Fashion

Fashion illustration by George Barbier of a gown by Jeanne Paquin, 1912, from La Gazette du bon ton, the most influential fashion magazine of its era.

The term "fashion" usually applies to a prevailing mode of expression, but quite often applies to a personal mode of expression that may or may not apply to all. Inherent in the term is the idea that the mode will change more quickly than the culture as a whole. The terms "fashionable" and "unfashionable" are employed to describe whether someone or something fits in with the current popular mode of expression. The term "fashion" is frequently used in a positive sense, as a synonym for glamour and style. In this sense, fashions are a sort of communal art, through which a culture examines its notions of beauty and goodness. The term "fashion" is also sometimes used in a negative sense, as a synonym for fads, trends, and materialism.

Definition of Fashion

Fashion can be described as a prevailing custom, style of dress, or socialization. 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 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 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 terms "fashionista" or "fashion victim" refer 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.)

History of Fashion

Albrecht Dürer's drawing contrasts a well turned out bourgeoise from Nuremberg (left) with her counterpart from Venice, in. The Venetian lady's high chopines make her taller.

It is evident that fashion dates back as far as the ancient Egyptians; their wigs, hairpieces, make-up, and jewelry is evidence of an extensive fashion culture, and much of their art depicts the importance it held in their society. Ancient Greece and Rome also had its own fashion: bright colors, the toga, and the Etruscan wardrobe are staples of ancient Greek and Roman fashion. The habit of continually changing the style of clothing worn, which is now worldwide, at least among urban populations, is a distinctively Western one. Though there are signs from earlier, it can be fairly clearly dated to the middle of the fourteenth century, to which historians including James Laver and Fernand Braudel date the start of 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. This created the distinctive Western male outline of a tailored top worn over leggings or trousers which is still with us today.

The pace of change accelerated considerably in the following century, and womens fashion, especially in the dressing and adorning of the hair, became equally complex and changing. Art historians are able to date images with increasing confidence and precision, to a period of about five years for the fifteenth century. 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, which remained very different until a counter-movement in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries imposed similar styles once again, finally those from Ancient regime France. Though fashion was always led by the rich, 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.

The fashions of the West are unparalleled either in antiquity or in the other great civilizations of the world. Early Western travelers, whether to Persia, Turkey, Japan 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 not changed in over a thousand years.

Ten sixteenth 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 fifteenth 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 seventeenth 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 theaters of European war, where gentleman officers had opportunities to make notes of foreign styles: an example is the "Steinkirk" cravat or necktie.

English caricature of Tippies of 1796

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 sixteenth 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. Since then, the professional designer has become a progressively more dominant figure, despite the origins of many fashions in street fashion.

The Evolution of Fashion

Fashion, by definition, changes constantly. Fashions are a social psychology phenomena common to many fields of human activity and thinking. For some, modern fast-paced changes in fashion embody many of the negative aspects of capitalism: it results in waste and encourages people qua consumers to buy things unnecessarily. Other people, 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 that fashion can change to enforce uniformity, as in the case where so-called Mao suits became the national uniform of mainland China.

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, for example skirt lengths ranging from ankle to mini to so short that it barely covers anything, etc. 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 favor things Turkish at one time, things Chinese at another, and things Japanese at a third. A modern version of exotic clothing includes club wear. Globalization has reduced the options of exotic novelty in more recent times, and has seen the introduction of non-Western wear into the Western world.

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 Evolution and Social Theory

Georg Simmel suggests that fashion is a method for the individual to assert him or her self. He says that society attempts to homogenize its inhabitants through the same daily interactions, and fashion allows a person to declare who they are, because life has become too fast paced to develop strong bonds with everyone in a community. People change the fashions constantly to continuously display their individuality, and our sense of self is fluid throughout our lifetime. At the same time, fashion can mark people as conformists: in the work place, especially associated with the division of labor, most workers wear similar styles of clothes, or very formal attire. This takes away individuality from workers and laborers, marking them as conformists to the work world.

Fashion also has different meanings for different groups of people. For instance, many types of clothes are gendered. Certain styles of pants, shirts, shoes, and under garments are made explicitly for men or women and any deviation between the two clothing genders is called cross-dressing or trans-gendered. The idea of a male dressing up in womens clothing classifies him attempting to be feminine, and a female dressing in men's clothing classifies her as masculine. It is difficult to say that clothing style displays social class, but fashion can be a sign of social status. For example, a doctor or lawyer are required to dress in a certain attire for their occupations which shows people that their role is "doctor" or "lawyer." If a patient went to a doctor who was unkempt and not wearing the traditional white coat, that patient would think something was amiss.

Identity is also important in discussing fashion. Contemporary theories assert that individuals try to put their own identity and personality into what they wear in an attempt to make who they are identifiable in what they wear. Different fashions cater to different personalities. Some reject mainstream fashion and create their own style through thrift stores or vintage and used clothing. Individuality is a reflection of larger social and cultural trends, and clothing is created in response to these trends. Sometimes a person's desire for what to wear and what they must wear for different roles conflict, and individual identity is stifled for a public persona.

