Why Fashion Keeps Selling Us '90s Nostalgia
The big moments that defined the decade, according to In Vogue: The '90s
Between the Sex and the City reboot and quiet minimalism’s hold on the catwalk, fashion seems stuck in a loop of ‘90s nostalgia. Why does this decade continue to influence everything today? Hulu’s In Vogue: The ‘90s offers some answers. Produced by Hamish Bowles, Tonne Goodman, Edward Enninful and Anna Wintour, the docu series highlights the cultural moments—from hip-hop’s global rise to the revival of the Met Gala—that changed fashion forever.
If you like this kind of in-depth review, I promise you’ll find a paid subscription worth it 😌
Told through the eyes of Vogue’s top editors, the six-part film begins with Wintour’s appointment as editor-in-chief in 1988. Her first bold move? Putting the provocative pop star Madonna on the May 1989 cover. Here was a vision of female power and sexual liberation plastered all over the pages of Vogue. “It felt like the statement we were looking for,” Wintour said. In the years that followed, Wintour set out to deliver on her mandate to bring American Vogue into a modern era. She featured little-known working-class upstart John Galliano in a 12-page editorial (placing him firmly on the fashion map); published—albeit reluctantly—the “Grunge & Glory” story conceived by Grace Coddington and photographed by Steven Meisel; and championed homegrown names such as Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan and Calvin Klein.
Nineties-era Vogue maintained a veneer of progressiveness, but it had a major blind spot: non-white people’s influence on fashion were largely missing from its glossy editorials.
Nineties-era Vogue maintained a veneer of progressiveness, but it had a major blind spot: non-white people’s influence on fashion were largely missing from its glossy editorials (let alone covers). This transpired most clearly in the fifth episode “Hip-Hop Takes Fashion,” where viewers could perceive the lack of commitment to inclusivity. Vogue was remarkably late to platforming Lil Kim, Missy Elliot and Mary J Blige—then the biggest female rappers in the game. The women were photographed only in 1998 for an editorial spread (not a cover) titled “Rappers Deluxe.” Even as Vogue claimed to reflect the zeitgeist in its pages, little ink was spilled on Black artists’ contributions to culture. “I don’t pretend to be a music expert,” Wintour said. “But what intrigued many of us at Vogue, was the idea of the sort of collision of hip-hop culture with fashion.”
In the last episode, Vogue’s global editor at large Hamish Bowles admitted that “fashion in the ‘90s was rather white,” implying that Vogue was also rather white. Wintour was never pressed about this although she later admitted that the decade was “an elitist dream,” free of controversy and calls for racial reckoning.