Since the millennium, the fashion cycle has been working at warp speed. We’ve been through the seventies, followed by the eighties, followed by brief flings with the forties and fifties – and now, a mere eight years after we thought we had sent it packing for good, the nineties is back.
It’s everywhere. 90s uber-models Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista are all back in work, fashion pages are awash with goth-era Madonna inspired lace, and adverts we had forgotten about declaring there’s juice loose aboot this hoose, or that certain beverages are misunderstood, or that consuming a certain chocolate bar will give us that Friday feeling are once again gracing our television screens. Even Britney Spears, the embodiment of 90s pop, has seen fit to undergo a resurrection.
Why, though? Why choose arguably the worst era for fashion, music and general pop culture when surely in these times of desperation, we need some decent, well, taste?
According to this article in The Guardian, it’s all down to the impending recession. “Received fashion wisdom goes that a recognisable face is the most reassuring way to persuade consumers to part with their cash in lean times. Since Evangelista appeared in the L’Oreal adverts, the cosmetics giant has reported a 20% increase in sales over 18 months.”
How can start-up businesses, which unfortunately were not present during the decade of terrible, terrible taste, tap into this?
White labelling is one idea which has taken off in recent years – selling your product to a larger business so it can slap branding on it and call it its own. The best thing about it is that white labelling can work for any product or service, from cornflakes to cakes to software. It has even worked for dating websites – whitelabeldating.com provides the software, membership database, and technical support, you provide the brand.
In 2005, the white label market was worth £29.2bn, and it’s predicted to exceed £36bn by 2011. Just watch out which products you choose – according to Peter Shaw, managing director of brand consultancy Brand Catalyst, there are some areas where white labelled products won’t cut the mustard. “Products where the consumer believes that the technical performance or product quality is too important to compromise, then manufacturers will always win, as long as they remain innovative,” he says.
Even if white labelling isn’t your bag, the 90s revival is here – whether we like it or not, so we may as well give in to it. In fact, in the words of Laura Barton, it’s probably best to ‘get a Rachel cut, soak up 90210, reacquaint yourself with the sun-dried tomato, and maybe contemplate whatever happened to Candy Flip.’
Brilliant. Or as they said in the 90s: ‘Psyche!’