Fashion in the Media

An important part of fashion is fashion journalism. Editorial critique and commentary can be found in magazines, newspapers, on television, fashion websites and in fashion blogs.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, fashion magazines began to include photographs and became even more influential than in the past. In cities throughout the world these magazines were greatly sought-after and had a profound effect on public 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 1902, 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 their 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 like FashionTelevision 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 industry.

Fashion in Television, Movies, and Music

Popular television and movies are known for paying careful attention to the fashions that that they have their actors wear. Most forms of media serve as a bridge to connect high fashion with the everyday consumer, dictating what is popular and what is unpopular. It is common for popular shows to start trends in clothing or accessories that become staples in popular culture. This in itself becomes fashion; modern television and movies must display fashion trends in order to remain relevant to the mainstream, while also introducing new fashions for the consumer.

Fashion and Art

Fashion is described as an art by many designers, critics, and consumers. What this means is that fashion is a sign of creative self expression, it is not just a series of garments or accessories haphazardly put together. The link between art and fashion extends back before the Renaissance, and the history of this movement is seen in pictures and paintings, where artists attempted to detail the form and texture of fashions in their own art. Fashion designers can be referred to as artists, the pieces they create compliment each other and an entire outfit is composed of unique individual garments that come together to make something greater.

Each generation offers a different interpretation of where art and fashion intersect. Fashion designers often hire painters or sketch artists to draw up several ideas according to the designers qualifications. Occasionally, an artist will design something unique that the designer incorporates into their own products. This trend began in the nineteenth century and continues today.

Different artistic cultural movements influence fashion as well. It is fairly evident that the Art Deco movement of the early twentieth century influenced what people wore: felt hats and turbans replaced the popular styles of headwear at the time. Hints of Impressionist art was also present in fashion at this time, several designers used fluid lines and flimsy, diaphanous materials to create their fashions. Later, the art of Cubism was seen in different fashions. The sixties brought with it fashion inspired by psychedellia and pop art, art inspired by optical illusion. Contemporary fashion often combines vintage and modern clothing, taking a page out of the bohemian movement of fashion.

The Fashion Industry and Intellectual Property

Within the fashion industry, intellectual property enforcement operates quite differently than in other content industries. Whereas IP enforcement is often seen as a key issue within the film industry and music industry, many have suggest that lack of enforcement contributes positively to the industry. Copying and emulating previously existing fashions are not seen by some as detrimental to the industry, but rather as a force for continuous cultural evolution. Copying fashions allows that fashion to have a wider audience. Rather than being limited to certain areas and only being available at high prices, certain fashions find new life through designers using the ideas of other designers. Others have contended that the negative financial effect that this can have on smaller, boutique, designers. Small designers can not afford to undercharge for their products, while large design companies can undercharge for the same product and make a profit. This has stifled independent creativity and forced many small designers out of business.

Past, Present, and Future of Fashion

Fashion has been around since the ancient Egyptians, but it was not critiqued and studied until the Renaissance. Art has played heavily into the stylistic choices and creations of designers, showing artistic shifts in fashion with new art movements. Fashion is seen as a display of individuality; a person's fashion gives the world around them an idea of who they are. Fashion has been used by some to deduce social class, but it is more of an indicator of social status rather than social class. The evolution of fashion has been a response to cultural changes in clothing taboos, but fashion also has initiated its own clothing trends. A person's fashion can be taken to gage how attune they are to the popular trends of the time.

The fashion industry has been criticized of failure to protect the intellectual property of its designers. This is a double edged sword; it often pushes small designers out of the market while selling high fashion at affordable prices for more consumers. It has also been suggested that shifts in trends force consumers to constantly spend money on new clothing that they do not necessarily need.

Fashion is a staple of daily life: it is accentuated in media and celebrated as an art form. Celebrities are often paid to wear certain fashion brands, hoping to raise the popularity and status of that brand. Fashion relies on this popularity to sell and remain socially relevant. Fashion's social function is to express one's personality in a society with limited sometimes shallow inter-personal contact while it exudes creative artistic expression.

Fashion has reached a precarious point in its lifespan. Starting at the turn of the century, big investors began investing in small time fashion designers, which is helping independently designed fashion take off. However, big investors limit the creativity of their sponsored designers in order to make their products marketable, which restricts what the designers are allowed to make. This could lead to a homogenization of fashion where little or no new ideas are developed. The politics around fashion has made it a difficult industry to break in to, and there are worries that corporations will take over the creation and production of new fashions. Fashion will continue on through the twenty first century, but it will be a struggle between independent creativity and marketable corporate investments.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Breward, Christopher. 2003. Fashion. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0192840304
• Cosgrave, Bronwyn. 2001. The Complete History of Costume & Fashion: From Ancient Egypt to the Present Day. Checkmark Books. ISBN 0816045747
• Crane, Diane. 2001. Fashion and Its Social Agendas: Class, Gender, and Identity in Clothing. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226117995
• Cumming, Valerie: Understanding Fashion History, Costume & Fashion Press, 2004, ISBN 089676253X
• Davis, Fred. 1994. Fashion, Culture, and Identity. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226138097
• Mackrell, Alice. 2005. Art and Fashion: The Impact of Art on Fashion and Fashion on Art. Batsford. ISBN 0713488735

External links

• Fashion at the Open Directory Project
• The British Library The British Library - finding information on the fashion industry

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Fashion  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Fashion"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.