Fashion writing - Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie - Essay Example

?Fashion writing Introduction Born in October 16 1854, Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish poet and known forseveral plays and books. At the peak of his writing career, Wilde became an editor to The Woman’s world magazine, which targeted the middle class female audience. as an editor of the magazine, Wilde determined the nature of the content often printing some of his own works while at times soliciting content from other writers of the time. He therefore interacted with top designers of the time and wrote for the women who consumed the very designed. The position thus presented him with an effective opportunity to influence the history of design and fashion through literatures, which had become the fastest growing medium. As an editor, Wilde understood his practice as a writer and therefore understood every word used analytically. Through this view, his first major activity at the news outlet was to vouch for the change of the name of the magazine. The magazine was prior to his employment called The Lady’s world, however with Wilde’s entry into the company, he argued that the word “lady” restricted the audience to a particular segment of the female audience. By changing the name from The Lady’s world to The woman’s world, Wilde arguably widened the audience f the magazine by targeting limitless female members of the society. For the two years that Wilde served as the editor of the magazine, his contribution to the history of fashion and design was immense as he reached and influenced thousands of the magazine’s female readers. Wilde’s influence to fashion and design was through literature. He used his magazine to bring together top designers and their target audience thus proving the society with a seamless flow and changes in fashion. Prior to his assumption of office as the editor of the highly celebrated magazine, the term fashion befitted a specific caliber of women in the society. the society had few designers who equally targeted the high society. fashion, design and trendy attires thus belonged to the society’s wealthy. Additionally, the absence of an effective means of communication complicated the development of fashion since both the designers and their markets lacked a medium of interaction through which they could share ideas thus shape the future of the profession. This made it difficult for fashion and design to spread to other societies. The rich had personal designers. Additionally, they maintained their interactions to the echelons of the society. This way, the rich domesticated fashion and design the expense of the middle class who as Wilde proved consisted of the majority and was therefore capable of changing the industry (Hollander, 1993). Wilde interacted with top designers and shared ideas with them. Even though he lacked fashion and design technical knowhow, he revolutionized the industry by providing the link between the designers and their markets through the media. Additionally, the lack of an effective media limited the interaction among designers. It was therefore difficult for the designers to consult and compare their designs among themselves. Through the magazine, Wilde interviewed and published hundreds of works by various designers. Through the magazine and the heightened interaction among the different tenets in the society, fashion and design became an interactive profession with more upcoming designers having a platform to socialize and share ideas with the established designers. The magazine demystified some of the misconceptions about the practice and the selective approach that most designers had adopted. The magazine widened the readership to the middle class female members of the society and in so doing drew the attention of the previously marginalized community as designers began targeting the class. Besides his role as the editor of the magazine, Wilde was also a playwright and managed a theatre. These provided the editor with an effective opportunity to infuse the two and use theatre to expand the influence of design and fashion in the society. He wrote plays and influenced the costumes, and make up his actors used. This way, design and fashion expanded as the members of the society began expressing mixed reactions about the design of the costumes his actors used. The intensive criticism of fashion by members of the society necessitated by the media provided designers with the ability to determine the demands of their markets. Designers could therefore try new designs and introduce them into the market without fearing rejection. Additionally, they could counter rejections through constant interactivity with both their markets and fellow designers. As an editor of one of the only fashion and design at the time, Wilde determined and influenced the contents of the magazine. He enjoyed an authority over the magazine thus over the contents his audience received. He criticized the contents of the magazine thus influenced fashion. Among the leading designers, that Wilde interviewed and wrote articles about in the magazine included Elisabeth of Wield, Princes Christian and Marie Corelli among many others. The editor also interacted with the leading consumers of fashion in the elite English society. Key among such was Queen Victoria. The press thus earned Wilde an immense authority over fashion and design making his capable of determining the products that the market consumed. As discussed earlier, Wilde did not design anything, however, he influenced the thoughts and actions of both the designers and their potential consumers thus invoking a sense of interactivity between the two thereby revamping activity in the industry. Among his main contribution to the development of fashion and design was the introduction of the artistic slant into fashion and design. While the magazine would publish the fashion and design of the high society, he incorporated an artistic slant, which empowered many upcoming designers and artists to try their own unique designs. As an editor, Wilde maintained a dedicated column in which he criticized the designers and their works. In the column, he interacted with both the readers and designers thus providing the consumers an opportunity to rate the prevailing designs and works of the designers (Breward, 2003). In brief, Wilde used the power of the press to expand the industry and foster the growth of fashion and design. The female middle class had an affinity for works of fiction. They therefore created a market that the design magazine sought to quell. Wilde sat at the helm of the authority, used his literary prowess to obtain information about fashion and design, and shared the same with the market, which had expanded. Through his introduction of an artistic slant into the representation of the fashion and design of the high society, he provided the middle class with a platform to try out some of the designs besides the platform for them to interact with the same designers. References Breward, C. (2003). The Culture of Fashion: a new history of fashionable dress. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Hollander, A. (1993). Seeing through Clothes. Berkeley: University of California Press. Read More