FASHION™
Fashion is a general term for a
popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or
accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend
in look and dress up of a person. The prevailing style in behavior as
well. The more technical term, costume, has become so linked in the
public eye with the term "fashion" that the more general term "costume"
has in popular use mostly been relegated to special senses like fancy
dress or masquerade wear, while the term "fashion"
means clothing generally, and the study of it. For a broad cross-cultural look at clothing and its place
in society, refer to the entries for clothing,
costume,
and fabrics. The remainder of this article deals with
clothing fashions in the Western
world.[1]
Clothing fashions
Main
article: History of Western fashion
Early Western travelers, whether to Persia, Turkey or China
frequently remark on the absence of changes in fashion there, and
observers from these other cultures comment on the unseemly pace of
Western fashion, which many felt suggested an instability and lack of
order in Western culture. The Japanese Shogun's
secretary boasted (not completely accurately) to a Spanish visitor in
1609 that Japanese clothing had not changed in over a
thousand years.[2]
However in Ming China, for example, there is considerable
evidence for rapidly changing fashions in Chinese clothing.[3]
Changes in costume often took place at times of economic or social
change (such as in ancient Rome and the medieval Caliphate),
but then a long period without major changes followed. This occurred in
Moorish
Spain during the 8th century, when the famous musician Ziryab
introduced sophisticated clothing-styles based on
seasonal and daily timings from his native Baghdad
and his own inspiration to Córdoba in Al-Andalus.[4][5]
Similar changes in fashion occurred in the Middle East from the 11th
century, following the arrival of the Turks, who introduced clothing styles from Central
Asia and the Far East.[6]
The beginnings of the habit in Europe
of continual and increasingly rapid change in clothing styles can be
fairly reliably dated to the middle of the 14th century, to which historians
including James Laver and Fernand Braudel date the start of Western fashion in
clothing.[7][8]
The most dramatic manifestation was a sudden drastic shortening and
tightening of the male over-garment, from calf-length to barely covering the buttocks,
sometimes accompanied with stuffing on the chest to look bigger. This
created the distinctive Western male outline of a tailored top worn
over leggings or trousers.
The pace of change accelerated
considerably in the following century, and women and men's fashion,
especially in the dressing and adorning of the hair, became equally
complex and changing. Art historians are therefore able to use
fashion in dating images with increasing confidence and precision,
often within five years in the case of 15th century images. Initially
changes in fashion led to a fragmentation of what had previously been
very similar styles of dressing across the upper classes of Europe, and
the development of distinctive national styles. These remained very
different until a counter-movement in the 17th to 18th centuries
imposed similar styles once again, mostly originating from Ancien Régime France.[9]
Though the rich usually led fashion, the increasing affluence of early modern Europe led to the bourgeoisie
and even peasants
following trends at a distance sometimes uncomfortably close for the
elites—a factor Braudel regards as one of the main motors of changing
fashion.[10]
Ten 16th century portraits of German
or Italian
gentlemen may show ten entirely different hats, and at this period
national differences were at their most pronounced, as Albrecht Dürer recorded in his actual or composite contrast
of Nuremberg
and Venetian
fashions at the close of the 15th century (illustration, right).
The "Spanish style" of the end of the century began the move back to
synchronicity among upper-class Europeans, and after a struggle in the
mid 17th century, French styles decisively took over leadership, a
process completed in the 18th century.[11]
Though colors and patterns of textiles
changed from year to year,[12]
the cut of a gentleman's coat and the length of his waistcoat, or the
pattern to which a lady's dress was cut changed more slowly. Men's
fashions largely derived from military
models, and changes in a European male silhouette are galvanized in
theatres of European war, where gentleman officers had opportunities to
make notes of foreign styles: an example is the "Steinkirk" cravat or necktie.
The pace of change picked up in the
1780s with the increased publication of French engravings that showed
the latest Paris styles; though there had been distribution of dressed
dolls from France as patterns since the 16th century, and Abraham
Bosse had produced engravings of fashion from the 1620s. By 1800,
all Western Europeans were dressing alike (or thought they
were): local variation became first a sign of provincial culture, and
then a badge of the conservative peasant.[13]
Although tailors and dressmakers were
no doubt responsible for many innovations before, and the textile
industry certainly led many trends, the history of fashion design is
normally taken[by whom?] to date from 1858, when
the English-born Charles Frederick Worth opened the
first true[weasel words] haute
couture house in Paris. Since then the professional designer
has become a progressively more dominant figure, despite the origins of
many fashions in street fashion. For women the flapper
styles of the 1920s marked the most major alteration in styles for
several centuries, with a drastic shortening of skirt lengths, and much
looser-fitting clothes; with occasional revivals of long skirts forms
of the shorter length have remained dominant ever since. The four major
current fashion capitals are acknowledged to be Milan, New
York City, Paris, and London. Fashion
weeks are held in these cities, where designers exhibit their new
clothing collections to audiences, and which are all headquarters to
the greatest fashion companies and are renowned for their major
influence on global fashion.
