Clothing Styles And Fashions example essay topic

The Cycle of Fashion Fashion is fuel led by conversion. Designers continually persuade the public that their new ideas, however shocking they may seem, are in fact everything that a stylish wardrobe requires. Next season, the same designers convince everyone to give up their allegiance to such out-modish designs and embrace instead the innovative visual trends of the latest collections. The same garments are successively dubbed 'outlandish', 'in fashion' and 'out-dated' according to the apparent vagaries of prevailing fashionable sensibilities. Are we really duped by such duplicity? Or are we willing participants in the cycle of fashion?

And perhaps more significantly, what relevance does the cycle have today in Western society's culture of mass consumerism? The idea that fashion in dress follows a cyclical phase structure is not new. The sociologist, Quentin Bell made such an observation over fifty years ago in his book, On Human Finery. Moreover, his observation was based on accumulated evidence of an uninterrupted cyclical flow in dress change in Western society since at least the thirteenth century.

The sociologist, Ingrid Brenninkmeyer describes this flow by comparing it to the rolling of waves in the sea. As one fashion gains popularity, crests and dissipates, another stylistic wave is already forming behind it. Further extensions of this metaphor liken different stylistic features to variations in the waves themselves. For example, just as different wave patterns form on the basis of their force, size or length, so also different overlapping patterns can be traced in changes of fashionable hem length, silhouette, fabric, d' and colour. Mere descriptions of the fashion cycle however do little to explain exactly why successful designers' ideas typically rise and fall in popularity.

What is the motivating force behind such changes in fashion? What causes the cycle to move from one phase to the next? These questions cannot be answered simply. Perhaps sheer boredom inspires the continual search for something new. Or can novelty be related to ideas of sexual allure and attraction? Do competing market interests in the fashion industry play a role in animating the cycle?

Or could changes in dress function as markers of class differentiation? These factors and more have been variously proposed and analysed by researchers into the sociology of fashion. Bernard Barber (1957) depicted a 'trickle-down' theory of fashion as a symbol of social class whilst Gabriel Tarde (1903) outlined a theory of imitation. Ren'e Konig (1973) emphasised the displacement of sexual urge and Herbert Blume r (1969) formulated a theory of collective selection.

However, each of these theories ultimately fails to provide a definitive account of the processes shaping the many vicissitudes and disparate progressions of contemporary fashion innovation. Long waves in which a single style dominates for a season and is replaced in the next are no longer the norm. There are no modern equivalents of the crinoline, the bustle, the flapper dress, Dior's New Look or the three-piece single-breasted man's suit. The journalist Holly Braubach captures the current pace and diversity of the fashion cycle in an article written for the New Yorker on December 31st, 1990: "Fashion as it's presented on the runways is nowhere near as unanimous as it used to be, but coverage of it in the press still focuses on hemlines and colours and items - on what the collections have in common... The truth is that these days you can find practically anything in somebody's collection somewhere". The apparently random, rapid overlapping of new fashions is not restricted to changes in dress, but can also be noted in areas of modern culture as diverse as painting, music, architecture, entertainment and systems of health care.

In Western society's media-based culture of mass consumerism and against a background of globalization, fashion appears to serve reactionary purposes that both structure and affirm the identities of groups and individuals. From surfers and students to alienated middle-class youths and married working women, weekly changes in fad like styles give a sense of belonging whilst also distinguishing them from the masses. Changes in the fashion cycle since the end of World War II therefore indicate an interweaving of complex and multiple processes. A uniform acceptance of single fashionable styles across the class structures of society has been replaced by a rapidly- changing, many-faced, identity-defining drive.

It remains to be seen whether these phenomena signal the eventual disintegration of fashion's long-enduring cycle. Fashion Statements The declaration that clothes say something about their wearer is perhaps un disputable. It is certainly neither novel nor shocking. Whether in contemporary Western societies or the traditional practices of other cultures, a person's choice of clothing is loaded with details that both describe and define aspects of their life as diverse as status, religion and life-style attachments. Moreover, judgement's of personality and even intelligence are often made about an individual on the basis of their clothing alone. Appearance matters and first impressions of tastes in fashion count.

Whilst these judgement's may be made intuitively however, it is more difficult to determine the exact play of elements that combine to make this language, or code of clothing. The meanings conveyed by different styles change across time and place so that definitions are unstable and contextually embedded. According to the sociologist James Laver, a costume that is 'indecent' this year may be seen as 'smart' in ten years time, 'ridiculous' in a further twenty years and 'beautiful' in the next century. How then do fashion and clothing achieve their symbolic communications both to wearers and their viewers?

