Fashion and identity relation - Essay Example

FASHION AND IDENTITY RELATION COURSE: LECTURER: DATE: Fashion represents a popular activity, style of action or trend. Often it associates with music, movies, and style of dressing, art, food, relationships and the like. In a common world, it represents a style of dressing that is common amongst people in a country. The trend set by fashion is that it never lasts and keeps changing. Depending on how popular a trend becomes it can last for about one to three years and then be replaced by a new fashion style. The change in fashion has always had its setbacks as change is never easily accepted. That is now where the fashion police comes in; these particular groups of individuals criticize whichever fashion they fell is not appealing to their eyes. Modernism is a movement that rejects traditional style and the way of life and embracing a new form of life which no one truly understands yet as no one has explored it yet. Then the idea of post modernism, which has brought an enormous debate in the fashion world, comes in question. Modernism embraced uniqueness of an individual the autonomous nature of mankind while at the same time shunning tradition. Postmodernism rejected the autonomous individual believing that greatness is in communal power and action. Culture can be defined as the characteristic of a particular group. It could be in terms of language, fashion, cuisine, social habits, music, and many more. Culture can be obtained through individual or group striving. It defines human nature as it is what creates purpose in all the actions of the human being. Because of these there exist cultural difference created by the barriers or if clearly stated the boarders of life. These barriers can be either local or international, but it is what creates the distance and the variation inhuman behaviour across the globe. The current world embraces post modernity whereby everything is changing at a rate almost unrecognisable. The result of this is competition without an end. The competition is in terms of gender, social identity, politics and the like all only to try and fit or find a place of comfort within the society. Fashion gives the perfect solution to this as it enables individuals to create uniqueness that expresses their identity in the society. Fashion enables individuals to “mingle with crowds of strangers and have only fleeting moments to impress them”. (Bennett, 2005: 96). The effect fashion has on culture and vice versa gives an entirely different meaning to this word fashion. It is a method of direct visual communication, enabling us to make statements about who we are; our identities through clothing accessories and other items visible to the public. Fashion enables us to express who we are and how feel about the world. We communicate who we are, who we intend to be, the kind of social group we belong to or we want to belong to. The fashion world is not completed without mention of the feminist aspect. This kind of thought though wrought believes that fashion and women go hand in hand. The reality of this situation is that there are women who do not at all cost acknowledge any form of fashion. Worse off this women have a poor taste when it comes to detecting beauty and thus often at a loss when it comes to making such decisions. Such reasoning cuts out the masculinity in fashion begging the question as to whether the masculine aspect of fashion should be ignored. Changing fashion trends have seen a shift from corsets to plastic surgery who says the change will not proceed to a complete do away with the gender difference in fashion. Quite unaware it passes us, but the fix is already with us. The female kind finds peace in trousers from flared skirts of the 60’s, and the men are comfortable with silk shirts. The reason why fashion is associates most with women than men seems obvious, yet the underlying truth is yet to be discovered. Favorite celebrities’ direct women’s fashion. The feminine aspect likes associating with what is famous. At some point, it can be argued that it is the close relationship they have with desire for power. Celebrities carry with them an aura that compels all around them. Makes people feel the need to want to know what happens in their lives. The reality of this can be seen with paparazzi who will never leave their site despite cases of violence reported each day. The physical differences and image of male and female expectations in the society is what has dictated style of fashion for the different sexes. Women are separated from the society because of their role of reproduction. Society has brought them out as the sole source of guidance in many families for over a long period of time. This is however changing; the past decades have seen a shift from mothers being care givers to working mothers and women as sole bread winners of the family. The reproductive function of the women has seen them earn names like the ‘fair sex’, ‘the weaker sex’, ‘the eternal feminine’(Thesander, 1997, p.81). Thesander explains that the female body, beauty and culture are constantly changing through various means, which are never all so pleasing. The main reason for this is to fit the woman in with the current feminine physical ideologies. Certain things play a crucial role in defining the female form this include; corsets, bras, cosmetics, body decoration and make up. These either emphasize or lower the aspect of the female identity. If people believe that the cause of sexual sin is a woman, then vice versa should be true. The perspective in the world is however different in a way that the woman is the only one considered seductive. The trend is changing with the age of fashion. Masculinity is becoming slowly acceptable in the society. The world has reached an age that clearly welcomes the idea of a sexy man in lingerie. The idea of male models is no longer an issue of discussion that would cause chaos. The males are openly coming out in large numbers embracing fashion in so many different ways. The shift from a suit to casual jeans over the many past years has seen a change in trend in the male fashion (McNeil, et.al, 2009, p.177). The youthful casual nature depicted by casual jeans and t-shirt with the suit only considered as a formal wear. The fall from suspenders that made up the 50’s look with the incoming sagging of the trouser all the name of fashion. The old style kind of dressing did not seem to get much attention. The play