What is Fashion according to you?

Fashion is a term used interchangeably to describe the creation of clothing, footwear, accessories, cosmetics, and jewellery of different cultural aesthetics. It signifiers of social status, self-expression, and group belonging. As a multifaceted term describes an industry, styles, aesthetics, and trends.

The term ‘fashion’ originates from the Latin word ‘Facere,’ which means ‘to make,’ and describes the manufacturing, mixing, and wearing of outfits adorned with specific cultural aesthetics, patterns, motifs, shapes, and cuts, allowing people to showcase their group belonging, values, meanings, beliefs, and ways of life. Given the rise in mass production of commodities and clothing at lower prices and global reach, reducing  environmental impact and improving sustainability has become an urgent issue among politicians, brands, and consumers.

 

Fashion Industry

Models walk the runway during New York Fashion Week in February 2014, at the Carolina Herrera show.

In its most common use, the term refers to the current expressions on sale through the industry. The global Fashion industry is a product of the modern age. In the Western world, tailoring has since medieval times been controlled by guilds, but with the emergence of industrialism, the power of the guilds was undermined. Before 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 trade, the development of the factory system of production, and the proliferation of retail outlets such as department stores, clothing became increasingly mass-produced in standard sizes and sold at fixed prices.

A fashion trend signifies a specific look or expression that is spread across a population at a specific time and place. A trend is considered a more ephemeral look, not defined by the seasons when collections are released by the  industry. A trend can thus emerge from street style, across cultures, and from influencers and other celebrities.

People’s minds as well as their perceptions and consciousness are constantly changing. Fads are inherently social, are constantly evolving in a contradiction between the old and the new, and are in a sense easily influenced by those around them, and therefore also begin to imitate constantly.