From '80s glam to polished pins and enduring plaid, Harriet Cowie examines the nostalgic influences shaping what we're wearing today.

Fashion is a cyclical mistress. Trends arrive, depart, then reappear decades later, leaving you wishing you’d never tossed those Levi 501 ‘90s into the Grey Lynn charity bin when you shifted homes a few years back. Some returns feel like a warm reunion, others, less so. The recent resurgence of capri pants, for instance, remains lost in translation for me, however, the jandal bounce back has happily seen me through summer. Designers will always mine the past for inspiration, so fashion’s repetitive narrative will never change — only the eras that it returns to.

'80s Revival