Eclecticism Led by Individuality and History.

After a decade of fashion freedom in the 1970s, women had become accustomed to creating an individual look from many options rather than conforming to the dictates of the fashion runways of Paris and New York. And in the 1980s women were practically forced to call on their individuality, rather than try to keep up with the quickly changing fads: in a decade that reveled in the past, stylistic revivals formed a dizzying parade. Each fashion season designers brought out styles that borrowed from a different historical period, modernizing them with new fabrics and colors. Among the revived styles were nineteenth-century bustles and crinolines, turn-of-the-century camisoles and petticoats, 1920s drop-waisted chemises, 1940s large shoulders and shirring, 1950s toreador pants and off-the-shoulder stoles, and 1960s and 1970s Day-Glo minis and ethnic fabrics. An eclectic style resulted when designers...