Into the Fashion reveals inspiration behind collections

It sent shock waves through the fashion world last week. A coat from Céline's latest collection looked exactly like a design by Geoffrey Beene. According to Diana Marian Murek, this reference - call it a copy, if you will - is a typical result of the increased

pressure fashion designers are under to design not two, but sometimes four or even eight collections a year.

In order to convince her students at the Instituto Maragoni in Milan how important the study of fashion history is to understanding contemporary fashion, the fashion docent established the blog Into The Fashion in 2009. These days, her trend analyses and comparisons are read by approximately 15,000 to 20,000 visitors a month.

What was the reason for starting Into The Fashion?
"My students. I wanted to link the history of fashion with contemporary fashion in an amusing way, without being too academic. That's how I arrived at the idea of publishing comparisons between past collections and contemporary catwalk looks.

With my blog, I wanted to illustrate that fashion is cyclical; that is the very nature of fashion. The biggest portion of the language of fashion was established in the 20th century: every silhouette, every colour combination and material has already been defined and belongs to particular period, a mood or social-cultural milieu. A significant part of contemporary fashion consists of re-inventing the past."

How does your research come about?
"The images I use for my comparisons are usually brought to my attention while perusing history books or old fashion magazines in preparation for my lectures. Because I am constantly doing research, I don't really need to look for very long; the comparison often find me. Sometimes I make the connection upon seeing an outfit on the catwalk. When in doubt about where I may have seen this look before, I do specific research."

Last summer many designers went the sporty route on account of the Olympics in London. Do you recognize a particular pattern in the inspiration choices?
"The fact that different designers are displaying the same ideas and trends at the same time is a product of living in the same cultural world in which we research and are inspired by the same things. For example, it is already clear that many designers will be presenting punk-inspired designs for the coming seasons, because of the big exhibition that is opening in the Metropolitan Museum in May.

A great deal of designers are also using trend forecasting companies such as WGSN.com and Stylesight.com. By using the same sources, it is inevitable that the results will be very similar. This type of company plays an important part in the establishment of trends."

These days many designers make direct references to each other, like Céline did to Geoffrey Beene. Is it harder to be original now that the pressure is on?
"Absolutely. The pressure for designers to be a sort of creativity machine in order to produces several collections a year is incredible. Not only is it very difficult to think of hundreds of new ideas per collection, as a consumer I am also overwhelmed by the enormous supply and the rate at which new collections are produced. It has become a crazy challenge for designers to stay creative at that pace."

And yet, you recently wrote that you still believe in innovation in fashion. What is your advice for designers to be able to innovate?
"The magical ingredients to be able to make a work of creative importance are personality, knowledge, feeling and talent. I don't think it's about finding an inspiration, but rather about the right mix of inspirations. Because everything has already been done before, the new way of designing should be about finding an exciting way to combine existing elements within fashion.

Some designers, such as Rodarte, Mary Katrantzou, Peter Pilotto and Thom Browne, still manage to combine novelty and quality in their designs. On the other hand, novelty is not the only thing that is in demand in fashion. It can actually be enough to just make beautiful and current fashion, like Valentino and even Victoria Beckham are doing."

Photo 1: Gianni Versace (l) and Lanvin (r)
Photo 2: Geoffrey Beene (l) and Céline (r)
Photo 3: Louise Dahl Wolfe (l) and Jil Sander (r)