What is 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.
Clothing fashions
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 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 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. 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.
Marie Antoinette was a fashion icon
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.
Albrecht Dürer’s drawing contrasts a well turned out bourgeoise from Nuremberg with her counterpart from Venice. The Venetian lady’s high chopines make her taller
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. 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. 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.
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.”
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.
List of fashion designers
Argentina
Gustavo Cadile
Alan Faena
Paco Jamandreu
Australia
Prue Acton
Rosemary Armstrong
Zara Bate
Linda Britten
Susien Chong
Christopher Chronis
Collette Dinnigan
Leona Edmiston
Christopher Essex
Enid Gilchrist
Joshua Goot
Juli Grbac
Alannah Hill
Lisa Ho
Linda Jackson
Peter Jackson
Jenny Kee
Toni Matičevski
Peter Morrissey
Charlene O’Brien
Jonathan Pampling
Alex Perry
Joe Saba
Richard Tyler
Carla Zampatti
Austria
Helmut Lang
Bahrain
Kubra Al Qaseer
Bangladesh
Bibi Russell
Belgium
Walter Van Beirendonck
Dirk Bikkembergs
Veronique Branquinho
Ann Demeulemeester
Diane von Fürstenberg
Martin Margiela
Bruno Pieters
Elvis Pompilio
Raf Simons
Olivier Strelli
Olivier Theyskens
Kris Van Assche
Dries van Noten
Brazil
Zuzu Angel
Igor Cavalera
Francisco Costa
Tufi Duek
Alexandre Herchcovitch
Clodovil Hernandes
Carlos Miele
Amir Slama
Carlos Tufvesson
Ocimar Versolato
Canada
Brian Bailey
Dean and Dan Caten
Simon Chang
Patrick Cox
Rad Hourani
Tara Jarmon
Erdem Moralioğlu
Marie-Paule Nolin
Arnold Scaasi
Alfred Sung
China
Betty Charnuis
Cho Cheng
Spy Henry Lau
Vivienne Tam
Colombia
Esteban Cortázar
Nina Garcia
Croatia
Damir Doma
Cyprus
Hussein Chalayan
Czech Republic
Zuzana Kralova
Denmark
Malene Birger
Erik Brandt
Margit Brandt
Peter Ingwersen
Dominican Republic
Oscar de la Renta
Finland
Minna Cheung
Riitta Immonen
Teuvo Loman
France
Sophie Albou
Adeline André
Christian Audigier
Dominique Aurientis
Loris Azzaro
Agnès B.
Pierre Balmain
Rose Bertin
Marc Bohan
Vanessa Bruno
Serge Cajfinger
Callot Sisters
Pierre Cardin
Jean-Charles de Castelbajac
Coco Chanel
Christophe Charvet
Madeleine Chéruit
André Courrèges
Christian Dior
Jacques Doucet
Nicole Farhi
Jacques Fath
Louis Feraud
Julien Fournié
Maud Frizon
Jean Paul Gaultier
Nicolas Ghesquière
Hubert de Givenchy
Anne Valérie Hash
Daniel Hechter
Charles Jourdan
Germaine Krebs
Christian Lacroix
Jeanne Lanvin
Ted Lapidus
Guy Laroche
Yves Saint Laurent
Alexis Lavigne
Lucien Lelong
Hervé Leroux
Catherine Malandrino
Claude Montana
Gilles Montezin
Roland Mouret
Thierry Mugler
Jeanne Paquin
Jean Patou
Josiane Maryse Pividal
Paul Poiret
Lola Prusac
Louis Réard
Caroline Reboux
Nina Ricci
Marcel Rochas
Sonia Rykiel
Dominique Sirop
Hedi Slimane
Franck Sorbier
Sophie Theallet
Pauline Trigere
Emanuel Ungaro
Madeleine Vionnet
Roger Vivier
