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Clueless movie

It’s almost the end of the year and everyone is going back in time. I mean, Dutchies: who is not listening to the top 2000 songs of all time on radio 2? We went to the future yesterday, but today I am taking you back again to the past. However, this time I am not going back that far, because this is the last post of the retro fashion serie! Back to the 90s, which brings back some extra nostalgic moments for me, because this is the time that I grew up. The time of ghettoblasters, The Spice Girls, Hakuna Matata, Discmans that didn’t fit into your trousers and the internet was just coming up! Imagine that…

This era also left its lasting mark on fashion. A very colorful mark also as you will discover. The early 90s were an extension of the late 1980s. But this was about to change very fast. Remember when MTV was all about the music? Music videos were being produced everywhere. The fashion in those popular music videos had a tremendous impact on the fashion sense because of all those teenagers, who adopted the fashion style of their idols into the real world. Hip-hop artists were seen as topfashion influencers: the urban culture rised and rised, not only in the big cities. The urban fashion motto was: Big t-shirts and baseball caps for everyone! Also, there were a lot of remixed versions of fashion trends from previous decades. In the mid-1990s there were for example The Spice Girls, who brought back a huge revival of the 70s platform shoe. Another item that made its revival under young woman, was the loose, short skirt. Once again fashion comebacks were very colorful. Denim and leather jackets were extremely popular and survived the whole nineties decade. As a matter of fact, denim and leather are true fashion survivors. Who doesn’t own a nice pair of jeans or a leather jacket these days?

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Glamorous Hedy Lamarr

Are you reading this while you’re using a wireless connection? What’s (technological) life without wireless communication these days, right? Whether you like it or not, you are literally linked to the 1930s and 1940s. Let me introduce an Old Hollywood star to you who played a significant part in the (co-)invention of that beloved Wi-Fi wireless connection of the present: Hedy Lamarr.

Let’s enter the time machine. Back in the Golden Hollywood era, it was rare to be a brunette in a (Hollywood) world since it was mostly dominated by blondes. On the other hand, it was easy to stand out when you were not blonde. Hedy Lamarr stood out alright. Hedy Lamarr was born as Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna in 1914. In her teenage years she was discovered by an Austian director, who led to Hedy’s appearance in the (for that time-period) very controversial Czech movie Ecstasy in 1933. She was ahead of her times and probably one of the first actresses to do “controversial” nude scenes in a movie. Even the pope interfered back then. You know you’re in trouble when the pope gets involved.

Early 1930s

Hedy Lamarr youngvia Kate Gabrielle – flickr.com

 

Hedy Lamarr young early 1930svia Retrogasm

In that same year, she got married to munition manufacturer Friedrich Mandl. This marriage would’t lead to the “lived happily ever after life” she imagined. On the contrary, Mandl wasn’t what you would call a person with a nice, sparkling personality. In Lamarr’s own words, Mandl was more of the “extreme controlling” kind. Besides that, she also didn’t like the fact that he sold munition to the Nazis. However, there was a positive outcome of this experience. During her marriage, Lamarr often had to accompany her husband to meetings and events where scientist and military technology experts came together. Those events introduced her to the scientific field where she would later develop skills and co-invent an early technique of wireless communication.

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