Clothing Definitions — definition lists for the apparel industry from Apparel Search
The fashion definition list covers the industry and culture of fashion itself rather than individual garments: fashion, fashion design and designers, fashion shows and fashion week, the catwalk, couturiers, fashion journalism and models, movements from the Artistic Dress Movement to street fashion and fast fashion — plus a full run of fashion history periods, from Elizabethan dress through the decades of the twentieth century.
The "Fashion Definitions" section on Apparel Search is a valuable and comprehensive repository of essential terms and their precise definitions related to clothing, footwear, and style. Curated to be an educational resource for both fashion industry professionals and enthusiastic consumers, this section aims to enhance understanding and fluency within the ever-evolving world of fashion. By offering clear explanations of significant words and concepts, it equips individuals with the knowledge needed to navigate trends, innovations, and style preferences. Whether you're a designer, retailer, fashion marketer, or an avid fashion lover, this section provides a solid foundation for effective communication and informed decision-making within the dynamic landscape of fashion. Explore this collection of fashion-centric terminology to enrich your vocabulary and deepen your appreciation for the diverse and fascinating world of style and attire.
Educate yourself regarding fashion. Here is a great place to read some very interesting fashion definitions.
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Additional Fashion Links of Interest: Fashion Industry Network |
Learn about another era in fashion: 1980's Fashion History (terms section) Learn about Modeling Fashion: |
Clothing & Fashion Industry Terms and Definitions presented by Apparel Search. We have not created the definitions on these particular pages. We are simply posting them for your easy access. Enjoy your reading about fashion and issues relevant to fashion.
Fashion has a professional vocabulary distinct from the clothes themselves. The designer originates; the couturier designs and makes high fashion for individual clients; the fashion show stages new collections for buyers and press; fashion week concentrates those shows into the calendar of the great fashion capitals. The catwalk — the narrow runway models walk — gave its name to the whole spectacle and to a way of walking. Behind the scenes sit fashion journalism, which reports and criticizes the collections, and the fashion model, whose work changed from mannequin to supermodel as photography and celebrity merged with dress. Fashionista and fashion victim are the culture's own coinages, one for the devoted follower, one for the follower who lets fashion wear them — a reminder that this industry generates slang as fast as it generates hemlines.
The movements on this page explain change itself. The Artistic Dress Movement and Victorian Dress Reform pushed back against corseted fashion in the name of health and art. Ready to wear industrialized style, putting designed clothing into standard sizes. Street fashion reversed the flow, carrying styles from sidewalks and subcultures up into designer collections — hip hop fashion being the defining modern example. Fast fashion then accelerated the whole system until trend cycles measured in weeks, raising the questions about cost, waste and labor that now shape the industry's debate. Casual, semi-casual and semi-formal name the dress-code middle ground most people actually live in.
The history links are the list's depth charge: Elizabethan ruffs and farthingales, Edwardian shirtwaists, Victorian crinolines, and the decade-by-decade twentieth century — each period's silhouette explained so that a term like 1960s fashion or 1980s fashion means shapes and fabrics, not just nostalgia. Fashion, this page argues by its structure, is a language with grammar (the industry), slang (the street) and literature (its history).
Fashion is the prevailing style of dress and appearance at a given time, and the industry that creates and spreads it. This list defines the word alongside its working vocabulary — design, designers, shows, weeks, models, journalism and movements.
Fast fashion is the rapid production of inexpensive clothing that copies current trends and reaches stores in weeks rather than seasons, at low prices and high turnover. It is defined here alongside ready to wear, its slower parent system.
The page links to Edwardian, Elizabethan and Victorian fashion and to period guides for 1550-1600, 1600-1650, 1700-1750, 1750-1795, the 1820s through the 1890s, and the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, plus a history of Western fashion overview.