Louis Vuitton
Catherine Walker
Germany
Etienne Aigner
Torsten Amft
Iris von Arnim
Hugo Boss AG
Gregor Clemens
Damir Doma
Egon von Fürstenberg
Robert Geller
Eva Gronbach
Uli Herzner
Claudia Hill
Wolfgang Joop
Karl Lagerfeld
Sonja de Lennart
Margaretha Ley
Tomas Maier
Rudolph Moshammer
Philipp Plein
Jil Sander
Greece
Sophia Kokosalaki
Panos Papadopoulos
Elena Votsi
India
Erum Ali
Manish Arora
Rohit Bal
Ritu Beri
Kavita Bhartiya
Rehane Yavar Dhala
Surily Goel
Shabina Khan
Rohit Khosla
Ritu Kumar
Neeta Lulla
Manish Malhotra
Asmita Marwa
Sabyasachi Mukherjee
Agnimitra Paul
Wendell Rodricks
Anna Singh
Govind Kumar Singh
Tarun Tahiliani
JJ Valaya
Indonesia
Anne Avantie
Biyan Wanaatmadja
Peter Sie
Sebastian Gunawan
Selphie Bong
Josephine Komara (Obin)
Iraq
Reem Alasadi
Bassem Al Cheikh Jawad
May Joseph Ramou
Hana Sadiq
Salim al-Shimiri
Ireland
Sybil Connolly
Paul Costelloe
Orla Kiely
Miriam Mone
Philip Treacy
Israel
Yigal Azrouël
Alber Elbaz
Lea Gottlieb
Nili Lotan
Yotam Solomon
Elie Tahari
Italy
Giorgio Armani
Renato Balestra
Rocco Barocco
Rene Caovilla
Ennio Capasa
Roberto Capucci
Domenico Caraceni
Roberto Cavalli
Emilio Cavallini
Nino Cerruti
Enrico Coveri
Alessandro Dell’Acqua
Domenico Dolce
Alessandra Facchinetti
Salvatore Ferragamo
Gianfranco Ferré
Alberta Ferretti
Stefano Gabbana
Irene Galitzine
Guccio Gucci
Angelo Litrico
Achille Maramotti
Alviero Martini
Anna Molinari
Franco Moschino
Stefano Pilati
Miuccia Prada
Emilio Pucci
Nina Ricci
Fausto Sarli
Alessandro Sartori
Elsa Schiaparelli
Mila Schön
Luciano Soprani
Sergio Tacchini
Riccardo Tisci
Valentino
Giambattista Valli
Donatella Versace
Gianni Versace
Italo Zucchelli
D&G
Japan
Tsumori Chisato
Limi Feu
Akira Isogawa
Rei Kawakubo
Takeo Kikuchi
Eley Kishimoto
Michiko Koshino
Mana
Eri Matsui
Issey Miyake
Hanae Mori
Tayuka Nakanishi
Hirooko Naoto
Kenzo Takada
Novala Takemoto
Akira Takeuchi
Junya Tashiro
Junya Watanabe
Kansai Yamamoto
Yohji Yamamoto
Junko Yoshioka
Korea
Yeojin Bae
Doo-Ri Chung
Andre Kim
Latvia
Gints Bude
Lebanon
Reem Acra
Huguette Caland
George Chakra
Sonia Fares
Abed Mahfouz
Zuhair Murad
Elie Saab
Macedonia
Nikola Eftimov
Marjan Pejoski
Malaysia
Bernard Chandran
Jimmy Choo
Melinda Looi
Zang Toi
Alexandrea Yeo
Mali
Mohamed Dia
Malamine Koné
Lamine Badian Kouyaté
Chris Seydou
Mexico
Manuel Cuevas
Eduardo Lucero
Mario Moya
José María Torre
Montenegro
Mimi Đurović
Netherlands
Wilbert Das
Koos Van Den Akker
Marlies Dekkers
Olcay Gulsen
Viktor Horsting
Percy Irausquin
Addy van den Krommenacker
Frans Molenaar
Antoine Peters
Ellen Schippers
Rolf Snoeren
Josephus Thimister
Warmenhoven & Venderbos
Mart Visser
Edgar Vos
New Zealand
Trelise Cooper
Elisabeth Findlay
Flora MacKenzie
Rebecca Taylor
Karen Walker
Nepal
Prabal Gurung
Niger
Seidnally Sidhamed
Nigeria
Deola Sagoe
Norway
Andreas Melbostad
Gunhild Nygaard
Pakistan
Amir Adnan
Maheen Ali
Nickie Nina
Philippines
Pitoy Moreno
Mich Dulce
Sassa Jimenez
Monique Lhuillier
Rafé Totengco
Poland
Barbara Hulanicki
Ewa Minge
Tomasz Starzewski
Dawid Tomaszewski
Xymena Zaniewska-Chwedczuk
Maciej Zien
Portugal
Fátima Lopes
Isilda Pelicano
Russia
Erté
Sultanna Frantsuzova
Irene Galitzine
Kira Plastinina
