Something is happening in fashion.

In the past, there have always been discernible, obvious trends that define a decade when you look back, whether it was the bobby socks and ponytails of the 50s, the mini skirts of the 60s, the flower power of the 70s, or the unspeakable horror of the 80s.

The world of high fashion, and its dictators, was traditionally a closed shop. A handful of designers showed in New York, Paris and Milan, and a group of insider critics, mostly older women, evaluated what was on the runways, scribbling and sketching their opinions into notebooks.

The prevailing trends were then translated by these industry experts into stories and photo shoots, which would then appear in newspapers and, six months later in glossy magazines.

Eventually, the dominant trends were in the stores and in our wardrobes. It was a controlled and rarified environment, dominated by hard-to-impress taste masters with an astute eye who could not be bought.

Then came the camera phone and the Internet. The fashion on the runway was photographed and swiftly copied by the high street fashion chains. The bloggers arrived. Social media arrived. Everything became Tweeted and Instagrammed and Snapchatted and commented on in real time.

The democracy of technology turned fashion into a form of entertainment, as opposed to a trade show, and suddenly everyone’s opinion of the third dress that hit the runway at the Saint Laurent show is valid.

In the spirit of liberte, egalite and fraternite, it is valid. It doesn’t mean that it’s right, as I think the awful thigh-high clear plastic boots at the recent Kanye West show will tell us.

Models at Kanye West’s Yeezy show. Photo: Getty

Despite the gazillions of self-appointed style gurus flooding the Internet, the world certainly hasn’t got more stylish. Au contraire. It just means that anything, absolutely anything, goes.

There are scores of street photographers that snap anything that’s bright and colourful and might have a pulse outside the shows, which are then run on random street style websites, and proffered as inspiration for what to wear now.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BKpboyGAH2C/?taken-by=sydneyfashionblogger&hl=en

A lot of the time they don’t look stylish, they don’t look polished. They look like they got dressed purely in order to attract attention, and they’re a size zero. If you’re thin and pretty (or handsome) you can wear literally any insane concoction outside the fashion shows, and be considered fashionable.

Take the crazy mix that the new designer Alessandro Michele at Gucci is showing on the runways at the moment, a fabulous mash-up of geek glasses and turbans, and vintage glam cross-dressing.

Gucci’s Spring/Summer collection is not for the fainthearted. Photo: Getty

It is a breath of fresh air and there are beautiful singular pieces that make up every outfit, but boy do you have to be a particular person to wear it all at once.

If I put on any of those looks in their entirety and went outside, I’m pretty sure a kind-hearted soul would come up, pat my hand and ask me if I knew where I was and did someone need to take me home.

The sheer proliferation of styles and clothes and suggested “ways to wear” an outfit from a 22-year-old blogger with too much time on their hands seems to have caused utter confusion because, from what I see in airports, in hotels, on the street, people are wearing an uninspiring and often wildly inappropriate mish-mash of everything.

Some fashionistas are just dressing to get photographed. Photo: Getty

Neither formal nor casual, clothing today is the living embodiment of a vast H&M store that’s just been unpacked. With too much information, and too much choice comes great confusion.

I’m suffering from it myself. Going into Zara feels like a trip to Taronga Zoo. There’s so much to see, I’m exhausted after the Komodo dragons. And they’re near the entrance.