The aesthetics of a decade
Enough years have passed for the 90s to make a comeback in spring-summer 2021 fashion.
Yet, many of us can remember them as if it were yesterday, the years of youth and of that typical uncertain optimism. It is the decade that followed the crazy hedonism of the 1980s, began with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and saw the end of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the European Union.
In this chiaroscuro time frame, suspended between the ambitious years of Reagan, Bush and Thatcher and the chaos of the new millennium, fashion becomes as always the interpreter of the needs of society, and makes the styles of the urban subculture, such as Grunge, coexist with the phenomenon of Supermodels and finally with the new Minimalism of Helmut Lang, Jil Sander and Calvin Klein.
But the real aesthetic revolution was made by a young English photographer with an almost stolen shot of an early teen who would become the icon of an era.
In 1991, Corinne Day photographed Kate Moss, then unknown, and like a bomb burst onto the artistic scene, overturning the image of glossy and unattainable beauty, a remnant of the 80s, and proposing a fresh, bare and natural aesthetic; a true celebration of the ordinary.
With her intimate and unadorned style, Corinne Day is the spokesperson for a cultural movement that turns its back on the glamour of the 80s and focuses on the raw and somewhat melancholic beauty of Generation X.
