’s, Hemingway and Picasso. Sadly but inevitably, the golden age, to his almost lover, is in her own past with Edgar Degas and Gauguin in the 1890s. This is the problem of being thrown back in time, but of course, not a problem Salvador Dalí and Man Ray see.

“Nostalgia is denial, denial of the painful present”. The nostalgia shops have long been fashion’s favored references. The 70’s has been the contemporary’s golden age with its platform shoes, color blocking, and high-waist short shorts. The 20’s flappers with their sheath dress and bob hair had their own time of comeback too. It is perhaps inevitable that fashion in the present is never going to be as interesting as some age in the past.

Woody Allen, who still writes his screenplay on a typewriter, does not hide his nostalgia. If Woody Allen’s present that he deniably depicts will be looked back at as references, what fashion trend in the present would be intriguing enough when the golden age of fashion is searched for in the future?

   
Costume designer Sonia Grande searched the world's antiques