Fashion is most often thought of as a global industry that is invested in anticipating what we wear and how we wish to appear to others. But fashion isn’t just a business. It’s also a cultural and social phenomenon, driven by the desire for the new. As such, the industry can never fully control fashion: fashion is all about being open to change.
Let’s take a look at some of the different aspects of fashion…9999
Let’s take a look at some of the different aspects of fashion…9999ψ♥♦⇔
1. The ‘new’
Christian Dior’s first couture collection was unveiled on February 12, 1947. It presented two lines named 8 and Corolle,referring to the corolla of a flower which is the botanical term for its petals. The bar suit was, in essence, an upside-down flower. The full pleated skirt, fine black wool crêpe over a stiffened taffeta petticoat, is the corolla, and the natural silk tussore jacket, tightly fitted at the waist and extending out over padded hips, is the sepal (the green protective layer that surrounds the petals).
But all the references to botany were scrambled as the show ended and Carmel Snow, editor-in-chief of American Harper’s Bazaar, exclaimed to Dior, “It’s quite a revelation, dear Christian. Your dresses have such a new look!”. A correspondent for Reuters news agency wired the quote, quickly spreading the revised name for the collection that changed the course of postwar women’s fashion. The New Look, as it is still known, continues to symbolize fashion as seasonal change and the ‘newest thing’; but it also illustrates how turning clothes into fashion requires a degree of transformation. What we know about fashion is partly formed by the materiality of dress and the experience of wearing clothes, but much more is learned from its translation into words and images – how it gets communicated.
2. Experimentation and adaptation
Fashion often promotes ideals that are unattainable to the many, and accessible to the few. Yet fashion also has the capacity to make the marginalized feel that they can participate. For example, through vogueing, which came out of the New York gay balls of the early 1990s, black and latino gay men appropriated the elite fashions presented in the pages of Vogue magazine.