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For other uses, see Fashion (disambiguation).
"Menswear" redirects here. For the musical group, see Menswear (band).
Fashion is a general term for a popular style or practice, especially in clothing, footwear, accessories, makeup, body piercing
or furniture. Fashion refers to a distinctive and often habitual trend
in the style with which a person dresses, as well as to prevailing
styles in behaviour. Fashion also refers to the newest creations of
textile designers. The more technical term, costume, has become so linked to the term "fashion" that the use of the former has been relegated to special senses like fancy dress or masquerade
wear, while "fashion" means clothing more generally and the study of
it. Although aspects of fashion can be feminine or masculine, some
trends are androgynous.
Clothing fashions
Early Western travelers, whether to Persia, Turkey, India, 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.
However in Ming China, for example, there is considerable evidence for rapidly changing fashions in Chinese clothing.
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 from the 8th century, when the famous musician Ziryab introduced sophisticated clothing-styles based on seasonal and daily fashion from his native Baghdad and his own inspiration to Córdoba in Al-Andalus.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
Though colors and patterns of textiles changed from year to year,
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.
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 to date from 1858, when the English-born Charles Frederick Worth opened the first true haute couture
house in Paris. The Haute house was the name established by government
for the fashion houses that met the standards of industry. They have to
adhere to standards such as: keeping at least 20 employees engaged in
making the clothes, showing two collections per year at fashion shows,
and presenting a certain number of patterns to costumers.
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,
variations of the shorter length have remained dominant ever since.
Flappers also wore cloches, which were snug fitting and covered the
forehead. Her shoes had a heel and some sort of buckle. The most
important part was the jewelry, such as: earrings and necklaces that had
diamonds or gems. The flapper gave a particular image as being
seductive due to her short length dress, which was form fitting, and the
large amounts of rich jewelery around her neck.
The four major current fashion capitals are acknowledged to be Paris, Milan, New York City, and London, which are all headquarters to the greatest fashion companies and are renowned for their major influence on global fashion. Fashion weeks
are held in these cities, where designers exhibit their new clothing
collections to audiences. A succession of major designers such as Coco Chanel and Yves Saint-Laurent have kept Paris as the centre most watched by the rest of the world, although haute couture is now subsidised by the sale of ready to wear collections and perfume using the same branding.
Modern Westerners
have a wide number of choices available in the selection of their
clothes. What a person chooses to wear can reflect that person's personality or interests. When people who have cultural status
start to wear new or different clothes, a fashion trend may start.
People who like or respect them become influenced by their personal
style, and begin wearing clothes of similar styling. 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).
In recent years, Asian fashion has become increasingly significant in
local and global markets. Countries such as China, Japan, India, and
Pakistan have traditionally had large textile industries, which have
often been drawn upon by Western designers, but now Asian clothing
styles are also gaining influence based on their own ideas.
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
The media plays a very significant role when it comes to fashion. For instance, 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.
In the recent years, fashion blogging and YouTube videos have become a
major outlet for spreading trends and fashion tips. Through these media
outlets, readers and viewers all over the world can learn about fashion,
making it very accessible.
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 United States
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 color 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. One such example of Vogue's popularity is the younger version, Teen Vogue, which provides clothing and trends that are more targeted toward the "fashionista on a budget". 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. FashionTV
was the pioneer in this undertaking and has since grown to become the
leader in both Fashion Television and New Media Channels compared to
other Fashion Magazines. 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."
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 $25 billion in revenues, thus making them an important part of the fashion industry.
Intellectual property
Within the fashion industry, intellectual property is not enforced as it is within the film industry and music industry.
Robert Glariston, intellectual property expert at Creative Business
House ( organization specializing in fashion and trademarking), mentions
in a fashion seminar held in LA that "Copyright law regarding clothing
is a current hot-button issue in the industry. We often have to draw the
line between designers being inspired by a design and those outright
stealing it in different places." 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, in this
view, be counter-productive. On the other hand, 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 handbags, especially, the designer's brand may be woven into the
fabric (or the lining fabric) from which the bag is made — this makes
the brand an intrinsic element of the bag.
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.