Nicolas Putvinski
Valentina Nicholaevna Sanina Schlee
Valentin Yudashkin
Vyacheslav Zaitsev
Dasha Zhukova
Saudi Arabia
Adnan Akbar
Amina Al Jassim
Senegal
Oumou Sy
Singapore
Ashley Isham
Benny Ong
South Africa
Kara Janx
Abigail Keats
Nkhensani Manganyi
Simon Rademan
Victor Stiebel
Hendrik Vermeulen
Spain
Amaya Arzuaga
Cristóbal Balenciaga
Elena Benarroch
Manolo Blahnik
Custo Dalmau
Adolfo Domínguez
Ana González
Mariano Fortuny
Sita Murt
Paco Rabanne
Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada
Fernando Sánchez
Sri Lanka
Nayana Karunaratne
Ruchira Silva
Sweden
Sighsten Herrgård
Johan Lindeberg
Augusta Lundin
Lars Nilsson
Camilla Thulin
Lars Wallin
Taiwan
Wang Chen Tsai-Hsia
Tanzania
Mustafa Hassanali
Tunisia
Azzedine Alaia
Turkey
Ece Ege
Dice Kayek
Rifat Ozbek
United Kingdom
Hardy Amies
Christopher Bailey
William Baker
Neil Barrett
John Bates
Antonio Berardi
Sara Berman
Ozwald Boateng
Thomas Burberry
Sarah Burton
Robert Cary-Williams
John Cavanagh
Georgina Chapman
Ossie Clark
Jasper Conran
Wayne Cooper
Paul Compitus
Keren Craig
Giles Deacon
Keanan Duffty
David Emanuel
Elizabeth Emanuel
Marion Foale
John Galliano
Elspeth Gibson
Maria Grachvogel
Jeremy Hackett
Malcolm Hall
Katharine Hamnett
Pam Hogg
Henry Holland
Margaret Howell
Betty Jackson
Charles James
Christopher Kane
Stella McCartney
Alexander McQueen
Julien Macdonald
Edward Molyneux
Jean Muir
Tommy Nutter
Bruce Oldfield
Beatrix Ong
Jenny Packham
Ronald Paterson
Jayne Pierson
Gareth Pugh
Mary Quant
Kate Reily
Jonathan Saunders
Ben Sherman
Paul Smith
John Sutcliffe
Alice Temperley
William Tempest
Ian Thomas
Amanda Wakeley
Kim West
Vivienne Westwood
Matthew Williamson
Louise Wilson
Charles Frederick Worth
United States
Carlota Alfaro
Pegah Anvarian
Max Azria
Michael Bastian
Geoffrey Beene
Laura Bennett
Bijan
Bill Blass
Thom Browne
Dana Buchman
Albert Capraro
Hattie Carnegie
Bonnie Cashin
Oleg Cassini
Richard Chai
Liz Claiborne
Kenneth Cole
Jeffrey Costello
Laura Dahl
Chloe Dao
Charles David
Lyn Devon
Perry Ellis
George Esquivel
Erin Fetherston
Patricia Field
Eileen Fisher
Tom Ford
James Galanos
Eric Gaskins
Cole Haan
Halston
Tim Hamilton
Christina Hattler
Lazaro Hernandez
Uli Herzner
Tommy Hilfiger
Susan Holmes
Marc Jacobs
Elisa Jimenez
Betsey Johnson
Lauren Jones
Donna Karan
Anne Klein
Calvin Klein
Mychael Knight
Michael Kors
Derek Lam
Ralph Lauren
Kimora Lee Simmons
Nanette Lepore
Beth Levine
Bob Mackie
Mainbocher
Paul Marciano
Leanne Marshall
Vera Maxwell
Claire McCardell
Jack McCollough
Leah McSweeney
Keith Michael
Nicole Miller
Isaac Mizrahi
Bibhu Mohapatra
Norman Norell
Todd Oldham
Rick Owens
Thakoon Panichgul
Patrick Porter
Zac Posen
Lilly Pulitzer
Tracy Reese
Santino Rice
Craig Robinson
Narciso Rodriguez
William Rondina
Lela Rose
Cynthia Rowley
Ralph Rucci
Kara Saun
John Saldivar
Scaasi
Austin Scarlett
Jeremy Scott
Jeffrey Sebelia
Russell Simmons
Christian Siriano
LaQuan Smith
Yotam Solomon
Kate Spade
Anna Sui
Robert Tagliapietra
Tere Tereba
John Varvatos
Daniel Vosovic
Alexander Wang
Vera Wang
Arefeh Mansouri
Stuart Weitzman
Junko Yoshioka
Venezuela
Carolina Herrera
Ángel Sánchez
Vietnam
Thuy Diep
Dang Thi Minh Hanh
From Wikipedia