Modern
Westerners have a wide choice available in the selection of
their clothes. What a person chooses to wear can reflect that person's 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 considerably 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 terms fashionista
and fashion victim refer to someone who
slavishly follows current fashions.
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 industry
The fashion industry is a product of the
modern age. Prior to 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 capitalism and the development
of the factory system of production, and the proliferation of retail
outlets such as department stores—clothing had increasingly come to be mass-produced in standard sizes and sold at fixed
prices. Although the fashion industry developed first in Europe and
America, today it is an international and highly globalized industry,
with clothing often designed in one country, manufactured in another,
and sold world-wide. 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. The fashion industry
has long been one of the largest employers in the United States, and it
remains so in the 21st century. However, employment declined
considerably as production increasingly moved overseas, especially to
China. Because data on the fashion industry typically are reported for
national economies and expressed in terms of the industry’s many
separate sectors, aggregate figures for world production of textiles
and clothing are difficult to obtain. However, by any measure, the
industry accounts for a significant share of world economic output.
The fashion industry consists of four
levels: the production of raw materials, principally fibres and
textiles but also leather and fur; the production of fashion goods by
designers, manufacturers, contractors, and others; retail sales; and
various forms of advertising and promotion. These levels consist of
many separate but interdependent sectors, all of which are devoted to
the goal of satisfying consumer demand for apparel under conditions
that enable participants in the industry to operate at a profit.
Media
An important part of fashion is fashion journalism. Editorial critique, guidelines and
commentary can be found in magazines, newspapers, on television,
fashion websites, social networks and in fashion
blogs.
At the
beginning of the 20th century, fashion magazines began to include
photographs of various fashion designs and became even more influential
on people than in the past. In cities throughout the world these
magazines were greatly sought-after and had a profound effect on public
clothing taste. Talented illustrators
drew exquisite fashion plates for the publications which covered the
most recent developments in fashion and beauty.
Perhaps the most famous of these magazines was La Gazette du Bon Ton which was founded in 1912
by Lucien Vogel and regularly published until 1925 (with the exception
of the war years).
Vogue, founded in the US
in 1892, has been the longest-lasting and most successful of the
hundreds of fashion magazines that have come and gone. Increasing
affluence after World War II and, most importantly, the advent
of cheap colour printing in the 1960s led to a huge boost in its
sales, and heavy coverage of fashion in mainstream women's
magazines—followed by men's magazines from the 1990s. Haute couture
designers followed the trend by starting the ready-to-wear
and perfume
lines, heavily advertised in the magazines, that now dwarf their
original couture businesses. Television coverage began in the 1950s with
small fashion features. In the 1960s and 1970s, fashion segments on
various entertainment shows became more frequent, and by the 1980s,
dedicated fashion shows such as Fashion-television
started to appear. Despite television and increasing internet
coverage, including fashion blogs, press coverage remains the most
important form of publicity in the eyes of the fashion industry.
However, over the past several years,
fashion websites have developed that merge traditional editorial
writing with user-generated content. Online magazines like iFashion
Network, and Runway Magazine, led by Nole
Marin from America's Next Top Model, have begun to dominate the
market with digital copies for computers, iPhones
and iPads. Example platforms include Apple and Android for
such applications.
A few
days after the 2010 Fall Fashion Week in New
York City came to a close, The New Islander's Fashion Editor, Genevieve Tax,
criticized the fashion industry for running on a seasonal schedule of
its own, largely at the expense of real-world consumers. "Because
designers release their fall collections in the spring and their spring
collections in the fall, fashion magazines such as Vogue always and
only look forward to the upcoming season, promoting parkas come
September while issuing reviews on shorts in January," she writes.
"Savvy shoppers, consequently, have been conditioned to be extremely,
perhaps impractically, farsighted with their buying."[14]
Ethnic Fashion is defined as the
Fashion of Multicultural groups such as African-American, Hispanics,
Asians, etc. Examples of Ethnic Designer are FUBU, BabyPhat, FatFarm,
Sean John, Etc. It is estimated that Ethnic Fashion has contributed
over 20 Billion dollars in revenues.
Intellectual property
Within the fashion industry, intellectual property is not enforced
as it is within the film industry and music industry. To "take inspiration" from others'
designs contributes to the fashion industry's ability to establish
clothing trends. For the past few years, WGSN has
been a dominant source of fashion news and forecasts in steering
fashion brands worldwide to be "inspired" by one another. Enticing
consumers to buy clothing by establishing new trends is, some have
argued, a key component of the industry's success. Intellectual property
rules that interfere with the process of trend-making would, on this
view, be counter-productive. In contrast, it is often argued that the
blatant theft of new ideas, unique designs, and design details by larger
companies is what often contributes to the failure of many smaller or
independent design companies.
Since fakes are distinguishable by their inherent poorer
quality, there is still a demand for luxury goods. And as only a
trademark or logo can be copyrighted for clothing and accessories, many
fashion brands make this one of the most visible aspects of the
garment or accessory.
In
2005, the World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO) held a conference calling for stricter
intellectual property enforcement within the fashion industry to
better protect small and medium businesses and promote competitiveness
within the textile and clothing industries
;
by:
M.MAULID MAFTUHIN
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