I've always found the concept of 'bottom-up' fashion fascinating. When looks come from the street and designers catch on to what is popular, rather than setting trends themselves, I believe the looks gain interest because they are, in some way, 'authentic'.
Classic and iconic fashions are made when they some up the spirit of the time in which they were created, and the looks that spring to mind, hippy, punk, mod, etc. all came from a subculture.
However, for the most part I don't believe they keep this authenticity. As soon as a subculture becomes popular/designed for it effectively 'sells out' to the masses, the reasons for which the subculture originally existed for are lost, and the ideas behind the look become over-simplified and homogenized.
You can see this process in an assignment I did for S&C 1 on the Mod subculture. The text may be too small to read, but even through the pictures you can see that once Mary Quant and other designers cottoned on to the mods, the style completely changed into the 'Swinging London' Carnaby street look, now known as the 'Mod Look'.
This homogenization needn't always be a bad thing, I happen to love 60s 'Swinging London' fashion, but I do think it's important to note where a subculture ends and becomes a trend.
If anyone would like a closer look at the attached assignment, just ask! :)
(***EDIT - I'm having trouble getting blogger to attach my images. I will try again later)
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