Remakes, remixes and revivals

If CDs are to today's teens what cassettes are to us, and records are to our parents (read: old news) then what will be next? Will MP3s and downloading be old hat to our kids? You bet! It's amazing how fast technology has evolved in society... remember TV only came into our lives just over 50 years ago! Our grandparents have seen the most change - and probably don't understand half of the technology we use in our everyday lives now. The technology we can't live without.

I can't imagine working before email existed. Especially in the media - imagine how time consuming designing a magazine would have been before modern computer programs simplified things. And most teens today have never sent a letter, or called their friend's home phone. Email and mobiles are the main streams of communication and the text generation probably couldn't live without it!

Then again, we spend an awful amount of time revisiting old trends and bringing things back! Vintage, retro, 80s... they've all been huge buzz words over the past few years. Teens are embracing vinyl and buying old record players off eBay at extraordinarily inflated prices. Calculator watches are cool again, and 80s fashion just seems to keep poking it's fluro head in. Fashion has always been about drawing inspiration from the past, but what have we got that's from the "now"?

Smocks, high-waisted skirts/pants/shorts, mod dresses and boyfriend jeans are all huge trends for Autumn... but our mother's are shaking their heads in disbelief that we want to wear what they were wearing in the 60s and 70s (while we're shaking our heads, wishing they'd kept some of their original pieces so we could be the envy of everyone in the playground).

Music is another prime example of re-using, sampling and remixing of old trends. There are SO many bands and singers around today, but no one really huge. There's no Beatles, no Madonna or Michael Jackson, no Rolling Stones... no iconic group that can define our generation. But there's plenty of dance tracks saturating the market with remixes of the likes of Leo Sayer, Pink Floyd and Guns N' Roses.

When you find yourself reminiscing at 24 like I often do, you've got to wonder what the world is going to look like when you're 60. Will the trends just keep repeating themselves, or could the next decade give us a major change that will be no doubt, bought back somewhere around 2030. If not, at least we can hang on to all our clothes now and be sure we'll get good use out of them again in the future. Now if they'd only make tham as good quality as they did in the 60s...

Notes on Glossy Paper