Fashion Definitions — fashion history, brands and industry terms from Apparel Search
Fashion in clothes has allowed wearers to express emotion or solidarity with other people for millennia. Modern Westerners have a wide choice in selecting their clothes, and what a person chooses to wear can reflect their personality or likes. When people with cultural status wear new or different clothes, a fashion trend may start, as people who like or respect them begin to wear clothes of a similar style. Fashions vary within a society according to age, social class, generation, occupation and geography, and over time. Fashion by definition changes constantly, and a person who slavishly follows current fashions is called a fashion victim.
Fashion in clothes has allowed wearers to express emotion or solidarity with other people for millennia. Modern Westerners have a wide choice available in the selection of their clothes. What a person chooses to wear can reflect their personality or likes. When people who have cultural status start to wear new or different clothes a fashion trend may start; people who like or respect them may start to wear clothes of a similar style.
Fashions may vary significantly within a society according to age, social class, generation, occupation and geography as well as over time. If, for example, an older person dresses according to the fashion of young people, he or she may look ridiculous in the eyes of both young and older people. The term "fashion victim" refers to someone who slavishly follows the current fashions (implementations of fashion)..
One can regard the system of sporting various fashions as a fashion language incorporating various fashion statements using a grammar of fashion. (Compare some of the work of Roland Barthes.)
Fashion and the process of change.
Fashion, by definition, changes constantly. The change may proceed more rapidly than in most other fields of human activity (language, thought, etc.). For some, modern fast-paced change in fashion embodies many of the negative aspects of capitalism: it results in waste and encourages people qua consumers to buy things unnecessarily. Others, especially young people, enjoy the diversity that changing fashion can apparently provide, seeing the constant change as a way to satisfy their desire to experience "new" and "interesting" things. Note too though that fashion can change to enforce uniformity, as in the case where so-called Mao suits became the national uniform of Mainland China.
Materially affluent societies can offer a variety of different fashions, in clothes or accessories, to choose from. At the same time there remains an equal or larger range designated (at least currently) 'out of fashion'. (These or similar fashions may cyclically come back 'into fashion' in due course, and remain 'in fashion' again for a while.)
Practically every aspect of appearance that can be changed has been changed at some time. In the past, new discoveries and lesser-known parts of the world could provide an impetus to change fashions based on the exotic: Europe in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, for example, might favour things Turkish at one time, things Chinese at another, and things Japanese at a third. The global village has reduced the options of exotic novelty in more recent times.
Fashion houses and their associated fashion designers, as well as high-status consumers (including celebrities), appear to have some role in determining the rates and directions of fashion change.
Fashion can suggest or signal status in a social group. Groups with high cultural status like to keep 'in fashion' to display their position; people who do not keep 'in fashion' within a so-called "style tribe" can risk shunning. Because keeping 'in fashion' often requires considerable amounts of money, fashion can be used to show off wealth (compare conspicuous consumption). Adherence to fashion trends can thus form an index of social affluence and an indicator of social mobility.
Fashion can help attract a partner. As well as showing certain features of a person's personality that appeal to prospective mates, keeping up with fashion can advertise a person's status to such candidates.
"Fashion sense" consists of the ability to tell what clothing and/or accessories look good and what doesn't. Since the entire notion of fashion depends on subjectivity, so does the question of who possesses "fashion sense". Some people style themselves as "fashion consultants" and charge clients to help the latter choose what to wear.
Fashion can operate differently depending on gender, or it can promote homogeneity as in unisex styles.
Designer Definition (from U.S Department of Labor)
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Clothing as a LanguageFashion is best understood as communication before it is understood as clothing. For millennia, dress has allowed wearers to express emotion or solidarity with other people, and in modern societies, where Westerners have a wide choice in what to wear, the choice itself is a statement: what a person wears reflects personality and likes, whether the wearer intends the message or not. The system can be regarded as a fashion language, incorporating fashion statements using a grammar of fashion — the comparison associated with the work of Roland Barthes. Like a language, fashion has vocabulary (garments and accessories), grammar (the rules of combination a culture accepts) and fluent and unfluent speakers. Fashion sense, on this account, is literacy: the ability to tell what clothing and accessories look good and what does not. That the notion depends entirely on subjectivity is what makes it social — a statement only works if its audience can read it, which is why fashions vary so significantly within a society according to age, social class, generation, occupation and geography. Each group reads and speaks a slightly different dialect of dress. Change Is the DefinitionFashion, by definition, changes constantly — and may change more rapidly than language or thought. The mechanism is imitation from above combined with differentiation: when people with cultural status wear something new, admirers copy it; once copied widely, the originators need something new again. Fashion houses, their designers and high-status consumers including celebrities all have a role in setting the rates and directions of that change. The definition also records the argument about what the change means. For some, modern fast-paced change embodies negative aspects of capitalism, resulting in waste and encouraging unnecessary buying; for others, especially young people, the diversity of changing fashion satisfies the desire to experience new and interesting things. Fashion can even change to enforce uniformity, as when the Mao suit became a national uniform. Two practical consequences follow. A large range of any era's fashions is always designated out of fashion — yet similar fashions cyclically come back into fashion and remain there for a while, which is why old clothes become vintage rather than merely old. And novelty historically fed on the exotic — eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe favouring Turkish, then Chinese, then Japanese things in turn — an impetus the global village has reduced, since few places are unknown enough to supply it now. Status, Wealth and AttractionFashion also works as a signal of position. Groups with high cultural status keep in fashion to display their position, and a person who fails to keep in fashion within a style tribe risks shunning by it. Because keeping in fashion requires considerable money, adherence to trends forms an index of social affluence and mobility, and fashion can be used to show off wealth — conspicuous consumption worn on the body. The signal is aimed at audiences the wearer wants: as well as expressing personality, keeping up with fashion can attract a partner, advertising both taste and status to prospective mates. The system's failures have names too. The fashion victim slavishly follows current fashions without the judgement that makes the language one's own. An older person dressing in the fashion of the young may look ridiculous to both generations — a sentence spoken in the wrong dialect. Fashion can operate differently by gender, or erase the difference in unisex styles, and an entire profession, the fashion consultant, exists to sell fluency to those unsure of their own. All of it rests on the simple fact the definition starts from: clothes are never only clothes, because everyone wearing them is saying something. Common QuestionsWhat is fashion?Fashion is the system of prevailing styles in clothing and appearance, and the process of change within it. Through fashion, wearers express emotion, personality and solidarity with other people. How does a fashion trend start?A trend may start when people who have cultural status begin to wear new or different clothes, and people who like or respect them start to wear clothes of a similar style. Fashion houses, designers and high-status consumers including celebrities all play a role in the rate and direction of change. What is a fashion victim?A fashion victim is someone who slavishly follows the current fashions. The term criticises following fashion without judgement — wearing whatever is current whether or not it suits the wearer. More to Explore
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