Wikipedia:
|
Marrie Antoniette - Wikipediaphoto |
Fashion is a general term for a popular style or practice, especially in
clothing,
footwear,
accessories,
makeup,
body piercing
or furniture. "Fashion" refers to a distinctive; however,
often-habitual trend in a look and dress up of a person, as well as to
prevailing styles in behavior. "Fashion" usually is the newest creations
made by designers and are bought by only a few number of people;
however, often those "fashions" are translated into more established
trends.
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. Although fashion can be geared towards being feminine or masculine, some fasion trends are
androgynous
Clothing Fashion
Early Western travelers, whether to
Persia,
Turkey,
India, 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 (not completely accurately) 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 from the 8th century, when the famous musician
Ziryab introduced
sophisticated clothing-styles based on seasonal and daily fashion 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.
[9][10] 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.
The History of 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment