Forgotten Fashion Outs Faux Trends & Fake Muses

the Le Gaz (The Gas Flame) evening gown from Gaston Darchez's 1950 "Frigidaire Formals" collection in which each piece was inspired by a household appliance...such as a gas stove

 

Too many books about fashion treat the subject with a cringe-worthy amount of pomp and circumstance, so a new collection of 28 never-before-told tales of doomed-to-fail faux fashion is a chic breath of unpretentious fresh air. Written in a tongue-in-cheek history-book style, Forgotten Fashion: An Illustrated Faux History of Outrageous Trends and Their Untimely Demise (available at ForgottenFashion.com) traces the birth, life and death of faux trends such as the Body Muff (1905), Frigidaire Formals (1950), and Emotionally Distressed Jeans (1998).

Each faux trend was beset by an untimely, often tragic demise...the victims of misfortunes including bad weather, long wars, short tempers, wild animals, poorly formulated fabric blends, a Milanese tailor, a bourgeois Swiss teenager, and a man known only as Hugo.

Along the way, you'll meet a melange of fictional designers, made-up muses, and totally imaginary trendsetters, as well as real people and places. Illustrated in part by Andraé Gonzalo (Project Runway Season Two - check out his video below where he discusses the inspiration for his illustrations rendered using actual paper and watercolor paints), it's already received praised from the lofty likes of the Parsons Dean of Fashion, Simon Collins, who deemed this detour into fashion that might have been "lots of fun!"

Available at ForgottenFashion.com.

- Lesley Scott

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