All about fashion

                                                    

 what is fashion

Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion industry as that which is trending

History of Fashion

Fashion is most often thought of as a global industry that is invested in anticipating what we wear and how we wish to appear to others. But fashion isn’t just a business. It’s also a cultural and social phenomenon, driven by the desire for the new. As such, the industry can never fully control fashion: fashion is all about being open to change.

Christian Dior’s first couture collection was unveiled on February 12, 1947. It presented two lines named 8 and Corolle, referring to the corolla of a flower which is the botanical term for its petals. The bar suit was, in essence, an upside-down flower. The full pleated skirt, fine black wool crêpe over a stiffened taffeta petticoat, is the corolla, and the natural silk tussore jacket, tightly fitted at the waist and extending out over padded hips, is the sepal (the green protective layer that surrounds the petals).

But all the references to botany were scrambled as the show ended and Carmel Snow, editor-in-chief of American Harper’s Bazaar, exclaimed to Dior, "It's quite a revelation, dear Christian. Your dresses have such a new look!". A correspondent for Reuters news agency wired the quote, quickly spreading the revised name for the collection that changed the course of postwar women’s fashion. The New Look, as it is still known, continues to symbolize fashion as seasonal change and the 'newest thing'; but it also illustrates how turning clothes into fashion requires a degree of transformation. What we know about fashion is partly formed by the materiality of dress and the experience of wearing clothes, but much more is learned from its translation into words and images – how it gets communicated.

2. Experimentation and adaptation

Fashion often promotes ideals that are unattainable to the many, and accessible to the few. Yet fashion also has the capacity to make the marginalized feel that they can participate. For example, through vogueing, which came out of the New York gay balls of the early 1990s, black and latino gay men appropriated the elite fashions presented in the pages of Vogue magazine.

3. The body

The 2016 exhibition Game Changers at the Mode Museum in Antwerp is a good example of how the evolution of fashion can be traced through the changing relationship between clothes and the body. Further, it shows that fashion is not only about newness; it can also be in creative dialogue with fashion's history and the past.

fashion in the western world

The Western wear category of clothing reflects the style worn in 19th-century clothes for both men and women in the 1940s and 1950s, singing cowboys, such as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, wore stylized clothes that were popularized in Western films and television.

The beginning in Europe of continual and increasingly-rapid change in clothing styles can be fairly reliably dated to late medieval times. Historians, including James Laver and Fernand Braudel, date the start of Western fashion in clothing to the middle of the 14th century, though they tend to rely heavily on contemporary imagery, as illuminated manuscripts were not common before the 14th century. The most dramatic early change in fashion was a sudden drastic shortening and tightening of the male over-garment from calf-length to barely covering the buttocks, sometimes accompanied with stuffing in the chest to make it look bigger. This created the distinctive Western outline of a tailored top worn over leggings or trousers.

Fashion influence from the Eastern world

In the early 2000s, Asian fashion influences became increasingly significant in local and global markets. Countries such as China, Japan, India, and Pakistan have traditionally had large textile industries with a number of rich traditions; though these were often drawn upon by Western designers, Asian clothing styles gained considerable influence in the early- to mid-2000s.^[36]

Fashion industry

In its most common use, the term fashion refers to the current expressions on sale through the fashion industry. The global fashion industry is a product of the modern age.^[37] In the Western world, tailoring has since medieval times been controlled by guilds, but with the emergence of industrialism, the power of the guilds was undermined. Before the mid-19th century, most clothing was custom-made. It was handmade for individuals, either as home production or on order from dressmakers and tailors. By the beginning of the 20th century, with the rise of new technologies such as the sewing machine, the rise of global trade, the development of the factory system of production, and the proliferation of retail outlets such as department stores, clothing became increasingly mass-produced in standard sizes and sold at fixed prices.

Although the fashion industry developed first in Europe and America, as of 2017, it is an international and highly globalized industry, with clothing often designed in one country, manufactured in another, and sold worldwide. For example, an American fashion company might source fabric in China and have the clothes manufactured in Vietnam, finished in Italy, and shipped to a warehouse in the United States for distribution to retail outlets internationally.

Fashion trends

A fashion trend signifies a specific look or expression that is spread across a population at a specific time and place. A trend is considered a more ephemeral look, not defined by the seasons when collections are released by the fashion industry. A trend can thus emerge from street style, across cultures, and from influencers and other celebrities.