Deirdre McQuillan gets some expert opinion on what's in store, from nicotine-impregnated clothes, to grow-your-own jackets.
If anybody had predicted in 1980 that 25 years later women would be wearing frills and flounces, baby-doll dresses, lace-up corsets and insanely high heels, they would have been greeted with ridicule. If they'd said fashion would leap from catwalk to clothes rail in a matter of days, that too would have been considered inconceivable. If they had said silks, linens and cashmere would become everyday and affordable, it would have been hard to imagine.
At a time when women were returning to work in unprecedented numbers, frivolity in dress was forsaken for serious, wide shouldered suits that reflected new attitudes and responsibilities.
That the fashion industry has changed beyond recognition in our modern age is obvious; where its future lies is anyone's guess, though China's emergence as a global economic force is bound to have huge implications. Prediction is a risky business, yet identifying upcoming products is now the domain of trend forecasters.
The continuing influence of sport goes without saying. Today, haute couture is merely a vehicle to keep world brands visible and leverage sales of associated products.
Academic study of fashion is growing apace; big fashion exhibitions in major museums are attracting huge attendances. Fashion and art continue to overlap in unusual and interesting ways. Meanwhile, advances in fabric technologies have subtly infiltrated our clothing and will continue to do so. Innovation lies not just in laser-cut leathers or inkjet fabric printing, both still expensive procedures, but also in the development of non-woven fabrics and recyclable plastics. One expert is forecasting that we'll be wearing bamboo in spring 2006 - apparently it is as soft as silk when woven. Further down the line, banana fibre has all sorts of exciting possibilities.
Predicting the mood - as opposed to the technology - of the future is a different challenge. Today's Western fashion, with its appropriation of previous decades, its playful toying with vintage, reflects a supremely confident, feminine spirit or a poverty of the imagination, depending on your point of view. "We move", wrote Polly Devlin, "in the current of the environment".
Paul Poiret, the father of modern fashion, a rebel who despised "sweet pea" Edwardian shades, once said that all fashion ends in excess, and in an age so defiantly youthful, it is the new generation who will determine tomorrow's fashion. Islam, too, is bound to have a role to play beyond the wearing of the hijab. One thing is sure; Brad Pitt definitely got it wrong last May when he said that men would be wearing skirts this spring. Now that would certainly be revolutionary.
WHAT'SIN STORE...
ANGELA WOODS, head of design, NCAD
"We will be looking at where fashion comes from and sustainability and what fabric can do for us, such as relieve symptoms or give off a perfume. So we won't be using deodorants and we won't be slapping on creams like oil slicks because the fabric will do this for us. They may even alter mood. I will be able to wear my nicotine-impregnated clothes doing my budgets, for example. People will still dress up for weddings, but even though there will always be a sense of occasion, clothing generally has got terribly, terribly casual.
"Since we will have more leisure time and will still be working at 70, the need to stay healthy and working will be important and the clothes will reflect that."
JOANNE HYNES, designer and lecturer
"We will be wearing more natural fibres and playing with shape and structure; shapes will be more voluminous. Everybody is dressing the same now and influenced by US media, so that people are beginning to look more and more alike. There will always be trends in youth culture and yes, we will be wearing jeans in 20 years time. People are always going to want beautiful clothes and to look to the past, but textiles, particularly interactive textiles, will become hugely important. Weather will have an important part to play and we will have more high-tech raincoats, more luxury-based fabrics. Hopefully, we won't be wearing tracksuits any more."
PETER O'BRIEN, designer
"Fashion has changed in so many ways, and so has society. Fashion has a different role to what it had 30 years ago and is now a marketing tool to sell perfume and handbags. Fashion got into bed with the music industry 10 years ago and they are unhappy bedfellows. What a woman wears on MTV is hardly suitable for the average woman as everyday dress, but it seems to have been adopted as such. Whether it is an attack in Iraq or a runway show in Paris, everybody sees it 15 minutes later on the Internet, so people have a much broader view of fashion.
"Because we live in an era of visual or aural sound bites, nothing can be subtle or nuanced. The message in fashion is sexual and I think that's sad because. We live in a less ritualised society, so the notion of dressing for the races, or occasions, doesn't exist any more.
"In the 1950s people believed in an afterlife and a soul, and in a secular society like ours, the body has replaced the soul, and people want to show it off. We live in an age that denies ageing, and people over 50 are invisible in the media. That is denying the most fundamental part of human existence."
JOAN BERGIN, costume designer
"The whole cult of celebrity has dominated what people think, and for the moment fashion is still about showing as little clothing as possible. If I had to design clothes for a futuristic movie, they would be a version of sexy clothes, but in modern fabrics with detail suggesting modernity. It would have to be whatever would look sexy, desirable and aspirational, which would mean low cuts and exposing leg.
"The contradiction is that the big costume houses in Rome and London, which I use, proudly tell you that named designers have been in, borrowing pieces to reinvent them.
"I find, being back in Dublin, that there is far more sameness here than in New York. Let's see what happens."
MARIE O'MAHONY, advanced textile consultant
"The relation between sportswear and fashion is very strong; there's a kind of ping-pong going on which has been wonderful for each. There are two ideas running in parallel; the tactile, touchy-feeling of natural fibres and the high-tech 'Barbarella' look of embedded electronics. Technology is used to enhance natural fibres, so in Marks & Spencer you can find a high degree of natural fibres, which are easier to wash and iron. Nylon used to be unpleasant; now it is being used to push the performance of material, to keep you cool or keep you warm.
"The Smart system can pick up changes in the environment and respond to them. A lot of development is being done in Japan. We will be wearing things inside rather than outside - mobile phones will be embedded in jackets. Everything is getting smaller, and many fabrics are bio-compatible.
"The latest in biotechnology is a semi-living jacket. It is grown on a polymer substrata which disintegrates to leave your jacket growing in a bell jar. Eventually, you will be able to wear it! That's happening in Australia, and if successful will be a whole new way of producing textiles."
Marie O'Mahony is co-author of Techno Textiles, to be reissued in the autumn and SportsTech, both published by Thames & Hudson