The term fashion and its definition - Essay Example

Fashion The term fashion and its definition Fashion is the indicator of social culture, it an expressive mean for attitude towards the surrounding world and people. With the help of fashion people can demonstrate their progress or regress. It is very inportant to note the progressing process was possible to observe after the World War II and on the contrary regressing process was obvious and is now from the mid 80-ies. That is one of the reasons that makes this period interesting for discussion. The second reason is that there were many significant historical and politycal events. Nowadays the main motto of fashion is “Comfort!”, though it is difficult to speak about comfort wearing the high heels. Now it is possible to say that today fashion has a wide range of contradictions and it is not really easy to find the right way. (Buxbaum) Before speaking about fashion and its changes during the last decades it is very important to define the term “fashion” itself. The term fashion applies to a prevailing mode of expression. 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 often used in a negative sense, as a synonym for fads and trends. In this sense, fashions are essentially a relief from boredom, or a distraction from important matters, for the idle rich. The term is also 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. (Buxbaum) If to analyze the meaning of fashion it is possible to see that fashions are social psychology phenomena common to many fields of human activity and thinking. The rises and falls of fashions have been especially documented and examined in the following fields: architecture, body type, clothing, dance and music, etc. Of these fields, clothing especially has become so linked in the public eye with the term "fashion". The more general term "costume" has been relegated by many to only mean fancy dress or masquerade wear, while the term "fashion" means clothing generally, and the study of it. This linguistic switch is due to the so-called fashion plates which were produced during the Industrial revolution, showing novel ways to use new textiles. For a broad cross-cultural look at clothing and its place in society, refer to the entries for clothing and costume. (Buxbaum) Changes in fashion The significant changes in different field of fashion were taking place lately. This was coursed by the rapid development of different spheres of life. People have invented many things that now can make the process of producing materials very easy. Fashion in clothes has allowed wearers to express emotion or solidarity with other people for millennia. Modern people have a wide choice available in the selection of their clothes. What a person chooses to wear can reflect that persons 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. Analyzing the reasons of changes in fashion we should notice the striving for comfort and lightness. This is connected with the active way of life of many people. Besides political reasons play a great role in this field. Fashions may vary significantly within a society according to age, social class, generation, 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 term "fashion victim" refers to someone who slavishly follows the current fashions. (Peacock) The world has grown rich and thirsted prestigious clothes. Economic rises, growth of incomes, increase of a standard of life have provoked occurrence neoclassics. The luxury in everything was the motto of the eightieth in XX century. Labels moved on the external part of clothes, everyone should see, how much it costs. Gold, brilliants - never the world carried such bright and conspicuous ornaments. The woman of 80th The woman of 80th is a business - women, she is "vamp", and she is princess. She aims to be smart, bright and a little vulgar. This trend was connected with the active beginning of feminism when woman tried to be like a man. A fitting dress, mini, legenzes, wide decollate enter into the fashion. Madonna, as is known, appeared on the public in this garbs, she did not afraid of to show the body and did it with a pressure. Underclothes was brightened by laces and furnish, necklines were maximal, underclothes correspond to a dress, besides it is a lot of luxury. In her daily clothes the dress - pipe or a skirt - pipe, and also loose trousers, checkered suits (a jacket, a miniskirt), a long sweater with a pleated short skirt dominated. Velvet, jersey, batik, lycra - the basic fabrics of her garbs. The main tendency of the eightieth years were broad shoulders. That is one more thing to prove the striving for the man’s image. Shoulders emphasized efficiency and independence in a female figure. Footwear, it is a shoe - boats with a small heel or without it. Style of the eightieth was rather vulgar, it is possible, that is why people liked it. The 80th have made woman vulgarly liberated.(Peacock) Women have wanted to become very similar to men, it was a decade of Unisex which feminists so coveted and of which they have got tired. All alive and graceful have been pressed by dirty jeans, fragmentary trainers and creased T-shirts. The luxury of the 80th has bothered. The woman of 90-ies The ideal woman of 90-ies was a tall girl, with a short hairstyle or without it, or she has transformed her hair into similarity of a sponge: Africans pigtail or drede. Our beauty is unbelievable thin: a small bust, thin hands. In a fashion the minimalism was. As for the clothes: jeans, which for two sizes more its own, a big sweater or a loose overall. On graceful legs she will put on huge soldiers boots. Creased T-shirt, a sweater with seams outside - involved young girls very much. (Valerie D. Mendes) Basically, the richest ladies have become the punk, in the fashion are jean, footwear on a high platform. Step by step and with the help of sexual revolution men and women became more and more equal. Besides women in policy brought the new tendencies in fashion and styles (for example, M.Tatcher). It is important to note that such women brought new fashions not only in clothing but in ways of behaviour. In the middle of the ninetieth the version of minimalism - "ecological style" has appeared. Spirits were from a kitchen garden, smells were all cultures, from a melon up to parsley, have occupied cities streets. (Valerie D. Mendes) Fashion today Up-to-date womens fashion follows the laws of sexual attraction, although nothing like that has been noticed during the latest decade. An average woman has always been smarter than an average man. Women are particularly more practical and ambitious. That is why fashion has been keeping up with social needs, including sexual needs. Politics can be described as concentrated economics. Womens fashion can be described as the concentrated incarnation of the public development. Therefore, womens fashion has become the procreation guarantee. (Peacock) The military style is considered the last word of present-day fashion with its beige, green, brown and khaki colours. Ties and scarves are very fashionable too, along with strict jackets and short skirts. Fashion has become aggressively sexy, although one may not doubt that women and time will make considerable corrections to it. (Evans) As technologies change, so will clothing. Many people, including futurologists have extrapolated current trends and made the following predictions: Man-made fibers such as nylon, polyester, Lycra, and Gore-Tax already account for much of the clothing market. Many more types of fibers will certainly be developed, possibly using nanotechnology. For example, military uniforms may stiffen when hit by bullets, filter out poisonous chemicals, and treat wounds. "Smart" clothing will incorporate electronics. Clothing may incorporate wearable computers, flexible wearable displays (possibly leading to fully animated clothing and some forms of invisibility cloaks), medical sensors, etc. Present-day ready-to-wear technologies will presumably give way to computer-aided custom manufacturing. Low power laser beams will measure the customer; computers will draw up a custom pattern and execute it in the customers choice of cloth. Works cited Buxbaum Gerda, Affaticati Andrea “Icon of Fashion”, 2001 Evans Caroline "Fashion at the Edge: Spectacle, Modernity, and Deathliness”, 2002 Peacock John. 20Th-Century Fashion : The Complete Sourcebook. 1993 Valerie D. Mendes “Twentieth-Century Fashion”, 1998 The History of Fashion http://nota.triwe.net/teachers/tolstikova/students15.htm AndroGyna 80ies Fashion http://www.androgyna.de/Fashion_1.htm Read More