How many times have you walked around town and felt like there must have been some secret memo sent around saying that all the guys should have beards and APC jumpers, and that women have joined a vintage Levis and Breton top cult?
If you’ve been to London’s Broadway Market on a Saturday morning, you would definitely be forgiven for thinking you had stepped into a clone-themed episode of The Twilight Zone – and that said episode was sponsored by Ray Ban.
Proving that people can’t help but all dress the same is Dutch photographer Hans Eijkelboom, who for more than 20 years has been observing and snapping common threads in the style he sees on the streets, the results of which are collected in his new book People of the Twenty-First Century, published by Phaidon next month.
Focusing on a small area in cities across the world, including New York, London, Paris, Shanghai, Mumbai and Amsterdam, Eijkelboom photographed everyone he saw who looked the same over a two-hour time slot. The results? A startling repetition of specific items of clothing – some of which gulp we think you might recognise.
‘It was kind of like a diary where it was important to me to find the immediate culture of the street,’ Eijkelboom tells The Debrief.
With the images spanning from 1993 to 2013, fleeting trends are abundant. Remember that five minutes in 2007 when we all thought footless tights and a cut-off denim skirt seemed like the most boundary-pushingly-cool outfit you’d ever heard of? Even if you’ve blocked it out, Eijekelboom’s got the pictures to prove just how ubiquitous it became.
![It used to be that jeans were everything, but ever since Zara went and normalised printed trousers on the high street, they took their turn in the trouser top-spot. Florals, unsurprisingly, have remained a particular favourite.
It’s easy to see which styles have remained constant too. ‘Flowers are the thing I’ve seen the most on young people and old people the whole time,’ Eijkelboom notes. He’s also proved that men the world over seem to have a thing about stripy shirts, too. ‘For 20 years, that’s not changed,’ he laughs.
In fact, what’s especially notable when flicking through this sizable collection of copycat fashion is just how little peoples’ style generally has changed over the last couple of decades.
‘I started the project seven years before 2000 and I intended to do it until seven years after 2000, thinking there would be a big change at the turn of the century,’ Eijkelboom reflects. ‘But there was no big change.’
And so he’s continued.
![No sooner had we filled our wardrobes with 2006's ubiquitous smock top, were we cinching them tight again with massive belts in 2007. A classic idea that took on a strong new identity for a mid-decade moment.
‘Everywhere you go, there’s Primark, H&M, etc,’ Eijelboom observes when we wonder why everyone has become less original at a time when access to inspiration couldn’t be more abundant. ‘When there’s not that many different shops to get your clothes from around the world, the possibilities to be different aren’t there,’ he muses.
![Britney loved Madonna, we loved Britney, and so this circle of admiration reached its fashion conclusion in 2007 when Desperately Seeking Susan leggings could not be worn without a Crossroads-worthy denim mini skirt.
‘I made the book to show that globalisation means that in all these cities, the way of expressing yourself is more or less the same,’ he continues. ‘That’s the problem with individuality and the culture we live in.’
So next time you tell your best mate that you’ve already called dibs on a sweater that’s so much more you than it is her, perhaps you should take a closer look around you.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.