boy a star icon of postmodernism fashion never seems to feature any of the old school casual t-shirt and jean (Chenoune, 1993, p.137). Another aspect of fashion that is heavily debatable is sex and gender. This two groups cause a stir in the society fashion world most variably because, ancient times saw the two groups of human being; male and female dress up quite differently. The women would adorn dresses and skirts with pride while the trousers were for the male group. The shift was gradual, and it started with the lift of the hem an inch higher, then the 10920’s brought the flapper style skirt. Due to the dominant position of many women around that period, as house wives the trend of the professional woman was just kicking in and everyone wanted the same look. To create a revealing sexy look thin spaghetti straps came out as the best option. The shift style dress was a style for flappers; it had no waist and could easily be made at home. The beauty of this is that it this change of dressing allowed the middle class women to blend in with the women who were highly fashionable of the upper class. The Chemise style dress popularly adorned for dancing to jazz was also popular. The disappearance of the waist and a surprised burst the boyish silhouette catered for many people’s choice. The period of the twenties can be concluded as a period of change as women embraced change and their hemline would rise reaching the mid twenties flapper style, and this surprised their men. The American dream during that period dominated an age that was rich in entertainment, crime and prohibition at the same time. For the women make up became immensely popular and hairstyles kept on getting shorter, a notorious flapper girl would be identified by short sleek hair, a dress with an above the knee shift and a boyish figure. Such a woman would not fail to be remembered. THE FLAPPER STYLE DRESS The fashion around this period was fast changing to catch up with the changing world that embraced visualization. The women brought out the aspect of moving away from just being house wives to being career women. The same age also brought in female actresses in the film industry an example being Ingrid Bergman. The first decade of the twentieth century involved the pursuit of a new element into the design (Baudot, 1999, p.44). Back to the argument of sex and gender, biological descriptions determined the sex of an individual, and gender is more of a cultural construction of the two groups of individuals. The male fashion, unlike the female does not change as often. Culturally men were the active sex thus the producers while women considered less active thus, devote more of their time into fashion and beauty. The belief that a woman should be beautiful remained dug up in our minds, forcing women to embrace the aesthetic appeal in almost everything they do. The male fashion which is under less scrutiny poses to bring out the functionality of the male aspect as the provider. “Fashion and clothing are instrumental in the process of socialization into sexual and gender roles” (Barnard, 1996, p.111). Fashion is an aid in sculpting the male and female image in society. I am certainly not sure whether the correct word to use there is was or is, since nowadays the trend is changing and the male adorn female wear comfortable and the vice versa is true. The sexual orientation comes into mind when such a question crops up. There is a wide variation of the sexual orientation of individuals currently as compared to several decades ago. Gay, straight, heterosexual and the many others that possibly will rise, affect fashion cultural trend tremendously. Note the effect has not been portrayed as negative just varied. Change that accompanied the period of the 1980’s towards the 20th century brought with it different styles, and cultures like rock music. The rock artist broke the old cultural trend whereby men were less fashion stirred. They embraced the idea of wearing makeup, nail polish, wearing skirts, and plaiting their hair. This group in so many ways purposely played with the idea of gender and sexuality. It became quite difficult with passing time to determine whether one was a woman or a man, homosexual, heterosexual or gay. The question of what the rock artists intention was with this varying diversity from the normal trend apparently can only be answered by the pioneers. Nowadays wearing the gothic rook look is fashionable. The young teenagers embrace it as it is a rebellion against the expectations of the society for people of their age group. The uniqueness of the hair, colourful trousers with patches. The picture shows the punks group. This group expresses their opinion to the change in economic and political state of the world, through their dressing. The punks borrowed their style from the everyday life and changed it to constitute a different new meaning. The punks showed their joblessness, expressed their opinion to the changing moral standards and poverty. Visible through their dyed hair, use of chains, bin liners and many more, the items they wore and the tattoos they had portrayed their anger on the trend of the society and the frustration they felt. The permanence of items like tattoos used by the gothic and the rock group showed the seriousness and severity of their stand. The existence of fashion has opened silent routes for people to express their identity as individuals without fear. The freedom that fashion brings has so far only faced minimal objection thus, becomes the best way forward for self expression. Fashion has enabled identity construction, a means of community to society who we are and which social groups we belong to and what opinions we have on different issues happening in the world. Fashion helps celebrate individualism, allows our style of choice, in terms of sex and gender, social and economic class, ethnicity and nationality. As far as construction of identities and relations with others go, fashion is unquestionably at the fore front. References Bennett, A. (2005) ‘Fashion’, in, Culture and Everyday Life. London: Sage. Thesander, M. (1997).The Feminine Ideal. London; Reaktion Books. McNeil, P., and Karaminas, V. (eds). (2009).The Men’s Fashion Reader. Oxford; Berg. Chenoune, F. (1993). A History of Men’s Fashion. Paris; Flammarion. Baudot, F. (1999). A Century of Fashion. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. Barnard, M. (1996). Fashion as Communication. London: Routledge. Read More