The symbols that form the code of clothing are both tactile and visual. All clothing styles and fashions must express their meanings through various permutations and combinations of texture, fabric, colour, pattern, line, shape and form. However, the psychoanalyst Edmund Berger attempted to centre fashion's key terms on psychological complexes rather than on the materially expressive elements available in different cultures. In 1953, he wrote, 'Stripped to its essentials, fashion is no more than a series of permutations of seven given themes, each... a part of the female body: the breasts (neckline), waist (abdomen), hips, buttock, legs, arms, and length (or circumference) of the body itself. Organs 'appear' and 'disappear' as the theme of fashion changes, and one and then another part of the body is emphasized by succeeding styles'. Whether through elements of design or psychology, it is clear nevertheless that the clothing code draws on greatly limited constituent resources in comparison with the rich semantic resources of speech and writing.

Such a restriction of key expressive terms both accounts for and necessitates a high level of ambiguity in the statements made by fashion and clothing styles. In Western society, the same constituent symbols that proclaim beauty one year may also declare unattractiveness the following year and impropriety in another culture. The anthropologist and linguist Edward Sapir noted, 'The chief difficulty of understanding fashion in its apparent vagaries is the lack of exact knowledge of the unconscious symbolisms attaching to forms, colours, textures, postures, and other expressive elements of a given culture. The difficulty is appreciably increased by the fact that some of the expressive elements tend to have quite different symbolic references in different areas. ' If a wide and contradictory range of meanings is communicated by so few key terms, it is because the source of this ambiguity itself lies in the socially negotiated associations of symbolic references. In other words, searches to uncover the exact rules and taxonomy of the clothing code will always be thwarted by its continual shift of meanings within common cultural understandings.

Statements are therefore conveyed in clothing through linking the elements, or key terms of the clothing code, to prevailing concepts of the elements of fashion and style in a society or community. Furthermore, for fashion to 'say' the same thing to all wearers and viewers, everyone must share an appreciation or perception of the images invoked by different items and styles of clothing. This is not to imply that all members of a society have to ascribe to the same values in order to understand the statements made by fashion. Rather, meanings are conveyed through insight into the differences and similarities between the ideals held within a community.

Whilst admitting that clothing styles display high social variability, the eloquent rebellions of the Beatniks and Teddy Boys in the 1940's, Mods and Rockers in the 1950's, Skinheads and Hippies in the 1960's and Punks in the 1970's could all be easily understood by those fluent in the vocabulary of alienation from mainstream values. Beneath Historic Fashions Reprinted at Fashion Worlds October 2004 with permission of NPR By Scott Simon History's unmentionables come out of the closet in a new calendar from the Costume Society of America called Underwear: Beneath Historic Fashions. The calendar depicts undergarments from the early 18th century to the 1960's. Some scholars wonder about the place of knickers, bustles and thongs in history, but as calendar editor Sally Queen tells Scott Simon for Weekend Edition Saturday, underwear can tell us much about how people's habits and behaviors change over time. "Clothing is really culture at the most personal level", she says. For instance, in contemporary society, "many fashions of underwear have become outerwear", she says.

This shows how "we are a more open society in what we are wearing". The trend started earlier than most people believe. One shot from the calendar, from the Cowgirls Museum and Hall of Fame, depicts a woman wearing a spangled rhinestone brassiere covered by a sheer blouse. The year: 1950.

"I was quite surprised with the date", says Queen. Undergarments, at least those made for women, have been designed with appearance in mind for six centuries, says Queen, though for most of that time the garments have been meant for an audience of one. Men's underwear has generally been "less interesting and more utilitarian", she says. That's why "the majority of garments in collections are women's clothing... To look at the men's side of underwear is different". One page of the calendar (April) does depict men's undershirts from the 18th and 19th centuries.

Even the English language has been influenced by undergarments. Several popular expressions make reference to underwear: "Loose woman" comes from the connotations associated with un corseted or loosely corseted women, Queen says. A similar case is "shiftless"; a shift was an 18th century support-providing undergarment, and Queen says the term was meant to characterize someone "without support". Many people believe that underwear for women has changed as it has because of feminism and changing social attitudes. To a large degree, that's true, Queen says, but there are other factors as well. In the past, undergarments were often designed for their "body-shaping" features.

But these days, thanks to the increase in exercise and athleticism among women, "the body has become its own foundation" and women no longer need to rely on cloth and whalebone for this purpose, she says". The choice", says Queen, "is do we want to spend three hours a day in the gym to sculpt the body, or do we want to put on a piece of cloth?".