21 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:The more you come down like a ton of bricks on a narrow time period and place, the more you realize fashion was changing quickly at all times. It had more regional changes though: the equivalent of different things catching on in different high schools at the same time now. Many of these are lost forever and we can't say what they were but they undoubtedly existed. Petty things like, everyone in that county was wearing lots of green for a couple years because of that cool thing that happened at the baptism of Prominent Person's kid. A new colonel might take over a regiment and switch the black neckstocks to white because he wants a clean and soldierly appearance. Then a new colonel is in charge and says the white neckstocks show dirt too easily, everyone has to get black ones... People living at the time could have looked at old photos (if photography had existed) and known, like we do, "that must have been taken at least 20 years ago if she has that bag but definitely not more than 25 years ago because look at the hat that guy's wearing..."
In a couple hundred years people (outside of academics) probably won't be able to tell the difference between 1960's fashion and 1990's fashion even though we all can instinctively do so. People in a couple hundred years won't realize that the bellbottoms go in one distinct era and the midriff shirts with finger length sleeves go in another. They probably won't realize those shirts were only worn by women either! Historical hobbyists and theatrical costume designers get the gendered details of past clothing wrong all the time.
There's something weirdly comforting about that, it makes you realize that people are just people, even from different eras
